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Title: American nights entertainment
Author: Overton, Grant M. (Grant Martin)
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "American nights entertainment" ***
ENTERTAINMENT ***
_American Nights
Entertainment_
_GRANT OVERTON_
[Illustration]
_By_ GRANT OVERTON
_About Books and Authors_
AMERICAN NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENT
WHEN WINTER COMES TO
MAIN STREET
THE WOMEN WHO MAKE
OUR NOVELS
_Fiction_
ISLAND OF THE INNOCENT
THE ANSWERER
WORLD WITHOUT END
THE THOUSAND-AND-FIRST
NIGHT (_In Preparation_)
[Illustration]
_American Nights
Entertainment_
BY
GRANT OVERTON
_New York, 1923_
D. APPLETON & CO. GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO. CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
COPYRIGHT, 1923,
BY GRANT OVERTON
_First Printing, September, 1923._
Press of
J. J. Little & Ives Company
New York, U. S. A.
Bound in Interlaken-Cloth
_This Book_
IS DEDICATED TO BOOKSELLERS
AND BOOKREADERS EVERYWHERE
BY THE AUTHOR AND THE PUBLISHERS
WHO HAVE JOINED IN ITS PRODUCTION
[Illustration]
_Preface_
This book is written because of the rapid spread of the habit of
reading books, developing in its march an interest in the personalities
of authors. Indeed, the existence of this book is an evidence of the
quick contagion of the book-reading habit, since four publishing houses
have joined to make possible the pages that follow.
Few developments of the early part of this century are more encouraging
than the new attention to books. The increase in book stores, the very
large increase in the number of books sold, the multiplication of
libraries and their great patronage, the success of new book review
pages and periodicals--all are signs of the change that has come about
in recent years, and perhaps especially during and since the war of
1914-18.
And in a narrower department, no development of recent years has borne
a more cheerful promise than the resolution of four publishers to
associate themselves in an enterprise the disinterestedness of which
the reader is invited to assess for himself.
The entire responsibility for the estimates and opinions offered (where
they are not directly attributed) is mine. I have tried to tell the
truth, use my imagination legitimately, and observe good taste without
the sacrifice of valuable insights into character and work.
For example, in addition to biographical facts, in themselves
often unenlightening, I have usually tried, as in the account of
Mr. Galsworthy, to disclose the personality so carefully (albeit
high-mindedly) withheld from the writer’s books. Again, as in the
chapter on Joseph Conrad, aside from the effort at novelty and
freshness of interest by the device of adopting Conrad’s own Marlow
as the narrator, I have made bold to set down some facts never before
printed and not in the least generally known, because they seem to me a
side of the picture that it is wrong to obscure.
The wealth of material spread before me has made the task of selection
exceedingly difficult, and I cannot pretend to be satisfied with
what I have chosen in the light of my knowledge of what has had to
be left out. I owe a grateful acknowledgment to the publishers and
to individuals in the several publishing houses for their generous
assistance.
_1 August, 1923._
GRANT OVERTON.
[Illustration]
_Contents_
_1_ MR. GALSWORTHY’S SECRET LOYALTIES, _13_
_2_ THE MAGIC CARPET, _34_
_3_ A BREATHLESS CHAPTER, _51_
_4_ IN THE KINGDOM OF CONRAD, _64_
_5_ THE DOCUMENTS IN THE CASE OF ARTHUR TRAIN, _91_
_6_ THE LADY OF A TRADITION, MISS SACKVILLE-WEST, _102_
_7_ HAROLD BELL WRIGHT, _119_
_8_ “AH, DID YOU ONCE SEE SHELLEY PLAIN?” _139_
_9_ ALICE IN AUTHORLAND AND PENROD’S FIVE-FOOT SHELF, _157_
_10_ THE MAN CALLED RALPH CONNOR, _178_
_11_ HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE, _189_
_12_ TOTALLING MR. TARKINGTON, _217_
_13_ A PARODY OUTLINE OF STEWART, _239_
_14_ MISS ZONA GALE, _248_
_15_ FOR THE LITERARY INVESTOR, _255_
_16_ NATURALIST VS. NOVELIST: GENE STRATTON-PORTER, _270_
_17_ POETRY AND PLAYS, _293_
_18_ LOST PATTERNS, _313_
_19_ JOSEPH C. LINCOLN DISCOVERS CAPE COD, _321_
_20_ EDITH WHARTON AND THE TIME SPIRIT, _345_
_21_ THE UNCLASSIFIED CASE OF CHRISTOPHER MORLEY, _363_
_22_ THE PROPHECIES OF LOTHROP STODDARD, _380_
INDEX, _387_
[Illustration]
_Portraits_
JOHN GALSWORTHY, _15_
JOSEPH CONRAD, _65_
ARTHUR TRAIN, _93_
V. SACKVILLE-WEST, _103_
HAROLD BELL WRIGHT, _121_
BOOTH TARKINGTON, _219_
DONALD OGDEN STEWART, _241_
JOSEPH C. LINCOLN, _323_
EDITH WHARTON, _347_
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY, _365_
_American Nights Entertainment_
_American Nights_
ENTERTAINMENT
_1. Mr. Galsworthy’s Secret Loyalties_
i
In the autumn of 1922 New York began to witness a play by John
Galsworthy, called _Loyalties_. Not only the extreme smoothness of the
acting by a London company but the almost unblemished perfection of
the play as drama excited much praise. Because, of the two principals,
one was a Jew and the other was not, with consequent enhancement of
the dramatic values in several scenes, it was said (by those who
always seek an extrinsic explanation) that _Loyalties_ simply could
not have avoided being a success in New York. The same type of mind
has long been busy with the problem of Mr. Galsworthy as a novelist.
It read _The Man of Property_ and found the book explained by the fact
that the author was a Socialist. Confronted with _The Dark Flower_,
it declared this “love life of a man” sheer sentimentalism (in 1913
there was no Freudianism to fall back on). And the powerful play called
_Justice_ was accounted for by a story that quiet Mr. Galsworthy had
“put on old clothes, wrapped a brick in brown paper, stopped in front
of a tempting-looking plate-glass window” and let ’er fly. On being
“promptly arrested,” he “gave an assumed name, and the magistrate, in
his turn, gave Galsworthy six months. That’s how he found out what the
inside of English prisons was like.”
A saying has it that it is always the innocent bystander who gets
hurt; but the fate of the sympathetic bystander--and such a one John
Galsworthy has always been--is more ironic. That peculiar sprite,
George Meredith’s Comic Spirit, reading all that has been written about
Galsworthy would possibly find some adequate comment; but Meredith is
dead and the only penetrating characterisation that occurs to me is:
“Galsworthy’s the kind of man who, if he were in some other station of
life, would be a splendid subject for Joseph Conrad.”
In the middle of _Loyalties_ a character exclaims: “Prejudices--or are
they loyalties--I don’t know--criss-cross--we all cut each other’s
throats from the best of motives.” Well, in a paper written in 1917 or
earlier and included in their book, _Some Modern Novelists_, published
in January, 1918, Helen Thomas Follett and Wilson Follett, discussing
Galsworthy’s early novels put down a now very remarkable sentence, as
follows:
“Mr. Galsworthy does not see how two loyalties that conflict can both
be right; and he is always interested in the larger loyalty.”
[Illustration: © _Eugene Hutchinson_ JOHN GALSWORTHY]
So interesting and significant a statement, buried as seed, might
easily sprout as novel or play. I have no atom of evidence that Mr.
Galsworthy ever saw the comment; but if he read it and forgot (buried?)
the words, then _Loyalties_ was written in their effectual disproof.
For in this drama, as in all his novels, as in all his other dramas,
Mr. Galsworthy is constantly seeing and portraying how conflicting
loyalties both are right; he is never interested in the larger loyalty
and cannot keep his eye on it through consecutive chapters or through a
single act; he is forever presenting the two or more sides and taking
none. He once said: “I suppose the hardest lesson we all have to
learn in life is that we can’t have things both ways.” He should have
added:“--and I have never learned it!”
ii
“Learned,” of course, in the sense of “accepted,” of becoming
reconciled to the fact. It did not need Mr. St. John Ervine to tell
us that “Mr. Galsworthy is the most sensitive figure in the ranks of
modern letters”; for of all modern writers the author of _Loyalties_
and _The Forsyte Saga_ is the most transparent. He is transparent
without being in the smallest degree luminous; he refracts, but he does
not magnify--a prism through which we may look at society.
Compare him for a moment with Mr. Conrad. Mr. Conrad is by no means
always transparent; his opacity is sometimes extraordinary, as in _The
Rescue_; and yet from the midst of obscure sentences, like a gleam
from those remarkably deep-set eyes, something luminous will shine
out, both light and heat are given forth. “In a certain cool paper,”
explains Galsworthy, “I have tried to come at the effect of the war;
but purposely pitched it in a low and sober key; and there is a much
more poignant tale of change to tell of each individual human being.”
But even when telling the more poignant tale, as in _Saint’s Progress_,
the coolness is noticeable, like the air of an April night; the key
is still sober, pitched low; and the trembling passion of a melody
proclaimed by violins is quickly muted. Such is his habitual restraint,
so strong is his inhibition, that when we hear the orchestral brasses,
as we do once or twice in _Justice_ and _Loyalties_, it shocks us,
like a rowdy outburst in a refined assembly or a terse sentence in
Henry James. But it is nothing, nothing. Mr. Galsworthy has momentarily
achieved a more perfect than usual transparency; he has suddenly
surrendered to the pounce of another of those multitudinous loyalties
which give him no peace and the secret of which, except for its
continual disclosure in his works, he would most certainly carry with
him to the grave.
For he does not talk. No! “You are nearer Galsworthy in reading his
books than in a meeting.” Another keenly observant person summed up
Galsworthy’s conversational resources in the one word: “Exhausted!”
St. John Ervine: “Whatever of joy and grief he has had in life has
been closely retained, and the reticence characteristic of the English
people ... is most clearly to be observed in Mr. Galsworthy.... How
often have we observed in our relationships that some garrulous person,
constantly engaged in egotistical conversation, contrives to conceal
knowledge of himself from us, while some silent friend, with lips
tightly closed, most amazingly gives himself away. One looks at Mr.
Galsworthy’s handsome, sensitive face, and is immediately aware of
tightened lips!... But the lips are not tightened because of things
done to him, but because of things done to others.” Mr. Galsworthy,
in a personal letter: “The fact is I cannot answer your questions.
I must leave my philosophy to my work generally, or rather, to what
people can make out of that work. The habit of trying to tabloid
one’s convictions, or lack of convictions, is a pretty fatal one;
as I have found to my distaste and discredit.” He conducts his own
cross-examination, in new books, new plays. He acknowledges, with quiet
discontent, the claims upon his sense of loyalty of a dog, a jailbird,
two “star-crossed lovers,” the wife of a possessive Forsyte, a De Levis
unjustly used. His pen moves, with a bold stroke, across the paper;
another secret is let out; his lips tighten. He is serene and indignant
and completely happy.
Why not? “My experience tells me this: An artist who is by accident
of independent means can, if he has talent, give the Public what he,
the artist, wants, and sooner or later the public will take whatever
he gives it, at his own valuation.” And he speaks of such artists as
able to “sit on the Public’s head and pull the Public’s beard, to use
the old Sikh saying.” Nothing else is worth while--for an artist. “The
artist has got to make a stand against being exploited.” But if the
artist should exploit himself, or anything more human or individual
than that impersonal entity, the Public, Mr. Galsworthy’s mouth would
become grim again; his loyalty would be forfeited, I think. There might
be a larger cause, but his concern would be with the other fellow. And
however hard you might press him for a verdict, he would bring in only
a recommendation for mercy.
iii
The Galsworthys have been in Devonshire as far back as records
go--“since the flood--of Saxons, at all events,” as John Galsworthy
once put it. His mother came of a family named Bartleet, whose county
for many centuries was Worcestershire. The boy, John, was born in
1867 at Coombe, in Surrey. “From the first,” continues the anonymous
but authorised sketch I am quoting, “his salient characteristics were
earnestness and tenacity. Not surprisingly brilliant, he was sure and
steady; his understanding, not notably quick, was notably sound. At
Harrow from 1881-1886 he did well in work and games. At New College,
Oxford, 1886-1889, he graduated with an Honour degree in Law. After
some further preparation he was called to the bar (Lincoln’s Inn) in
1890. It was natural he should have taken up the law, since his father
had done so. ‘I read,’ he says, ‘in various chambers, practised almost
not at all, and disliked my profession thoroughly.’
“In these circumstances he began to travel. His father, a successful
and unusual man in both character and intellect, was ‘not in a position
to require his son to make money’; his son, therefore, travelled,
off and on, for nearly two years, going, amongst other places, to
Russia, Canada, British Columbia, Australia, New Zealand, the Fiji
Islands, and South Africa. On a sailing-ship voyage between Adelaide
and the Cape he met and became a fast friend with the novelist Joseph
Conrad, then still a sailor. We do not know whether this friendship
influenced Galsworthy in becoming a writer; indeed, we believe that
he has somewhere said that it did not. But Galsworthy did take to
writing, published his first novel, _Jocelyn_, in 1899, _Villa Rubein_
in 1900, _A Man of Devon and Other Stories_ in 1901.” _Jocelyn_ has
been dropped from the list of Galsworthy’s works, _Villa Rubein_ was
revised in 1909, _The Island Pharisees_, a satire of English weaknesses
which appeared in 1904, was revised four years later; and it was not
until the publication of _The Man of Property_ in 1906 that our author
succeeded in sitting on the Public’s head and twining his fingers
firmly into the Public’s whiskers.
This was the first volume of the then-unplanned _Forsyte Saga_ and it
led Conrad, who had two years previously dedicated to Galsworthy what
remains his greatest novel (_Nostromo_), to write an article in which
he said:
“The foundation of Mr. Galsworthy’s talent, it seems to me, lies in
a remarkable power of ironic insight combined with an extremely keen
and faithful eye for all the phenomena on the surface of the life he
observes. These are the purveyors of his imagination, whose servant
is a style clear, direct, sane, illumined by a perfectly unaffected
sincerity. It is the style of a man whose sympathy with mankind is too
genuine to allow him the smallest gratification of his vanity at the
cost of his fellow-creatures ... sufficiently pointed to carry deep
his remorseless irony and grave enough to be the dignified vehicle of
his profound compassion. Its sustained harmony is never interrupted by
those bursts of cymbals and fifes which some deaf people acclaim for
brilliance. Before all it is a style well under control, and therefore
it never betrays this tender and ironic writer into an odious cynicism
of laughter and tears.
“From laboriously collected information, I am led to believe that
most people read novels for amusement. This is as it should be. But
whatever be their motives, I entertain towards all novel-readers the
feelings of warm and respectful affection. I would not try to deceive
them for worlds. Never! This being understood, I go on to declare, in
the peace of my heart and the serenity of my conscience, that if they
want amusement they shall find it between the covers of this book. They
shall find plenty of it in this episode in the history of the Forsytes,
where the reconciliation of a father and son, the dramatic and
poignant comedy of Soames Forsyte’s marital relations, and the tragedy
of Bosinney’s failure are exposed to our gaze with the remorseless
yet sympathetic irony of Mr. Galsworthy’s art, in the light of the
unquenchable fire burning on the altar of property. They shall find
amusement, and perhaps also something more lasting--if they care for
it. I say this with all the reserves and qualifications which strict
truth requires around every statement of opinion. Mr. Galsworthy will
never be found futile by anyone, and never uninteresting by the most
exacting.”
Twelve years after the appearance of _The Man of Property_, in the
volume _Five Tales_ (1918), was included a long short story, _Indian
Summer of a Forsyte_. The year 1920 saw publication of the novel, _In
Chancery_, and another long short story, _Awakening_; and the following
year brought the novel, _To Let_. These five units, separately in the
order named or together in the same chronological order in the thick
volume called _The Forsyte Saga_, compose a record of three generations
of an English family which has very justly been compared to the Esmonds
of Thackeray. The Forsytes and their associates and connections are
indeed “intensely real as individuals--real in the way that the Esmonds
were real; symbolic in their traits, of a section of English society,
and reflecting in their lives the changing moods of England in these
years.” The motif is clearly expressed by certain words of young Jolyon
Forsyte in _The Man of Property_:
“‘A Forsyte is not an uncommon animal. There are hundreds among the
members of this club. Hundreds out there in the streets; you meet
them wherever you go!... We are, of course, all of us slaves of
property, and I admit that it’s a question of degree, but what I
call a “Forsyte” is a man who is decidedly more than less a slave of
property. He knows a good thing, he knows a safe thing, and his grip
on property--it doesn’t matter whether it be wives, houses, money, or
reputation--is his hallmark.... “Property and quality of a Forsyte.
This little animal, disturbed by the ridicule of his own sort, is
unaffected in his motions by the laughter of strange creatures (you or
I). Hereditarily disposed to myopia, he recognises only the persons
and habitats of his own species, amongst which he passes an existence
of competitive tranquillity”.... They are half England, and the better
half, too, the safe half, the three-per-cent half, the half that
counts. It’s their wealth and security that makes everything possible;
makes your art possible, makes literature, science, even religion,
possible. Without Forsytes, who believe in none of these things, but
turn them all to use, where should we be?’”
One of Galsworthy’s severest critics, St. John Ervine, calls _The
Forsyte Saga_ “his best work,” and breaks the force of many strictures
to declare: “The craftsmanship of _To Let_ is superb--this novel is,
perhaps, the most technically-correct book of our time--but its human
value is even greater than its craftsmanship. In a very vivid fashion,
Mr. Galsworthy shows the passing of a tradition and an age. He leaves
Soames Forsyte in lonely age, but he does not leave him entirely
without sympathy; for this muddleheaded man, unable to win or to keep
affection on any but commercial terms, contrives in the end to win the
pity and almost the love of the reader who has followed his varying
fortunes through their stupid career. The frustrate love of Fleur and
Jon is certainly one of the tenderest things in modern fiction.”
iv
Grove Lodge, The Grove, Hampstead, London, N. W. 3, is the residence
of Mr. and Mrs. Galsworthy; if you have occasion to telephone, call
Hampstead 3684. The approach to the house is described by Carlton Miles
in the Theatre Magazine (December, 1922):
“The Galsworthys live at the bottom of a long, rambling lane called The
Grove, in that part of Hampstead that looks calmly down on the crowded
chimneypots of northwestern London. To reach the house you must climb
a steep hill from the underground station and pass the stone building
in which Du Maurier wrote _Peter Ibbetson_ and to whose memory it bears
a tablet. A few minutes’ walk in one direction and you are in Church
Row with the historic cemetery in which Du Maurier and Beerbohm Tree
rest side by side. Follow the Grove walk and you arrive on Hampstead
Heath, black with thousands of workers on Bank Holiday, overlooking the
little row of cottages where Leigh Hunt and his followers established
their ‘Vale of Health.’ But, having passed the Du Maurier home, you
turn fairly to your left, descend a winding pathway that takes you by
the Admiral’s House--designated by large signs--erected 159 years ago
by an aged commander who built his home in three decks and mounted it
with guns. The guns have vanished but the Admiral’s House still is one
of the sights of Hampstead.
“At the end of the lane a small grilled iron gate shuts off the world
from a green yard and a low white house, whose rambling line suggests
many passageways and sets of rooms. A sheltered, secluded spot, the
place above all others where Galsworthy should live. Peace has been
achieved in five minutes’ walk from the noisy station. ‘The Inn of
Tranquillity.’
“A turn down a long hallway, up a short flight of steps--a bright,
flower-decked livingroom, a tea table, a dark-eyed, low-voiced hostess,
a clasping of hand by host and a bark you interpret as cautious
approval from Mark, the sheepdog, lying on the hearth rug. Mark is
named for one of Galsworthy’s characters”--Mark Lennan in _The Dark
Flower_?-- “... moments flee before you dare steal a look at the
middle-aged gentleman sitting quietly in his chair, striving with
gentle dignity to place you at the ease he feels not himself.
“Tall, grey-haired he looks astonishingly like his photographs.
Reticent to a degree about his own work, he talks freely and with the
utmost generosity about that of others. Opinion, formed slowly, is
determined. The face, with its faint smile, looks neither disheartened
nor sad, yet sometime it has met suffering. Like most Englishmen the
eagerness of youth has not been crushed.... There is nothing chill
about the novelist. He is the embodiment of easy, gracious courtesy.
Conversation is far from intimidating, a long flow of material topics
with now and then an upward leap of thought. And it is this swift
flight that betrays his mental withdrawal. As clearly as if physically
present may be seen the robed figure of his thoughts, standing behind
him in his own drawingroom. You wonder what may be their burden. About
him is the veil of remoteness.”
His humility, adorned by his presence and made disarming by what is
certainly the most beautiful head and face among the living sons
of men, does not always save him from the charge of coldness when
manifested impersonally and at a distance. Where nearly all men and
women give essential particulars of their lives, not to mention the
human touch of their preferred recreations, Mr. Galsworthy, in the
English _Who’s Who_, besides the long list of his publications, states
only the year of his birth, his residence, and his membership in the
Athenæum Club. This would hardly support Mr. Ervine’s declaration
that the Galsworthy sensitiveness “is almost totally impersonal”; and
instead of being “startled to discover how destitute of egotism Mr.
Galsworthy seems to be” the close student of mankind might be led to
speculate upon the variety of egotism he had just encountered. “It
may even be argued,” pursues Mr. Ervine, cautiously, “that his lack
of interest in himself is a sign of inadequate artistry, that it is
impossible for a man of supreme quality to be so utterly unconcerned
about himself as Mr. Galsworthy is.” With due respect to Mr. Ervine,
this is nonsense. Whatever Mr. Galsworthy may lack, it is not interest
in himself. He has achieved countless satisfactory channels for the
extrusion of that interest through other and imaginary men, women and
beasts--that is all.
v
It is as if he had long ago said to himself, as perhaps he did: “I
am myself, but myself isn’t a subject I can decently be concerned
about or expose an interest in. Let me forget myself in someone--in
everyone--else!” And since then, if he has ever repented, the spectacle
of George Bernard Shaw, and particularly the horridly fascinating
spectacle of Herbert George Wells, have been before him, to serve
as awful warnings and lasting deterrents. Mr. Wells, in ever-new
contortions, like a circus acrobat whose nakedness was gaudily
accentuated by spangles, began seeing it through with Ann Veronica
and is still exposing the secret places of his heart, while dizzy
recollections of marriage, God and tono-bungay yet linger. Mr. Shaw has
gone back to ... evolution.
“I was,” Mr. Galsworthy has said in an uninhibited moment, “for
many years devoted to the sports of shooting and racing. I gave up
shooting because it got on my nerves. I still ride; and I would go
to a race-meeting any day if it were not for the din, for I am still
under the impression that there is nothing alive quite so beautiful as
a thoroughbred horse.” His devotion to dogs and other dumb animals is
frequently spoken of as it extrudes in _Memories_, Noel’s protection
of the rabbit in _Saint’s Progress_ and “For Love of Beasts” in _A
Sheaf_. These shifting loyalties were--what were they if not admirable
realisations of the Self? But let those who still believe Mr.
Galsworthy selfless but read the prefaces to the new and very handsome
Manaton Edition of his works. For these volumes he has provided sixteen
entirely new prefaces. I quote from the announcement of the edition:
“These”--prefaces--“are peculiarly interesting, for in them he frankly
criticises his work; in some cases, too, they reflect the response of
readers as he has sensed it. In others he tells of the thought in his
mind while writing, and of the changes through which the thought has
gone in the process. Again, he speculates on the art of writing in
general, on the forms of fiction, on emotional expression and effect in
the drama. In short, as he phrases it, ‘in writing a preface, one goes
into the confessional.’
“Of _The Country House_ he says: ‘When once Pendyce had taken the bit
between his teeth, the book ran away with me, and was more swiftly
finished than any of my novels, being written in seven months.’
“‘The germ of _The Patrician_,’ he begins the preface to that volume,
‘is traceable to a certain dinner party at the House of Commons in 1908
and the face of a young politician on the other side of the table.’
“In the preface to _Fraternity_ he says: ‘A novelist, however observant
of type and sensitive to the shades of character, _does little but
describe and dissect himself_.... In dissecting Hilary, for instance,
in this novel, _his creator feels the knife going sharply into his
own flesh, just as he could feel it when dissecting Soames Forsyte or
Horace Pendyce_.’”
The italics are my own and I think they are permissible.
Probably not enough attention has hitherto been paid to Mr. Galsworthy
as a writer of short tales, but that may be because no collection
of his stories has shown his talent so roundly as does the new book
_Captures_. This opens with the well-known story “A Feud” and offers
also such variety and such virtuosity in the short story form as
“The Man Who Kept His Form,” “A Hedonist,” “Timber,” “Santa Lucia,”
“Blackmail,” “Stroke of Lightning,” “The Broken Boot,” “Virtue,”
“Conscience,” “Salta Pro Nobis,” “Heat,” “Philanthropy,” “A Long Ago
Affair,” “Acmé,” “Late--299.” In this book, as in similar collections,
there must be put to Mr. Galsworthy’s credit his frequent practice of
the Continental notion of the short story--the sketch, the impression,
the representation of a mood which we find in French and Russian
literature and which the American short story too often sacrifices for
purely mechanical effects.
Books by John Galsworthy
1900 _Villa Rubein._ Revised Edition, 1909
1904 _The Island Pharisees._ Revised Edition,
1908
1906 _The Man of Property_
1907 _The Country House_
1908 _A Commentary_
1909 _Fraternity_
1909 _Strife._ Drama in Three Acts
1909 _The Silver Box._ Comedy in Three Acts
1909 _Joy._ Play on the Letter “I” in Three Acts
1909 _Plays._ First Series. Containing _The Silver
Box_, _Joy_, and _Strife_.
1910 _Justice._ Tragedy in Four Acts
1910 _A Motley_
1911 _The Little Dream._ Allegory in six Scenes
1911 _The Patrician_
1912 _The Inn of Tranquillity._ Studies and Essays
1912 _Moods, Songs, and Doggerels_
1912 _Memories._ Illustrated by Maud Earl
1912 _The Eldest Son._ Domestic Drama in Three
Acts
1912 _The Pigeon._ Fantasy in Three Acts
1913 _Plays._ Second Series. Containing _The
Eldest Son_, _The Little Dream_, _Justice_
1913 _The Dark Flower_
1913 _The Fugitive._ Play in Four Acts
1914 _The Mob._ Play in Four Acts
1914 _Plays._ Third Series. Containing _The Fugitive_,
_The Pigeon_, _The Mob_
1915 _The Little Man and Other Satires_
1915 _A Bit o’ Love._ Play in Three Acts
1915 _The Freelands_
1916 _A Sheaf_
1917 _Beyond_
1918 _Five Tales_
1919 _Another Sheaf_
1919 _Saint’s Progress_
1919 _Addresses in America 1919_
1920 _Tatterdemalion_
1920 _In Chancery_
1920 _Awakening_
1920 _The Skin Game._ A Tragi-comedy
1920 _The Foundations._ An Extravagant Play
1920 _Plays._ Fourth Series. Containing _A Bit o’
Love_, _The Foundations_, _The Skin Game_
1921 _To Let_
1921 _Six Short Plays._ Containing _The First and
the Last_, _The Little Man_, _Hall-marked_,
_Defeat_, _The Sun,_ and _Punch and Go_
1922 _The Forsyte Saga_
1922 _A Family Man_
1922 _Loyalties_
1923 _Windows._ Comedy in Three Acts
1923 _Plays._ Fifth Series. Containing _Loyalties_,
_Windows_, _A Family Man_
1923 _The Burning Spear_ [first published anonymously
in England in 1918]
1923 _Captures_
Sources on John Galsworthy
_John Galsworthy: A Sketch of His Life and Works._ Booklet published
by Mr. Galsworthy’s publishers, CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, 1922.
_John Galsworthy._ Booklet published by Mr. Galsworthy’s English
publisher, WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 1922. Valuable for its bibliography of
the English editions.
_J. G._ Pamphlet announcing the Manaton Edition of John Galsworthy’s
works. Procurable from CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS. This edition contains
some hitherto unpublished material and a rearrangement of the plays.
_The Prefaces to the Manaton Edition._ Practically the only discussion
of his own work by the author.
_Some Modern Novelists._ Helen Thomas Follett and Wilson Follett.
HENRY HOLT & CO. Chapter X. contains a long and careful critical
consideration of Galsworthy’s work up to and including _The Freelands_.
_Some Impressions of My Elders._ St. John G. Ervine. THE MACMILLAN
COMPANY. For a forceful statement from one of those who strongly
criticise Mr. Galsworthy’s work, especially for its “indiscriminating
pity.” Analyses at length the play, _The Fugitive_.
_John Galsworthy._ Carlton Miles, THE THEATRE MAGAZINE, December,
1922. An interview.
_A Middle-Class Family._ Joseph Conrad. THE OUTLOOK (London), March
31, 1906. A review of _The Man of Property_.
The interested reader should further consult the READER’S GUIDE TO
PERIODICAL LITERATURE for the years since 1906.
A complete Galsworthy bibliography, to be published in England, is now
in preparation by Harold A. Marrot.
2. _The Magic Carpet_
i
The Magic Carpet was one which took you far away, whisked you up and
through the air (though not sensibly too fast) and brought you into
a foreign but delightful country. There are books like that, taking
you out of yourself, so that the preoccupation of a moment before is
forgotten, tomorrow’s worries are lost, and you exist in a blissful
unconsciousness that there can be anything beyond the fine pleasure of
this present hour. The “travel book” attempts directly the transfer to
some place else; the book of essays, more indirect in its method, is
often more successful.
Aldous Huxley has been known to us hitherto as a poet and a writer
of fiction. Both his poetry and his fiction have been marked with a
graceful artifice and that simplicity which comes only from a completed
sophistication. His new book, a collection of essays, is distinguished
by those qualities. There is something about Huxley’s writing--I don’t
know what it is and those who know what it is, can’t tell--which brings
a gleam to the eyes of all who love literature for its own sake. In
_On the Margin_ Huxley the satirist walks comfortably with Huxley
the student. For Aldous Huxley is a very studious young man. Tall,
with hair that bushes out from under his broad-brimmed soft hat, he
walks with that slight stoop inevitably acquired by those whose heads
do not pass readily under all doorways. With his clothes flapping
gently around him, his glance peering through thick-lensed spectacles,
he advances into a room with the surprising effect of an amiable
scarecrow. A first grotesque impression is rapidly dissolved in the
gentle acquaintance springing up immediately afterward; for no more
likeable person lives. It is not generally known that between the ages
of seventeen and nineteen it was thought he would go blind, so that
he learned to read Braille type. His interest in America is keen; he
would like to come here, and may. Intimates know him as one of the most
learned men in England, though devoid of poses and devoted to finding
pleasure in the works of Charles Dickens. His scholarliness shows
itself in _On the Margin_, where Chaucer, Ben Jonson, and the devilish
biographer, Mr. Strachey, divide attention with the question of love
as practised in France and England, the justice of Margot Asquith’s
strictures on modern feminine beauty, and the evolution of ennui.
Recently there died in his ninety-second year Frederic Harrison, who
had witnessed the coronation of Victoria in 1838 and every celebration
in her reign; who saw her funeral in 1901; who, though past eighty
when it began, saw the war of 1914-1918 and the several years of
turmoil afterward. An extraordinary life! Before it had ended this
man whose span of years was matched by his breadth of knowledge and
interests gathered together what he himself regarded as his last
book, now published under the title _De Senectute_ and blending some
of his finest literary criticism with delightful recollections of the
great times in which he lived. A personal account of Victoria and
Prince Albert, the “Dialogue on Old Age” which affords the title for
the volume, a review of the picturesque history of Constantinople
through sixteen centuries, fundamental differences between Greek and
Elizabethan tragedy, the art of translation with reference to Dante
and Molière, some consideration of Fielding and Smollett and Kingsley,
and a final chapter upon various schools of philosophy--these are
the relics of a glorious life. The book is full of brightness, its
effects are sane, and the writing is alike lucid and tinctured with
that peculiar zest which, as it was a quality of Frederic Harrison’s
temperament, goes far to explain the length of his life as well as the
grace with which he lived it.
Among essayists there are ladies. But there are not many ladies, nor
men, either, who have taken rank in the essay with a single book.
I understand that Katharine Fullerton Gerould would rather prefer
to be known for her fiction--those short stories, masterly in form,
with which she began and such a work as her most recent, the brief
novel, _Conquistador_. And such a preference is easily understood.
_Conquistador_, a jewel with many facets, would seduce any woman. And
yet Mrs. Gerould’s collection of essays, _Modes and Morals_, published
in 1920, had an extraordinary sale for a book of its character, and
still steadily sells. People constantly refer to her discussion
of “The Remarkable Rightness of Rudyard Kipling” and the arts of
persuasion are constantly brought to bear upon her to assemble another
such book. If Mrs. Gerould began with something of the suddenness of
a meteor, she persists with a good deal of the steady brilliance of
a fixed star. It was, in fact, with the appearance of a story, “Vain
Oblations,” in Scribner’s Magazine for March, 1911, that she first came
to general notice. This dark and terrible piece of fictional analysis
had for its principal character a New England woman missionary. Other
stories followed in Scribner’s, the Atlantic and Harper’s, and a first
collection, under the title _Vain Oblations_, was published in March,
1914. A second book of tales, _The Great Tradition_, was succeeded by
a novelette, _A Change of Air_; by the essays comprising _Modes and
Morals_; and then by the novel, _Lost Valley_. _Valiant Dust_ offered
some more short tales; but with the appearance of _Conquistador_ many
of us felt Mrs. Gerould for the first time to be perfectly suited
in length, form and material alike. Despite her superb technique,
she needs more room than the short story gives her; and although
she can write of barren New England lives she can write much more
effectively of richly-coloured Latin life. Although, as Stuart P.
Sherman has observed, she can do dashingly the “picture of a really
nice woman meditating a fracture of the seventh commandment in a
spacious sun-flooded chamber with a Chinese rug,” her deep fictional
desires are toward the richly barbaric, and neither Henry-Jamesical nor
Edith-Whartonesque. In the atmosphere of Princeton, which is her home
(her husband, Gordon Hall Gerould, is a member of the English faculty),
she has the leisure and repose necessary to do such essays and short
novels as no other living American has given evidence of an equal
talent for achieving. Occasionally a bit of travel, perhaps, producing
as its direct result a book like her _Hawaii, Scenes and Impressions_;
but ultimately much more valuable for its indirect stimulus to her
imagination, which belongs to the class of imaginations so dangerous
when they are confined.
In fact, the imagination is very little understood, as if it were one
of those glands whose mysterious secretions we tinker with nowadays,
either not too successfully or with a success so alarming as to
threaten the overthrow of all physiology. One of these days we shall
have a mental thyroid extract, and then--! It remains to be observed
that with most of us the imagination secretes gently, with a fresh
annual activation in the direction of old woods and pastures ever-new,
rather than new; a circumstance very favourable to David Grayson when,
in 1907, he put forth the volume called _Adventures in Contentment_.
It is difficult to think of any precise precedent for this mixture
of essay, philosophy, homely observation and quiet humour with its
essentially American pattern of thought. The febrile character of much
American life was already marked, and the remedy of an equally feverish
optimism had yet to be widely prescribed. The time was propitious,
the sentiment of David Grayson had an ingratiation. When, in 1910,
_Adventures in Friendship_ was published, a good many thousand people
had read the earlier adventures and were alert for these. _The Friendly
Road_ (1913) was succeeded by _Hempfield_ (1915) and a final volume,
_Great Possessions_ (1917). A half dozen years have passed without
relegating these books to the shelves of the Great Unread. As “The
Library of the Open Road” they inherit an annual, rather a perennial,
popularity.
ii
In the course of reading a great number of travel books, I have come
to prefer my Baedekers to all others. The worthy Karl’s “handbooks for
travellers” are not only the standard guides (and likely to remain so)
but they seem to me perfect in their exactitude, their literalness and
their discreet prescriptions for the visitor’s emotions. If I wish to
know the number of yards to walk from the castle gate and the right
entrance through which to pass to emerge upon a View, I wish also to
know in a general way how to graduate my feelings on beholding the
spectacle spread out at my feet. And this, Baedeker tells me. By the
unstarred, starred or double-starred nature of his reference to the
View, I know with reassurance whether my emotional response should
be elementary, intermediate or advanced. Moreover, there is lacking
no concrete detail from which the fancy may launch itself. To read
Baedeker is to use one’s own wings, and not somebody else’s. This is
a great virtue; for in book travels, as perhaps in other travel, it
is much more desirable to make one’s own appraisal than to accept
another’s description of the beauties of a place. And I really have
known a novelist to reject every particular travel book dealing with
a certain town or region in which his scene was laid, because he
felt hampered by their emotionality and their impressionism and a
quality of vagueness, and turn with joy and relief to his _Baedeker’s
Mediterranean_ or _Northern Italy_ or _Spain and Portugal_. Here the
matters essential to accuracy were given--and only a novelist who has
heard the protest of literal-minded readers can know the penalties of
a topographical mistake--but the perfectly-set stage stood cleared
for the actors of his writer’s imagination. For the benefit of those
attending the assemblies of the League of Nations, one of the most
freshly revised volumes is _Baedeker’s Switzerland_; another of equal
recency is the guide to Canada.
In spite of the twenty-seven books of the Baedeker series, there is a
good deal of the world which is not even touched upon in these famous
guides, which are, after all and with slight exception, properties for
the tourist in Europe and the Mediterranean countries. The tourist,
however, more and more declines to stick to Europe, a large number of
him having seen Europe pretty thoroughly anyway. As for the tourist in
fancy, he goes everywhere. The business man is another traveller who is
omni-itinerant. I suppose the widest audience for the series of books
called “Carpenter’s World Travels” is composed of what one commentator
rightly describes as “the incalculable company of stay-at-home
travellers.” Frank G. Carpenter himself is the best guarantee that
the matter and form of the planned twenty-five volumes will remain
as excellent as in the seven already brought out. For over thirty
years this highly skilled journalist has walked the earth, even to
the ends of the earth, and written of what he saw. Some four million
copies of his Geographic Readers have sold to the public schools, and
an equal number of families now open their newspapers once a week to
find his new series of letters from the countries of Europe. In fact,
Mr. Carpenter is a publicist of so vast and important an audience
that Governments have been glad to give him access to every official
source of information, and various rulers and prime ministers have at
one and another time especially commissioned him in facilitation of
his work. The many and exceptional photographs in his hands have made
it possible to plan the use of about one hundred of the best in each
volume of the series now under way. _Java and the East Indies_ and
_France to Scandinavia_ (France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway and
Sweden) are his latest additions to the beginning made with _The Holy
Land and Syria_. _From Tangier to Tripoli_ (Morocco, Algeria, Tunis
and the Sahara), _Alaska, Our Northern Wonderland_, _The Tail of the
Hemisphere_ (Chile and Argentina) and _Cairo to Kisumu_ (Egypt, the
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and British East Africa) were the intermediate
books.
“Adopted as a motto this year, ‘The world is my parish,’” wrote down
Stephen Graham, at the end of his travel record for 1921--a record that
begins with that first pilgrimage of his to Russia in 1906. Even so,
he finds parts of his parish yet unvisited, and the next year saw him
off on fresh Latin trails. It had come over him, indeed, to traverse
some 15,000 miles that represent one of the most fabulous of mankind’s
adventures. Graham had a thought to approach our present America in the
path of those first explorers and in the spirit of the conquistadores,
following Columbus from Spain to the Indies, Balboa to the peak in
Darien whence he saw the Pacific, Cortes to the conquest of Montezuma’s
capital, and Coronado on the fruitless quest into the deserts of New
Mexico and Arizona. What happened? Why, in the words of Vachel Lindsay,
Graham’s tramp companion in the Rockies:
Then I had religion, then I had a vision--
and Graham, whose intimacy with Russian life and thought has deeply
enriched a natural mystical endowment, found a significant theme in the
Spanish quest for gold succeeded, after four centuries, by the American
quest of power--religion the sanctification of one, pan-Americanism the
credo of the other. It is this spiritual penetration that makes the
fine distinction of Stephen Graham’s _In Quest of El Dorado_, joined to
the man’s unusual literary skill, taste and sense of form. On the point
of form there is something more than usually admirable in the start
of the book from Madrid and Cadiz and in the conclusion (on a note of
wonder) amid the ruins of Mitla, as if the quester for El Dorado would
do well to seek its whereabouts in the indecipherable inscriptions
placed on their massive memorials by a race that had sunk into silence
long before the imperious advent of the Children of the Sun. These
are the refinements of the book for the reader of philosophical or
æsthetic tastes; but as such matters should be, they are entirely
unobtrusive--present to those who seek them, hidden to those who are
indifferent--and in externals Stephen Graham offers a first-hand travel
study with cowboys and conquistadores, Indians and Mexicans, the Panama
Canal and the jingle of spurs in the changing foreground.
Among those authors whose books of travel win their appreciation from
the personality of the adventurer, Mary Roberts Rinehart seems to me
quite plainly the foremost. The considerable time that has elapsed
since the publication of _Through Glacier Park_ and _Tenting Tonight_
will sharpen many appetites for the camp fare offered in her new book,
_The Out Trail_. With none of the acerbity of her own Tish, Mrs.
Rinehart has to the full that lady’s derring-do. “I have roughed it,”
she explains at the beginning of _The Out Trail_, “in one wilderness
after another, in camp and on the trail, in the air and on water, in
war abroad and in peace at home. I have been scared to death more
times than I can remember. Led,” she confesses, “by the exigencies
of my profession, by feminine curiosity, or by the determination not
to be left at home, I have been shaken, thrown, bitten, sunburned,
rained on, shot at, stone-bruised, frozen, broiled, and scared, with
monotonous regularity.” And she adds that on several occasions she has
been placed in situations of real danger from which she has clamoured
to be extricated with all possible despatch. Two things, if we may
judge by her chronicle, seem never to have failed her, in whatever
emergency: her sense of drama and her sense of humour. At least, they
are keenly in evidence on all the pages of _The Out Trail_, and make it
easily among the most entertaining books of its kind--not infrequently
exciting, too! If someone thinks that the sense of the humorous must
have been missing at the time and have been recaptured later in writing
of the adventures, I suspect he is mistaken; for I recall that not so
long after I had written a chapter on “The Vitality of Mary Roberts
Rinehart” as a novelist, I met Mrs. Rinehart. She was suffering from
one of those ferocious colds which make cowards and pessimists of us
all, but she only remarked: “I’m afraid you will find the vitality you
have just celebrated rather low this morning.” This, I submit, is such
stuff as humorists are made on.
iii
Among books of essays that successfully spread the Magic Carpet for
readers I should like to draw attention to the following (in addition
to those described above):
ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY’S _In the Neighborhood
of Murray Hill_.
J. C. SQUIRE’S _Essays at Large_ and his _Books
Reviewed_.
HILAIRE BELLOC’S _On_.
Other collections of essays, chiefly on literary and philosophical
subjects, are included in or listed after Chapter 15, “For the Literary
Investor.”
iv
In the matter of books of travel, some classification is necessary, and
in addition to the ones just described I am glad to name the following
in all their happy variety:
A GROUP OF BOOKS ON ANCIENT EGYPT AND
PRESENT-DAY EGYPTIAN EXPLORATIONS.
_A History of Egypt From the Earliest Times to the Conquest of the
Persians_, by JAMES HENRY BREASTED. The ninth printing has just been
called for. With 200 illustrations and maps.
_History of Assyria_, by A. T. OLMSTEAD. A companion volume to
Breasted’s _History of Egypt_, and equally admirable. With maps and
many illustrations.
G. MASPERO’S _Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria_, his _Egyptian Art:
Studies_, and his _History of Art in Egypt_. These remain standard in
their field.
TERENCE GRAY’S _And in the Tomb Were Found_ and his _The Life of
Hatshepsut_. The first is a series of historical studies and sketches
including Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid, and Rameses the Great.
Some literal translations of Egyptian love songs are added. The second
book is the romance of an Egyptian princess who reigns as a man; the
work is cast in the form of a pageant for the sake of greater vividness.
PERCY E. MARTIN’S _Egypt Old and New_, a general account with many
illustrations in colour.
PERCY EDWARD NEWBERRY’S _The Valley of the Kings_, which includes the
discoveries by the late Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter in a general
account of thirty years’ explorations.
ARTHUR WEIGALL’S _Tut-Ankh-Amen and Other Essays_ is the work of an
Egyptologist and former Inspector-General of Antiquities in Egypt.
Mr. Weigall was special correspondent for the London _Daily Mail_,
New York _World_ and other newspapers at the opening of the tomb of
Tut-Ankh-Amen.
A GROUP OF BOOKS ABOUT CHINA.
_Audacious Angles on China_, by ELSIE MCCORMICK, introduces the reader
to Chinese life as the Western resident there sees it. The humorous
side of such experiences is to the fore, and one part of the book is
devoted to “The Unexpurgated Diary of a Shanghai Baby”--an American
child’s view of the intimacies of Eastern life.
_Swinging Lanterns_, by ELIZABETH CRUMP ENDERS, is a vivid narrative
of what an American woman saw while living and travelling in China. It
contains much that is unusual, including such matters as the Yellow
Llama Devil Dances, never before described. Fine illustrations.
ROY CHAPMAN ANDREWS’S _Across Mongolian Plains_.
ROY CHAPMAN ANDREWS’S and YVETTE BORUP ANDREWS’S _Camps and Trails in
China_.
HERBERT A. GILES’S _A History of Chinese Literature_, a historical
account written with much charm and taste and offering translations of
the work of various Chinese writers.
THE FAR EAST.
C. M. VAN TYNE’S _India in Ferment_. Mahatma Gandhi and the general
background by a scholar and skilled observer.
SIR HUGH CLIFFORD’S _A Prince of Malaya_ and his earlier book, _The
Further Side of Silence_. These are stories, true, fictional and
semi-fictional, that take rank as literature. The author, a friend of
Joseph Conrad, at the age of twenty-one was “the principal instrument
in adding 15,000 square miles to the British dependencies in the East.”
SYDNEY A. CLOMAN’S _Myself and a Few Moros_. An American soldier’s
lively but not unhumorous administrative experiences, with a good
picture of what the United States has accomplished in colonial
government.
H. O. MORGENTHALER’S _Matahari_. The Frederick O’Brienish adventures of
a Swiss engineer prospecting for tin in the Malayan-Siamese jungle.
THE CALLERS OF THE WILD.
ERNEST THOMPSON SETON’S _Game Animals and the Lives They Live_, Vol. I.
There are to be four volumes.
WILLIAM T. HORNADAY’S _The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals_, a book
of personal observations by one of the keenest living observers and one
who, as director of the New York Zoological Park, has under his eye
and care the most complete collection in the world.
SAMUEL A. DERIEUX’S _Animal Personalities_, including domesticated
animals.
CARL AKELEY’S _Men and Animals: An Autobiography_ and MARY HASTINGS
BRADLEY’S _On the Gorilla Trail_. Mr. Akeley went to the Belgian Congo
on a gorilla expedition, and Mrs. Bradley, well-known as a novelist,
her husband and their five-year-old daughter went, too. Each book
enhances the interest of the other.
WITH ICE.
APSLEY CHERRY-GARRARD’S _The Worst Journey in the World_, describing,
in its two volumes, Scott’s last Antarctic expedition, 1910-13.
MEDITERRANEAN.
V. C. SCOTT O’CONNOR’S _A Vision of Morocco_, which is both historical
and descriptive, and C. E. ANDREWS’S _Old Morocco and the Forbidden
Atlas_, written in a distinguished prose.
C. R. ASHBEE’S _A Palestine Notebook_, the result of administrative
experience in 1918-22. The book has interesting personal portraits of
Sir Herbert Samuels, General Allenby, Lord Robert Cecil, Lord Morley,
the late Lord Northcliffe, Lord Curzon, and others.
G. K. CHESTERTON’S _The New Jerusalem_.
ERNEST PEIXOTTO’S _Through Spain and Portugal_, where the author’s
illustrations are so happily wedded to the text.
ROSITA FORBES’S _The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara_.
SOUTH AMERICA.
C. REGINALD ENOCK’S _Republics of Central and South America_, his
_Spanish America_ (two volumes), his _Ecuador_, his _Peru_, and his
_Mexico_.
LEO E. MILLER’S _In the Wilds of South America_, an account of six
years’ explorations.
UNIQUE BOOKS OF TRAVEL.
GEORGE EYRE-TODD’S _The Clans of the Scottish Highlands_. By an
authority on Scots lore.
VAUGHAN CORNISH’S _A Geography of the Great Capitals_, from the
“capital” of the Iroquois Indians, marked by a sacred fire, to the
capitals of government, such as Rome and London, or of commerce, such
as New York, and including vanished cities as well as existing ones.
THOMAS NELSON PAGE’S _Washington and Its Romance_, really a historical
work. Mr. Page had been engaged upon it for several years before his
death and left completed his account of the city’s early days.
S. R. ROGET’S _Travel in the Two Last Centuries of Three Generations_,
a remarkable history, vivid, personal and interesting, derived from the
records and letters of a single family and showing what rapid changes
transportation underwent in the short period of two hundred years.
B. W. MATZ’S _Dickensian Inns and Taverns_, and his _The Inns and
Taverns of Pickwick_, and also CECIL ALDRIN’S magnificent _Old
Inns_--for all who hear the post horns blow and the stage coach drive
up to the door.
STEPHEN GRAHAM’S _Tramping With a Poet in the Rockies_, the description
of a vagabondage with Vachel Lindsay, with a report of many
conversations which left the ground.
_3. A Breathless Chapter_
i
What actually took my breath away (in the first place) was an
inspection of the “general catalogue” of one of our publishing
houses, and a discovery therein. Now, a general catalogue, showing
all the books published by a particular house and “in print”--that
is, procurable new--is in itself a species of adventure. I admit all
that Mr. A. Edward Newton puts forward as to the amenities of book
collecting--by which, I take it, he means the joys, the sorrows, the
moments of irony and the moments of amusement which fall to the lot
of the collector of rare books. The quest of the book that is out of
print, and must be had at second hand by diligent search and patient
waiting, is an exceptional delight. Nevertheless, a special and more
accessible pleasure lies in the catalogue, whether of a publisher or a
bookshop. All but a handful of us are certain to come upon titles that
kindle the imagination or rekindle the memory. Both were lit for me by
the entry:
GABORIAU, Emile
The Most Complete Library Edition
Each with new illustrated jackets
_The Count’s Millions._ 12mo. 2.00
And not only _The Count’s Millions_, but a roll of eleven others, an
even dozen in all, ready to be re-read after these too many years and
pleasingly freshened up by the new illustrated jackets! There they
were: _Baron Trigault’s Vengeance_, _The Clique of Gold_, and a fine
array of enticing titles that memory doesn’t recall--_The Champdoce
Mystery_, _Within an Inch of His Life_, which has the proper ring; _The
Widow Lerouge_; _Other People’s Money_, always an engrossing subject;
_The Mystery of Orcival_ (illustrated by Jules Guerin) and one or two
others besides (of course!) _Monsieur Lecoq_ and that famous _File No.
113_. It is desolating to reflect that there must be thousands, perhaps
millions, to whom the name of Monsieur Lecoq conveys nothing and who
are totally unacquainted with _File No. 113_, the most marvellous
genealogical mystery story ever written, a tale in which one does not
know which more to admire, the genealogy or the plot, until one grasps
that the genealogy _is_ the plot, and that what is desperately needed
is not a detective but an expert in the ascension of family trees.
However, that is not the worst. A yet more fearful thought concerns
the author himself. It is even possible that there exists a whole
generation, and perhaps races of men, to whom the name of Gaboriau
is nothing but part of a quatrain (though rather a famous jingle)
perpetrated first by Julian Street and James Montgomery Flagg under the
auspices (I think) of Franklin P. Adams (“F. P. A.”):
Said Opie Read to E. P. Roe,
“How do you like Gaboriau?”
“I like him very much indeed!”
Said E. P. Roe to Opie Read.
Too, too flippant! Recalling Monsieur Lecoq, one exclaims: “There
were detectives in those days!” And then again, such despondency is
excessive. There is, now and occasionally, a detective in these days
also. For proof, look at this fellow, Monsieur Jonquelle, in Melville
Davisson Post’s new book of that title. Ah! M. Davisson Post! It is but
to mention him to introduce a new and important subject, _n’est ce pas_?
Mr. Post is worth talking about, certainly; and assuming that you have
read him, you have probably discussed what you read afterward. His
reputation as a writer of detective-mystery stories was pretty well
abroad before the publication of _Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries_,
but that book established the reputation solidly. My recollection
is that even before its appearance Mr. Post had written one or two
articles in which he explained his theory and practice of story
writing. I may simply remark that he went into the matter with as
much technical skill and artistic nicety as Poe or de Maupassant; the
man is an artist to his fingertips and his work shows it. One has
the feeling of construction and the sense of ornamentation springing
from fine tastes; his tales are like beautiful pieces of cabinet work
in which, at first sight, the effects of form, of shapeliness and of
beauty and power are felt; on a closer examination you fall to admiring
the sure hand and the cunning art; and at last your exploring fingers
touch a particular joint, disclosing an unsuspected drawer that flies
out and reveals the story’s secret ... though not Mr. Post’s secret,
which, like that of all genuine artists, remains with himself. If
this has a ring of exaggeration to your ear, I need only refer you to
such a perfect thing as the opening tale, “The Doomdorf Mystery,” in
_Uncle Abner_. Or you may make the test on _Monsieur Jonquelle_, where
likewise all the stories turn on a central character, the Prefect of
Police of Paris. _Monsieur Jonquelle_ exemplifies very well Mr. Post’s
method of developing the mystery and its solution side by side. The
gain in movement and surprise is the compensation for a technique
immensely more difficult than the usual formula, by which a mystery is
first built up and then, with inevitable repetition, dispelled. Those
who are interested in the mechanism of stories will also find it worth
while to consider why Mr. Post varies the narrative standpoint in his
new book, so that some of the tales of _Monsieur Jonquelle_ are related
by the chief character, some by a third person, some by the author....
Mr. Post is a native of West Virginia, where he lives (Lost Creek,
R. F. D. 2). A lawyer by training, he became particularly interested
in the possibilities that lie open for the use of the law to aid the
commission of crime; and this led to his first book, _The Strange
Schemes of Randolph Mason_, in which this perversion of the law to
criminal ends was the tissue of the stories.
A rural free delivery route at Lost Creek, West Virginia, has about it
something pleasing in connection with a writer of breathless fiction,
but the height of suitability in authors’ residences belongs to
Beatrice Grimshaw, whose mystery-adventure yarns of the South Pacific
begin to be as numerous as a group of Pacific Islands. Indeed, I feel
it would be no surprise some day, running before the southeasterly
trade wind in a longitude west of 135 degrees and a latitude exceeding
20 degrees south, to sight a succession of dark blue cloud shapes
lying on the horizon and be told: “Yonder’s the Beatrice Islands of
the Grimshaw group--big archipelago.” Beatrice Grimshaw lives at Port
Moseby, Papua, New Guinea, and is a planter as well as an author.
There is practically no place in the South Seas which she has not
visited, including the cannibal country of Papua. An old and possibly
untrue story recalled by Hector MacQuarrie tells of a time when, on a
schooner in mid-Pacific, “the captain, a gentle ancient, thinking that
the dark women were having it all their own way, offered to embrace
Miss Grimshaw, finding in return a gun pointing at his middle, filling
him with quaint surprise that anyone could possibly offer violence in
defence of a soul in so delightful a climate.” Anyway, the lady knows
her corner of the world and the people in it, as anyone may discover by
the exciting enterprise of reading such a book as _The Sands of Oro_,
with its strange group of five persons bound together by necessity
and ugly chance, and committed to each other’s fortunes for a term on
a lonely Pacific island. Here, as in the author’s _Nobody’s Island_,
the reader is at once let into the general secret with the result of a
deepening mystery as to why and how and what next.
In truth, the tale which attempts breathlessness simply by the device
of withheld explanations takes our breath away no longer. We have
come to demand of the author that he proceed with direct and forward
action, producing genuine interest instead of merely artificial
suspense. He must hew to the line of his story, must _move_, letting
the explanations, chips of his tough puzzle, fall where they may. Thus
it has come about that the mystery story which is not also an adventure
story fails to capture our interest or stir our curiosity. Of living
writers, one of the earliest to grasp this was A. E. W. Mason. With
others, I feared a half dozen years ago that he might have forgotten
the vital principle; for his story of _The Summons_ was quite unlike
the Mason who had given us _The Four Feathers_, _The Witness for the
Defense_, and other superb novels. But the fear may be dissipated,
for in his new book, _The Winding Stair_, Mr. Mason has written a
story comparable with his best work. Like _The Four Feathers_, it is
a tale of cowardice becoming ultimate bravery; and I do not recall a
heroine so pitifully appealing, so desperately lovable, so admirably
brave as Marguerite Lambert since Joseph Conrad gave us the girl Lena
in _Victory_. Possibly the title of Mr. Mason’s newest work may,
offhand, convey the wrong flavor to the incipient reader; it is not a
yarn of mysterious goings-on in some old mansion but the history of
a soldier and the son of a soldier, moving principally in Northern
Africa; the very appropriate phrase that christens the book is quoted
from no less person than Bacon, “All rising to Great Place is by a
winding stair.” Seldom does one come upon a novel of adventure which
is also so profoundly a novel of character or which has so direct and
free an appeal to the emotions, or makes that appeal so successfully.
_The Winding Stair_ is the work of a masterly storyteller, and such
scenes as those of Paul Ravenel’s discovery of who he is, his rescue
of Marguerite Lambert, and Marguerite’s discovery of his self-betrayal
sprung from his love for her are something more than exciting drama.
There is a breathlessness here that comes from a slowing-down rather
than a quickening, from a pause, from a moment of perilous silence in
which the only sound or sensation is the painful throbbing of the human
heart.
ii
The other way of breathlessness is laughter.
“Laughter, holding both his sides,” sang Milton; and, in fact, I once
knew a man who sat at a dinner or some place between Don Marquis and
Pelham Grenville (P. G.) Wodehouse. It is not necessary to recall what
happened to him. Let us draw a veil, and proceed. Don (perhaps you
recall it) was under the necessity of conducting a guessing contest in
a New York newspaper. The purpose was to guess his real name. People
refused to believe that he could be Don Marquis. The Supreme Court, in
a case brought as a test, has since decided that such incredulity is
not a sign of moral turpitude. Even Donald Robert Perry Marquis, held
the Court (seven to two; Holmes, J., and Brandeis, J., dissenting),
does not sound sufficiently possible, especially when the evidence
shows that he was born in Walnut, Bureau County, Illinois. The
Court ruled that Don was conceivably a literary hoax, but that his
play, _The Old Soak_, was the real thing and within the Amendment.
Popular rather than judicial cognisance has extended to the other and
uncollected works of Don Marquis, such as _Prefaces_, his stories in
_Carter and Other People_, his truth-telling about a young woman called
_Hermione_, his newly rededicated record of _The Cruise of the Jasper
B._, his iliad of _Noah an’ Jonah an’ Captain John Smith_, his poetry
in _Sonnets to a Red-Haired Lady and Famous Love Affairs_, etc., etc.
You have read Anatole France’s _The Revolt of the Angels_, but are you
familiar with Don’s _The Revolt of the Oyster_, I ask you? Or _Pandora
Lifts the Lid_, by Christopher Morley, writing under the auspices
of Don Marquis? Or _The Almost Perfect State_, a vision vouchsafed
exclusively to Mr. Marquis?
The truth is, there is a good deal of Mark Twain in Don Marquis. Don
is usually as good as ever Mark was and in some cases a good deal
superior--and throughout, more genuine. When I make the comparison I
am thinking of the best Mark Twain, the satirist and not too easily
satisfied thinker; neither the embittered and savage pessimist of
those final years nor the facile (too facile) humourist. Marquis, who
can sustain the severer comparison with Twain, can also well sustain
the comparison on the lighter side; for Don is a humourist, too. The
point is in the “too.” And the exemplification may be sought in (let
us say) _The Almost Perfect State_. “No matter how nearly perfect an
Almost Perfect State may be, it is not nearly perfect enough unless
the individuals who compose it can, somewhere between death and birth,
have a perfectly corking time for a few years.... In the Almost Perfect
State every person shall have at least ten years before he dies of
easy, carefree, happy living.” A place of pay-as-you-enter wars; a
heaven where everyone is an aristocrat and there are no professional
reformers--in short, a Marquisate. Where Don differs from Mark Twain
is in being a poet who sometimes uses poetry as the medium of his
expression--see _Dreams and Dust_ and his _Poems and Portraits_.
Christopher Morley (whose essay on Don Marquis, in _Shandygaff_,
deserves to be read) has coaxed Don into a Frank R. Stocktonish
enterprise in _Pandora Lifts the Lid_, with its narrative of seven
young women snatched from the shades of a young ladies’ seminary and--.
But as I write, Pandora has lifted the lid on a crack only.
P. G. Wodehouse is another matter, a chap over whose books thousands of
people have found themselves unable to keep straight faces. Yet, not
long ago, writing in the London Sphere, Clement K. Shorter declared he
had never read a single one of the more than twenty Wodehouse yarns.
He had never read _Jeeves_, or that new one, _Leave It to Psmith_, or
_Mostly Sally_, or _Three Men and a Maid_, or _The Little Warrior_,
or A _Damsel in Distress_, or _Piccadilly Jim_--think of it! Or no,
don’t think of it. It won’t bear thinking of, it won’t really. The
Wodehouse novels, though in most respects like those jolly things he
writes to go with music by Jerome Kern, have now and then a page that
dips far below the surface of fun into something very deep and true
to the inwardness of human nature. Such are some bits in _The Little
Warrior_, and such are the more tragic moments for Sally in _Mostly
Sally_; and yet Mr. Wodehouse brings his story up again quickly like a
diver clutching a pearl and rising up through clear water to sparkling
and sunlit air. It is the prettiest talent imaginable, and I can think
of no other contemporary writer of light fiction who has the same
dexterity.
iii
There is no formula for achieving breathlessness. Those who are most
susceptible to what may be loosely called Plot will find an enviable
difficulty in breathing while they peruse, besides the stories already
mentioned, some of the following tales:
JOHN BUCHAN’S _Midwinter_ and his _Huntingtower_. Buchan is a master
of suspense and a humourist of very exceptional quality. His stories
are rightly called “the grandest of grand yarns.” Have you ever read
_Greenmantle_? The literary merit of these books (quite incidental) is
far above the average of their kind.
FRANK L. PACKARD’S _The Four Stragglers_, an “unguessable” story with a
steady acceleration of excitement, and his new one, _The Locked Book_.
WILLIAM GARRET’S _Friday to Monday_, which will give you the liveliest
week-end of your possibly rich experience. Black pearls, a Chinaman,
torture, a fight in the dark, a rocky cavern of the sea and an
airplane are used.
WILLIAM JOHNSTON’S _The Waddington Cipher_.
H. C. MCNEILE’S _The Dinner Club_. The six members had each to tell two
stories worthy of the dinner, and did! Also H. C. McNeile’s _The Black
Gang_, with its further adventures of Bulldog Drummond.
ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE’S _The Amateur Inn_, remarkable not only for its
mystery puzzle but for the presence of an irresistible maiden lady who
says: “A person not ashamed to lock a door with a key, need not be
ashamed to lock his mind with a lie.”
CAROLYN WELL’S _Wheels Within Wheels_, another story with Penny Wise as
the detective. The village idiot is a protagonist.
C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON’S _The Lady From the Air_ and their _The
Night of the Wedding_.
When Ghost Meets Ghost.
The “borderland” in F. BRITTEN AUSTEN’S _On the Borderland_ is the
region between the conscious and the subconscious, assuming that such a
neutral zone exists. The book offers twelve weird stories striking in
their ingenuity.
E. F. BENSON’S _Spook Stories_.
Ordeal by Water.
TRISTRAM TUPPER’S _Adventuring_ is entirely off the beaten track of
adventure fiction--the story of a middle-aged, ordinary man whose love
for the songs of the Grecian Sappho quickens his imagination to a dream
of her beauty and leads him into an homeric sea adventure.
A. HYATT VERRILL’S _The Real Story of the Pirate_. A fascinating book
about those fellows whose colouring is perhaps a little faded in spite
of their being scoundrels of the deepest dye; although (as you may not
know) Kidd was by no means so black as he was hanged for being.
A. HYATT VERRILL’S _The Real Story of the Whaler_. More thrills for all
of us who had ’em as we watched the film, “Down to the Sea in Ships.”
Almost Anything by HAROLD MACGRATH.
His _The World Outside_, or, if you haven’t read them:
_The Ragged Edge_
_The Pagan Madonna_
_The Man With Three Names_
_The Drums of Jeopardy_
iv
Let us approach the subject of humour circumspectly. In addition to
the Works of DON MARQUIS, _passim_, as the reference books say, and
the Works of P. G. WODEHOUSE, both before-mentioned, and the Works of
DONALD OGDEN STEWART (see Chapter 13, “A Parody Outline of Stewart”),
and the Works of IRVIN S. COBB in many places, the reader may be well
advised to consult at the outset _Tom_ _Masson’s Annual for 1923_, a
humorous anthology; KATHARINE DAYTON’S _Loose Leaves_, IRVIN COBB’S
collection of the best humorous stories he has ever met, _A Laugh a Day
Keeps the Doctor Away_, and--oh, yes!--the Works of OLIVER HERFORD,
including _Neither Here Nor There_ and _This Giddy Globe_. A word of
warning in regard to a couple of others:
FRANCIS B. KEENE’S _Lyrics of the Links_. This is not a humorous book
on days when you are off your game. Still, you can’t afford to miss
Grantland Rice’s foreword to the lyrics.
THOMAS L. MASON’S _That Silver Lining_, although written largely in a
humorous vein, is an honest-to-goodness book about new thought, mental
healing, psycho-analysis and so forth, by a survivor of twenty-eight
years of Life.
_4. In the Kingdom of Conrad_
i
“I once knew such a man,” declared Marlow. I don’t believe any of us
felt moved to reply. To have indicated, by a syllable or two, a polite
interest, would have been fatal. Marlow, in the presence of anything
but an aloof skepticism or a cynical reserve, becomes tiresome in
his pursuit of metaphysical abstraction. He seems to think it can be
caught in the butterfly-net of words.... Now he sat, sucking his pipe
(he always cools it before re-filling) and looking attentively at each
of us as the sparks of cigars momentarily threw a faint gleam on our
faces. At length:
“You all know him, too,” he pronounced. “Chap named Conrad, Joseph
Conrad. Teodor Jozef Konrad Korzeniowski. That Polish sailor; writes
novels. But he has a master’s ticket. Got blackwater fever or something
down at the Congo; he was out East before that. Then he settled in
Kent, in a little house, where I once went to see him. Of course you’ve
read _Lord Jim_; I don’t think a lot of it. Give me _Victory_ or
_Youth_, or, best of all, _Nostromo_----”
“Personally, Marlow, I always look at the end first, to see how it
comes out. Since you are beginning in the middle----”
“I? I’m not, but Conrad was. Did you ever read _Nostromo_? Talk about
beginning a story in the middle!”
“Well, if you want to talk about _that_,” sighed a voice. “My
impression was, Marlow, that you were undertaking to tell us about a
man who knew himself--shall we say?--singularly well.”
“Exactly.” Marlow uttered the word with something that might have been
reluctance. He repeated it, “Exactly.” It was time to re-fill his pipe
and he made a long job of it. When he had it drawing nicely and began
to speak again his voice was veiled, his choice of words was frequently
made with a certain hesitation, and we listened without comment or any
other interruption than the occasional shifting of a foot on the deck.
At least, I can recall nothing; and I know we borrowed our matches by
signs--when we thought to borrow them.
[Illustration: JOSEPH CONRAD]
ii
“As you have heard something of him, I won’t waste my breath on the
bare biographical record,” Marlow informed us. “I believe you all know
he was born in the Ukraine in 1857; sixth of December happened to be
the day. His father and mother were Polish patriots and Russian exiles
and their death left the boy in the hands of his mother’s brother,
who used him affectionately and engaged a very capable tutor to fit
the young Korzeniowski for the University of Cracow. It is pertinent,
I think, that the father had been a man of scholarly tastes and
occupation. He had succeeded in translating Shakespeare into Polish.
The legendary figure of a great-uncle, whom, however, the boy had seen,
made a great impression. Mr. Nicholas B., as Conrad calls him in his
book, _A Personal Record_, was in the retreat from Moscow and had the
strange misfortune to share in eating a Lithuanian dog. Did you ever
read _Falk_? Mr. Nicholas B. transmuted into fiction, I should say. The
one had eaten a dog, the other was credited with having eaten human
flesh; but the effect is the same. Then there’s that other story,
_Heart of Darkness_--the one all the authorities acclaim as among the
half-dozen greatest stories in English. I have heard Conrad narrate the
actual incident as it befell him down at the Congo; I have also read,
and heard him read aloud, his tale. Very interesting. Let us admit that
truth is frequently stranger than fiction; what then? Why truth is so
often unintelligible, void of significance, without meaning. Whereas
fiction is the real truth--all we can grasp, anyway. How we abuse
words! It is facts, or apparent facts, that are stranger than so-called
fiction. Not truth! Let us save that word for finer purposes. The
conquest of brute facts? Well, maybe.
“This Polish boy I am telling you about had an incomprehensible
wish. I understand that nowadays there is no such animal as an
incomprehensible wish. All wishes are fulfilled, or something of the
sort. The boy’s wish I am speaking of was fulfilled, safe enough, but
its comprehensibility is still in doubt. At any rate, he wanted to go
to sea. As almost all boys wish urgently to go to sea, this might not
appear abnormal. Perhaps, after all the oddity lay chiefly in the
attitude of his uncle and tutor, which was strongly adverse; also,
to some extent, in the fact that Poland is (or then was) purely an
interior country without ships or the enticing sight of sailors to
tempt a boy. A country of farmers. And he left it. He has told in _A
Personal Record_ of the last stand made by the tutor and his uncle.
The sight of an Englishman in the Alps had the mysterious effect of
making the lad more set in his purpose than ever. Why, as I say, is not
comprehensible, unless by those serious scientists who exist in Vienna
and play jokes on the rest of the world.
“When he had got clean away, with a sorrowful blessing, he fared
to the Mediterranean. He wanted to become not merely a sailor but
a British sailor; he knew no English. French, of course, he knew,
as befitted a Pole of a good family and some education. It was not
so difficult to get berths on Mediterranean vessels. Being in his
teens, he was looking for excitement and adventure. This, too, _mare
nostrum_ provides. It does not really matter, I take it, where one
sows his wild oats, provided only he sows thickly; and the waters of
the Mediterranean received a bushel or two from Poland (a strictly
agricultural land). One harvests such a crop from the sea uncertainly
and at a long interval, but the sea’s return is often curious and
beautiful. Fragments, if you like, but of a loveliness not yielded by
the soil of the shore; mother-of-pearl’d, glistening. And out of that
uncouth time and those bizarre experiences the man Conrad has got back
certain pages in _The Mirror of the Sea_, pages that we all remember.
_The Arrow of Gold_, also, is the return of those years when he was
irregularly employed in smuggling and gun-running out of Marseilles to
the loosely-guarded shores of Spain.
“There is a woman in _The Arrow of Gold_, Rita, you know ... but it
is useless to speculate about women. In a preface provided for the
new uniform edition of his works, J. C. explains that the slightly
demure Antonia Avellanos, in the pages of _Nostromo_, sprang from the
recollection, tenderly cherished, of a young girl, a schoolmate of his
back there in Poland. But I would like to know where he got Lena, in
_Victory_. If I were Somerset Maugham and came unexpectedly upon Lena
in another man’s novel there would be no limit to my jealousy. One does
not expect a sailor to understand women and I cannot for the life of me
comprehend how J. C. got in the way of knowing the sex. Perhaps, for
some time, he didn’t. Disregarding the mysteries of feminine nature,
if he observed any, the youth persisted in his weird determination to
become one of the great race of sailors. He shipped on English ships.
Richard Curle’s book, _Joseph Conrad: A Study_, will even tell you
just which English ships. For example, the story called _Youth_ with
its vessel, the Judæa, harks back to a passage on a hulk called the
Palestine. And so on. But what are such things to you and me? I have
read Curle’s book and I give you my _parole d’honneur_ that I found it
extraordinarily confusing when not simply rhapsodical. I did! As if J.
C. were not, in himself, serious enough to require close attention and
profound enough to merit it and pellucid enough to reward our most
earnest scrutiny. Along comes Curle and roils up the surface of that
clear, deep stream. I have no forgiveness for such a man, upon my word,
I have not! May his excellent intentions pave the road to ... but I
suppose they do force one to re-read Conrad if only to get straightened
out again.
“Anyway, he stuck to ships, this foreign blighter. You will find all
that is pertinent diffused through the pages of _A Personal Record_.
Even to the examination in which he passed for his master’s ticket.
What was he reading in those years? One would give something to have
the tally; but certainly he did not neglect the French masters. Those
who find in the earlier books, including _The Nigger of the Narcissus_,
a style ‘too florid,’ or ‘too consciously sonorous’ say it was because
J. C. was long in understanding that English prose cannot display the
crystal resonance of French. Mind you, I don’t in the least accept
their premise; to me, _The Nigger of the Narcissus_ is so perfect that
when I came upon it I was seized with a most violent nostalgia. I
wanted, in a foolish, incredible way, to be back in the fo’c’s’le or on
the deck of a certain squarerigger called the Wayfarer which carried
me around Cape Stiff in--how long ago?--in 1909. It seems a century.
Youth! The splendid, the immortal time!
“The ships bore him eastward. Only the thoughtless, griped by the vain
longing for empire or inflated with a nauseating self-importance,
will go west. One goes east when one is in search of wisdom, and this
man was. The greatest piece of wisdom is the knowledge of oneself;
seek that in India or China or the ocean islands, whichever you
please; the road lies eastward. You see, he had already acquired some
self-knowledge; not a great deal, perhaps, but beyond the average. Or
was he born with it? At a surprisingly early age he had known that he
must, as the saying is, ‘follow the sea.’ This senseless conviction
must be put down to the score of self-knowledge. When a man is not
misled by that logical apparatus, his brain, it is astonishing to what
clearness of perception he may attain. Do you recall that gentle,
highly ironic sentence Conrad uses in _The Rescue_ about d’Alcacer?
‘Mr. d’Alcacer, being a Latin, was not afraid of introspection.’
Exactly. J. C. isn’t a Latin but neither is he afflicted like us, who
shrink from a look inward in a way to arouse the recording angel’s
darkest suspicion. The best advice, I believe, is that which counsels
a man to look into his heart and write. The best advice extant, but
it can be bettered. J. C. looked into his heart a long time before he
began writing.
“All that he saw there we have had steadily reflected in the succession
of novels and tales of a surprisingly varied character and a deep,
a very deep, inner relevance to the discovered self within him.
Externals do not matter. And yet they have taken aback visitors to J.
C., persons already acquainted with the true person and who should
therefore have known better. They found, in a cottage in Kent, a
man quitting middle age, the victim of an atrocious rheumatism (or
what seemed to be rheumatism) who dosed himself with all sorts of
concoctions that he had heard of, until the house looked like a
laboratory of disused patent medicine bottles. Well, perhaps that is
an exaggeration. Tall and broadly ample Jessie Conrad beamed on the
very infrequent visitors and would sometimes confide to them, with a
giggle: ‘You know, they say in London that Conrad lives in the country
with his cook!’ But she, Jessie, Mrs. Conrad, was a great deal more
than just an excellent cook, a capable mother, all that. She was,
in J. C.’s words, ‘the fortune of the house,’ a pair of eyes that
guarded watchfully over this unhappy man when, for eighteen months,
hardly knowing whether he ate or slept, and sitting all day long at a
table, he struggled desperately for ‘the breath of life’ which had to
be blown into the shapes of men and women, ‘Latin and Saxon, Jew and
Gentile’ who people the pages of that miraculous novel, _Nostromo_.
That book is unique. You may get some idea of its cost in toil and
sheer creative effort from J. C.’s own words in _A Personal Record_.
Just so; but then an American editor comes along, some years later, and
finds Conrad as nervous as a cat. Actually! The editor particularly
noticed that Conrad would never turn his back upon him while they were
together in that room and always sat so as to face, or partly face,
the door. He appeared like a man who wanted to feel the wall at his
back; and with his deep-set eyes and the overhang of his forehead,
the Slav contour of the cheekbones, the greying beard, the silences
and the restlessness, the jumpiness--everything--J. C. made on the
American editor a memorable and fantastic impression. That editor came
away convinced that J. C. had seen some wild goings-on and been in
some devilish tight places in his seafaring days; and altogether was
spending his later years like Stevenson’s chap at the Admiral Benbow,
waiting for some old, blind, tap-tap-tapping Pew to come along and
tip him the black spot. Fact! But the editor carried no black spot,
only large sums of American money which he was prepared to part with
in exchange for the very best English fiction, both spot and future
delivery. J. C. was then busy writing the novel called _Victory_, and
gave it to the American to read. The next morning the American ripped
it to pieces, on certain plot details. His, the American’s, account
of that interview is instructive. He says Conrad sat, fingers clawing
the arms of his chair, speechless and infuriated, for nearly an hour,
while our editor stressed the importance of the return of the shawl
that belonged to Mrs. Schomberg in the story and other matters that
the meticulous would find fault with. And finally, I suppose when he
was able to speak at all, the editor tells that J. C. came around,
ending up by quite handsomely admitting the editor to be right, and
promising to make the necessary changes. What I cannot get over is the
fact that after, as the story goes, Conrad had re-written 70,000 words
and added 60,000 more, in order to run _Victory_ complete in a single
number, the American cut out of it everything but the conversation and
the shooting. The resulting skeleton was, to some readers at least,
very imperfectly articulated. That manuscript had a curious history and
certainly deserves a place in a Museum. I heard lately that Gabriel
Wells, the American collector, has got hold of it. J. C. had made
alterations in black ink, the magazine editor had gashed it horribly
in red; and when the book publisher came to restore the mangled corpus
he could do so, intelligibly for the printer, only by an extravagant
use of green ink. You see, there was no duplicate copy of the original.
Always make duplicates. If you don’t, and if you are a writer of J.
C.’s size, your manuscripts may some day be priceless. Even though
they are typewritten; for the fact that they are not in handwriting is
offset by the touching fact that perhaps your wife got up in the middle
of the night to type them off, so you could see how they would look in
the neat similitude of printed words.
iii
“But there! Let us not talk about the value of manuscripts. That is
adventitious, a sort of excrescence on the process of moneygetting,
which, in turn, perhaps, is an excrescence on all the forms of art. Do
I sound like one of those absurd persons who wail because an artist
must make money? If so, I beg your pardon, I do, humbly. Perhaps you
would like me to do it kneeling here on the deck. My knees are bent. I
would no more absolve the artist from the urgence of making a living
than I would absolve him from the necessity of drawing breath to live.
After all, isn’t it the same thing? So surely as you breathe, you must
suffer; and what is the wage problem but a visitation, like sickness,
or misfortune, or mental anguish inseparable from the act of living?
If art cannot triumph over these things, if a novelist could not
continue to write novels in spite of the awful pangs of rheumatism, the
element of struggle would be lost and all our values would exist in a
vacuum. It is their merit, and sometimes their sole merit, that they
exist in the air under atmospheric pressures averaging fifteen pounds
to the square inch and of only the very slightest variation. The need
to make money is the atmosphere in which we all live. By a sublime law
of nature, of human nature, I should say, the more we make, the more we
need. Human nature abhors a vacuum. But, as I was saying--
“What a pill it would be to a man engaged in writing his first few
great novels if he had seriously to consider the fact that, some years
later but yet within his lifetime, these blackened pages would be worth
a modest fortune. Such a consideration might well drive him quite off
his head. What actually steadies him is the indisputable fact that
_this_ book has simply got to earn him enough to live on for a whole
year, including the younger boy’s annual six pairs of shoes. Then, when
the book doesn’t, a way is provided. Don’t snort, please. I admit that,
on the face of it, such a solution is improbable. The answer to that
objection is: The solution arrives. Take J. C. He came ashore with the
remnants of this tropical fever infesting him and a definite medical
mandate enjoining him from all future notion of following the sea.
When a chap is nearing forty and has spent all his life from boyhood
working up to a master’s ticket and a ship to command, a decree of that
sort is calculated to knock him out completely. He is in splendid
shape to be counted out in a prostrate condition, lying prone and never
recovering consciousness. J. C. had no more idea what to do----. He dug
up the manuscript of that tentative story or novel he had been working
on at intervals for about five years. The one which, to the extent of
about the first nine chapters, he had shown to a young Englishman on
a passage between Adelaide and the Cape. This was a young Cambridge
student, named Jacques, who was aboard as a passenger. You remember
that Jacques handed the manuscript back and J. C. ventured to ask if
the story seemed worth finishing. Jacques answered. ‘Distinctly.’ So
the beginnings of _Almayer’s Folly_ escaped being thrown overboard to
puzzle the fishes.
“Ashore, J. C. finished the thing and it got published. No appreciable
sum of money rewarded him, of course, and he has told how he wondered
whatever he should do afterward, and he submitted his dilemma to Edward
Garnett one evening after the publication of _Almayer’s Folly_. Finally
Garnett brought forth a suggestion which, in its unoriginality, was a
piece of the most authentic inspiration. ‘Why don’t you write another?’
he asked. But, of course, that is the only safe suggestion to make to
a person who has written one novel. J. C. admits that from the moment
those words crossed Garnett’s lips, _An Outcast of the Islands_ was
merely a matter of time. All the same, he had to live. Shortly, he was
marrying, and at suitable intervals Boris and John were added to the
family unit. Capel House was a Kentish cottage but there were rates
to pay. For some years the pension provided by the Civil List was an
affair of serious importance. There is a man or two now living and a
man or two now dead who could throw light on this phase of J. C.’s
special problem. Conrad’s present American publisher dropped in one
day on the late William Heinemann in London, with his usual question
of what, or more accurately whom, Heinemann had got. The reply was: A
comparatively new writer who would some day be as important as Kipling.
However, it appeared that in order to attain this importance he would
have to live. ‘Suppose,’ suggested Heinemann, with every aspect of
intense earnestness, ‘you and I back him. He has a novel he wants to
do. I think if we both put in ten pounds--fifty dollars--a month----.’
For a moment it seemed as if this blithe proposal might terminate the
interview. And, after all, a publisher, who has to foot the cost of a
book anyway on what is often the slenderest chance, might well draw
back before the prospect of investing $50 a month for a year or two as
a preliminary to risking as much more. But it was done. In the end, J.
C. told them frankly that he could not give them the book. He had got
seven-eighths of the way through and he was unable to bring the story
out. Stuck for an ending would be the other way of stating the case.
The two, Heinemann and Frank N. Doubleday, accepted this disappointment
with a most commendable calmness. J. C. went on to write other things,
_The Nigger of the Narcissus_, _Lord Jim_, since so widely hailed and
at the time so little heeded and so immensely unlucrative; _Nostromo_.
James B. Pinker (you knew Pinker, the author’s agent) handled the
stuff. In the American phrase, Pinker ‘grubstaked’ Conrad; and among
long-term investments of the very highest grade J. C. has been one of
the very best in the world. Ah, yes! He has! No one who ever invested
in Conrad and held on, held ‘for the rise,’ has ever lost a penny--or
failed to make an enormous per cent. Why, take Heinemann and F. N.
D. They, in effect, bought at away below par twenty-year bonds that
matured and were paid off at par. For after twenty years J. C. picked
up the all-but-finished novel, put it through in triumphant fashion and
gave it to them under the title of _The Rescue_. By that time, he was
made. He was selling in America practically seventeen times as many
copies as when they put their money in--maybe more. And any publisher
in America or England would, by then, have given his upper and lower
teeth to possess Conrad. The Civil List was at liberty to take care of
someone else and lucky if it found another half so rewarding.
“Do I give the impression that this result was brought about in the
least meteorically? That would be inexcusable on my part. Let me see:
There were _Almayer’s Folly_ and _An Outcast of the Islands_ and _The
Nigger_ and _Lord Jim_ and _Nostromo_ and _The Secret Agent_ and _Under
Western Eyes_. Seven novels, not counting the two he wrote with Ford
Madox Hueffer and four or five books of short stories. I am speaking
now of the nineteen years that lay between Conrad’s first book and his
novel, _Chance_; and I am avoiding all exaggeration when I tell you
flatly that in all those nineteen years not one single book--not the
succession of all those books--made enough money for the reasonable
needs of himself and his family. Oh, I don’t say that he was entirely
dependent on these books and the far-sightedness of men like those
investors I have mentioned. W. E. Henley serialised _The Nigger_; in
America, the North American Review serialised _Under Western Eyes_;
there was a bit of money, now and again from the magazine sale of one
of the short-stories, no doubt. I stick to my point: The income from
the books was not enough. By the way, he also wrote in those years the
two autobiographical books, _The Mirror of the Sea_ and _A Personal
Record_. H’m. The American publishers of _A Personal Record_ printed it
from type. You know; print a few and throw the type away.
“_Chance_ was published in 1914 and sold 20,000 copies in England and
the long ordeal was over.
iv
“One ordeal, that is. Ordeals, as such, are never over. After the trial
by water, the trial by fire; and you are not to suppose that because
one has survived the trial of the spirit he will therefore triumph
easily over the trials of the flesh. Not at all. What is the malady of
rheumatism beside the torture of shyness? And Conrad has always been
distinctly shy. His American publisher, for a long time, did not meet
him; J. C. backed out of it, until, finally, a perfectly reasonable
impatience seized upon Mr. Doubleday, who said to himself, in a mild
tone: ‘Confound it all. This sort of thing has got to stop.’ And
that sort of thing did stop. J. C. at length was induced to come to a
London hotel and shake hands--about all he did do, in fact, for at once
a severe attack of shyness set in. For quite a while that interview
went--very badly? Goodness knows it did not even go badly; it simply
did not go at all. But then, as he knew Conrad was planning a new
book, Mr. Doubleday asked a few questions natural to a person who has
something at stake in a prospective venture. J. C. answered with entire
willingness, began explaining what he had in mind and--pouf! Where was
that shyness any longer? They parted as very good friends and have
remained such ever since. So it came about that at last J. C. visited
America as the guest of Mr. Doubleday. As you can imagine, lecture
bureaus, societies and every sort of outfit had been after J. C. for
years to speak in public. He had always turned down such offers, but
before coming to America he explained to Mr. Doubleday that he should
like to tell a few people, not more than a dozen, over the luncheon
table of his Congo experience, and then read to them from his story,
_Heart of Darkness_, the same affair as it came out in fiction. ‘If I
am able to interest those few,’ J. C. went on, ‘perhaps I might try
the same thing with a larger number, say fifty or even a hundred; I
don’t think I could ever address more than a hundred.’ You see, he
knew himself. He is the kind of man who is at his best in an intimate
surrounding. Perhaps you have noticed the very special quality of
intimacy achieved in his stories under practically all conditions.
He inhabits other people’s breasts. A self-conscious tendency as
great as his own or greater excites his friendly compassion. I know
an American novelist, at one time editor of an American magazine and
then in England meeting people and questing material. Several people
were present but Conrad noticed the extreme ill-ease of the American
editor. J. C. got up and came over and sat beside the stranger, who
then lost some of his discomfort and eventually plucked up enough to
say to J. C. that he would like to get some short stories from him.
‘Ah! Short stories,’ J. C. commented with that markedly foreign accent
or intonation. He paused. ‘I do not pick short stories out of my
sleeve.’ It was said with an inflection pleasantly humorous that did
not conceal the seriousness of the fact. He simply wasn’t that kind of
a conjuror. This was not the editor who handled _Victory_. American
editors, according to my impression, are a varied lot. The mixture they
make is a literary cocktail which appears to go to the heads of so many
American authors. I know an American editor who bought a Conrad novel
as a serial when all his--confrères’?--had rejected the story because
of the impossible length. This man printed the 147,000 words without
the sacrifice of one. This was after _Victory_ and as the editor in
question knew nothing of that case, his was an unconscious as well as
a vicarious atonement. But let that pass. We are not concerned with
American editors, and neither, except momentarily, has Conrad been.
His preoccupation has been unbrokenly with the problem of a sufficient
self-knowledge. Must he not know himself better than any other possibly
could? Of course, and for two imperative purposes: In the first place
to write, in the second place, to keep his courage. It is no use being
able to write unless you can keep your courage. Too, the world is
full of brave souls who have bravery and ... nothing else. No gift, I
mean. Nothing in the world is so cheap as courage, so common. But look
you!--if a man undertakes self-examination, his courage goes. The scale
of values is hopelessly deranged and either the self rises to sublime
heights of despair or sinks into a hopeless, sticky complacency. J.
C. is not an unblemished exception to this general law, or deplorable
result--whichever term you prefer. He had gone to revisit Poland and
was there when the Great War unleashed itself. The story of how he got
out of Europe has never been told and, in fact, I don’t see how it can
be. Or, well, why not? What do a few bribes matter, in a good cause?
Some fairly influential persons, including an American Ambassador,
were called upon to extricate Conrad from the extremely troublesome
complications caused by the fact that he, a Pole by race and a
Russian subject by birth, was a naturalised Englishman. The American
Ambassador, appointed in the first place because of his large personal
means, enabling him to support an Ambassadorship in the style to which
it had been accustomed, may have used his private pocketbook; but in
my judgment the matter was one to which he could quite conscientiously
have devoted the public funds. Let that pass, too. They say that J.
C. hates Russians and is frequently irascible. He also understands
Russians, as any disbeliever may discover by reading _Under Western
Eyes_. As for his irascibility, the results of self-examination justify
any reasonable amount of irritation. If it had been one of you who
had written seven-eighths of _The Rescue_ and found himself stuck
for an ending I daresay the detonations would have been terrific. A
volcano can blow its head off but an artist must not be permitted to
let a little steam escape! What sort of a doctrine is that? J. C., of
late years, has lost a good deal of his nervousness. He has written
his _Lord Jim_ long ago. He has accomplished the most satisfactory
definition we possess of the novel--where he calls it ‘a conviction
of our fellowmen’s existence strong enough to take upon itself a form
of imagined life clearer than reality.’ I call your attention to the
last three words. If the ‘form of imagined life’ is not clearer to
us than life as we observe it, there is no novel. Now, life is never
clear unless we hold a little fragment of it in front of the mirror of
each one of us, his own heart. Always, then, something different from
what we expected is then clear, recognisable. J. C. has never done
anything else. The story of _The Secret Sharer_, that chap who haunted
the captain’s cabin and persisted in the captain’s thoughts, is the
symbol of all Conrad’s work. I believe he has called it his favourite
story; does anyone need to ask why? Giorgio Viola in _Nostromo_, Mrs.
Gould in the same novel, the nigger in the story of the Narcissus,
Haldin in _Under Western Eyes_, our friend, the anarchist, in _The
Secret Agent_; Captain MacWhirr in _Typhoon_ and Jim in _Lord Jim_;
Axel Heyst in _Victory_; Flora de Barral and others in _Chance_--you
know as well as I do that these are simply persons we encounter and
depreciate or else dismiss as incomprehensible. But Conrad holds them
up to the mirror of his own heart and behold! they are reflected in new
shapes, pathetic shapes, heroic shapes, twisted and tortured shapes,
but shapes that are unfailingly intelligible. It is not quite the same
thing as saying: ‘There, but for the grace of God, goes Joseph Conrad.’
It is equivalent, perhaps, to saying: ‘Here, by the grace of God, is
the affinity with Joseph Conrad.’ The meaning of the universe is, as
the Spaniards say, with God; but what we feel about it is of perpetual
fascination and very real importance. J. C. has found that out, in the
course of a fairly long and extremely surprising lifetime. The world
is a ship that will never make port, it is fair to assume, in our
lifetimes; its exact position, then, as witnessed to by the sun and the
stars, is of little moment. But those who are aboard--let us have a
clear understanding about them, if we can.
“To do that, one must feel the deck beneath his feet, like that old
fellow Peyrol, in Conrad’s newest novel which you will so soon be
reading. Coming after _The Rescue_--how long it has been! Three years
after!--_The Rover_ has surprised me with an unexpected simplicity of
strain, like a clear little thread of blue in a riot of scarlet, the
bright background of Revolutionary France and Napoleon’s day. Peyrol,
I ought to tell you, was a French waif whose sea exile led him to the
coast of India and to membership in the strange fraternity of pirates
who called themselves Brothers of the Coast. But this was all before;
we open upon the return of Peyrol to France and an inconspicuous
repose in a little farmhouse where dwell an old woman, a bloodthirsty
scarecrow, and a young girl whose eyes, having looked upon the spurting
blood of the Terror, can remain fixed on nothing for consecutive
instants since. And there’s a young French officer sent to the farm
on duty connected with the blockade. Far down below the rim of the
horizon, you understand, sails the fleet commanded by Lord Nelson. The
complete affair is one of those episodes in which a handful of people
are wholly at the mercy of destiny if a single one of them fails to
sustain his illusion, whether of love, of wrath, of mercy, of hope,
or, perhaps, of a sublime despair. Despair? Why, certainly; from what
other sentiment could old Peyrol have acted as he did, in the grand
emergency, cutting the knot that bound up together those few lives,
whose only importance was the supreme importance of the insignificant
and humble? Peyrol, the ex-pirate, flashing out over the water to his
final earthly adventure is the latest and most beautiful incarnation
of that old sailor whom Conrad knew in the flesh and has translated so
often--the ‘Ulysses’ we meet in _The Mirror of the Sea_, who is also
Nostromo, who appears under his actual name and in his true rôle in
_The Arrow of Gold_. In the closing pages of The Rover we get a brief
glimpse of the great Nelson, but he does not dwarf Peyrol.
“A Mediterranean story, a tale of that sea which is ‘the charmer and
deceiver of audacious men,’ like Life itself, which also keeps ‘the
secret of its fascination.’”
v
Marlow ceased to speak. It was beautifully dark. The river, in our
stretch of it, was composed to the beauty of that darkness and won
to the felicity of a nearly perfect silence. I can’t speak for the
others, of course. Personally I was absorbed in trying to remember the
man Conrad’s exact words--in the so long suppressed preface to _The
Nigger_. You must have read them:
“The artist appeals to that part of our being that is not dependent on
wisdom; to that in us which is a gift and not a mere acquisition--and,
therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for
delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives;
to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain: to the latent feeling
of fellowship with all creation--and to the subtle but invincible
conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of
innumerable hearts, to the solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in
aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear, which binds men to each
other, which binds together all humanity--the dead to the living and
the living to the unborn.”
Books by Joseph Conrad
NOVELS:
1895 _Almayer’s Folly_
1896 _An Outcast of the Islands_
1898 _The Nigger of the Narcissus_
[first published in America as _The Children of the Sea_]
1900 _Lord Jim_
1903 _Nostromo_
1907 _The Secret Agent_
1911 _Under Western Eyes_
1914 _Chance_
1915 _Victory_
1917 _The Shadow Line: A Confession_
1919 _The Arrow of Gold_
1920 _The Rescue_
1923 _The Rover_
NOVELS IN COLLABORATION WITH FORD MADOX HUEFFER:
1901 _The Inheritors: An Extravagant Story_
1903 _Romance_
TALES AND SHORT STORIES:
1898 _Tales of Unrest_
1902 _Youth: A Narrative_; _Heart of Darkness_;
_The End of the Tether_
1903 _Typhoon and Other Stories_
[in America _Typhoon_ is published separately and the volume
is _Folk and Other Stories_]
1908 _A Set of Six_
1912 _’Twixt Land and Sea_
1916 _Within the Tides_
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL:
1906 _The Mirror of the Sea: Memories and Impressions_
1912 _A Personal Record_ [published in England as
_Some Reminiscences_]
CRITICAL:
1921 _Notes on Life and Letters_
Sources on Joseph Conrad
_Joseph Conrad: His Romantic-Realism_, by RUTH M. STAUFFER (Boston:
Four Seas Company, 1922). This study of Conrad is of first importance
because of its thirty pages of appendices, consisting of:
I. Conrad Bibliographies
II. Conrad’s Works
(A) Chronological List of Novels and Tales (with Original Editions)
(B) Alphabetical List of Short Stories
(C) Miscellaneous Writings by Conrad
III. Criticisms of Conrad
(A) Books on Conrad. With a paragraph of characterisation of each.
(B) Articles About Conrad. With notes as to the character of each
article. There is given a “first,” a “second” and a “third” list,
according to the estimate of an article’s value.
IV. Book Reviews. Described as a “partial list only,” but recording
fully 200 reviews in principal English and American magazines and
newspapers.
V. Miscellaneous
(A) Brief Articles on the Personality of Conrad
(B) Poems to Conrad
(C) A list of Portraits of Conrad
All of Conrad’s short stories are credited to their respective
volumes, serial publication is invariably noted, etc.
_Joseph Conrad--The Man_, by Elbridge L. Adams, in THE OUTLOOK for 18
April, 1923. One of the most complete accounts of a visit and report
of the everyday Conrad.
The chapter on Joseph Conrad, by Leland Hall, in _English Literature
During the Last Half Century_, by JOHN W. CUNLIFFE. The Macmillan
Company, revised edition, 1923.
_Some Modern Novelists_, by HELEN THOMAS FOLLETT and WILSON FOLLETT.
Henry Holt & Company, 1918.
_Joseph Conrad, A Study_, by RICHARD CURLE. Doubleday, Page & Company,
1914.
Private Information.
The reader may consult the references available in the New York Public
Library or the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C, and should also
consult the annual READER’S GUIDE TO PERIODICAL LITERATURE especially
since 1914. He should also consult the map showing the locations of
Conrad’s stories, printed as an end-paper in some editions of his
books, particularly _Victory_.
_5. The Documents in the Case of Arthur Train_
i
The first and most important is a volume of over two hundred
pages--very large pages, somewhat larger, in fact, than those of
Cosmopolitan magazine, a trifle smaller than those of Vanity Fair.
The volume is bound in heavy yellow paper which says, in neat letters
at the upper left, “Indictment No. 1.” Inside the cover is a long
table of contents; the printed pages that follow are made either
more enlightening or more alarming, according to your variety of
intelligence, by the presence of charts and diagrams. One such, when
unfolded, shows green, red and black inks. The purpose is to make
it easier for the eye to trace the intricate handlings of certain
considerable sums of money....
This mysterious book, possessed of no title-page and honouring no
one as its author, represents the capacity of Arthur Train for hard
work. In 1914 Henry Siegel, a New York merchant and banker, was to
be prosecuted, and Arthur Train was entrusted with the prosecution.
Counsel for Siegel secured a change of venue and the trial was
transferred to Geneseo, New York. The case for the prosecution, in
its mathematical and extremely complicated demonstration, seemed only
too likely to be lost before a jury of farmers completely unfamiliar
with Mr. Siegel’s affairs. Mr. Siegel was in banking companies,
merchandising corporations, realty corporations, a securities company,
an express company and other enterprises. It was quite necessary to
explore the labyrinth; something like $50,000 was expended by Arthur
Train, the explorer, and the printed and bound book, _Indictment No.
1_, was a mere preliminary to the battle in court.
In 1914 Arthur Train was already the author of quite a number of books
of fiction. In a general way, they represented pleasant recreation.
ii
Other documents are these books and stories of his, the work of
leisure intervals and an active imagination. Some of them were done by
dictation, dictation interrupted by telephone calls, by days in court,
by this or that or the other. He acquired the faculty of dropping and
picking up again in the middle of a chapter, a paragraph, a sentence.
He didn’t worry over the stuff; he didn’t fuss about it, as some men
do about their golf, when they’re off their game. The business of life
was transacted in the gloomy chambers of the Criminal Courts Building,
New York, where the air is bad, the light poor, but the saturation
with human nature, perfect. To prepare a case was rather frequently
interesting, to try a case was scarcely ever without its thrill. And
the cases, despite the common misconception of them, were not assorted
East Side vendettas or Chinatown murders. A large percentage of them
were always on that shadowy borderline where a District Attorney
must stop and ask himself if a crime has been committed, if, after
all, the remedy is not to be sought in an action brought in the civil
courts. And every little while there would be a case of proportions,
of an almost inscrutable complexity, like that which led to the
publication (in a strictly limited edition with a deluxity of coloured
inks) of _Indictment No. 1_.
[Illustration: ARTHUR TRAIN]
Arthur Train is the most agreeable of men, not tall, suave, exceedingly
friendly, a good talker and with all the requisite human approaches
and contacts, but if you really wish to make yourself tiresome to him
you can do it by suggesting that he is a “criminal lawyer.” Now there
have been and are among “criminal lawyers” many men of eminence. The
defence of persons accused of crime is possibly that branch of the
law in which talent or genius shows most conspicuously. As a matter
of fact, however, the most ingenious brains of the legal profession
have preferred, for a generation past, to remain in offices and nurse
the young and growing corporation or correct the adult corporation’s
errors in diet and underwear. Corporation law is the thing in our day
and there is some very good evidence that Arthur Train is an excellent
corporation lawyer.
What about the evidence that he is a novelist? Your Honours, I am
coming to that directly.
iii
The document now to our purpose is his latest novel, _His Children’s
Children_. It represents Mr. Train’s most serious work to date. To
give it its proper background of purpose, I should like to make a
literary comparison. My trouble is that any sort of literary comparison
seems to be extended too far. If I compare one novel with another the
impression arises that I am comparing them in every respect. I compare
two books, and it is assumed that I am comparing the two authors.
Perhaps the two books have a single resemblance and the authors
both have blue eyes. Very well, then! I was about to speak of John
Galsworthy’s work in _The Forsyte Saga_.
That history of a family is discussed elsewhere in this book. My
present point is that it is the history of an English family whose main
inheritance was the property instinct, a blending of acquisitiveness
and tenaciousness, “to have and to hold.” Mr. Train’s _His Children’s
Children_ is the history of an American family whose main inheritance
was a most characteristically American one, the wish to “get on.”
Tenacity was strong in the Forsytes, it is undeveloped in the Kaynes. A
Forsyte has not much to acquire, but a Kayne is always two up and three
to play; the effort to acquire is his breath and he is somehow always
afflicted with the feeling of short-windedness. Each in his quite
distinctive way, these two novelists have concerned themselves with the
situation arising from an age of materialism--the age that culminated
in the Great War. I choose my words. I do not say that the Great War
was a product of a materialistic age, though there is a brief for that
and I think quite possibly Mr. Train would consent to argue it. But the
Great War did come in our age of a materialistic civilisation, and,
if not at the end of it, nearer to the end than to the beginning. When
did our materialistic age begin? At the end of Mrs. Wharton’s _Age of
Innocence_, of course.
Mr. Train’s motif is the dominant characteristic of an age we all lived
in, and what that characteristic led to. He writes, of course, about
old Peter B. Kayne, “The Pirate,” and his children and grandchildren;
these are the little group of people in the immediate foreground.
They are the larger world in little, people who set the fashion
and make the pace, watched and aped by thousands. Their ambitions,
their discontents, their achievements in every direction, including
sensation, scandal and disgrace are the best commentary on--themselves
as individuals? Not at all; on certain forces and tendencies more
powerful than they.
So considered, _His Children’s Children_ is a perfectly documented
study of the third generation since the beginning of the era of “big
business” in America. To the Forsytes the termination came with a sign,
“To Let.” With us it has more frequently come with some such scene as
that closing Mr. Train’s able novel; I mean old Peter B. Kayne, ill and
helpless upstairs, and the auctioneer at his stand below. To the once
redoubtable Pirate comes the sound of a rising murmur from down there;
he manages to get up and struggle feebly to a place where he can look
upon the alien affair going on in the house--in his, Peter B. Kayne’s,
house. The auctioneer’s voice is lifted above the rest, in a louder
smoothness, in an accent of barter; ambitions and ideals, so far as
realised, are here knocked down to the highest bidder. What price are
we offered on certain tangible results of a desire to get on? To the
highest bidder.... Perhaps, after all, Peter B. Kayne’s was the high
bid.
iv
A “documented” study; I chose my word there, also. For an immense
amount of work went into _His Children’s Children_. You may take my
word for it, as much as went into the authorship of _Indictment No.
1_. Or, no, you need not take my word. Take a fact, instead. Mr.
Train is now at work upon a very remarkable novel of which it is
not my privilege to speak here except to say that its first chapter
exemplifies his infinitely painstaking method to-day. In common with a
very few other novelists, he likes to derive clearly through several
antecedent generations his principal characters. His writing undergoes
many corrections but in his first draft he gives himself full rein. In
the novel that is to follow _His Children’s Children_, he spent much
time on the first chapter. By a “cut-back” he traced his hero’s family
from about the year 1790 to the opening of the story, in the present.
This, mind you, was with the deliberate intention that the first
chapter should ultimately be of not much, if any, more than ordinary
chapter length--perhaps thirty typewritten pages.
Well, he knew he had written a good deal, but the first chapter,
first draft, was written and he sent it to be typed. The manuscript
had been returned to him on a day when I called; it made exactly 184
typewritten pages--about half the length of an ordinary full-length
novel, maybe somewhat more.
v
Arthur (Cheney) Train was born in Boston, 6 September 1875, the son
of Charles Russell Train and Sarah M. (Cheney) Train. His father
was Attorney-General of Massachusetts, 1873-1880. Arthur Train was
graduated from Harvard (A.B.) in 1896 and received the law degree three
years later. In 1897 he married Ethel Kissam, daughter of Benjamin P.
Kissam, of New York. Mrs. Train, also a writer, died in the spring of
1923. Her book, _“Son” and Other Stories of Childhood and Age_ is being
published posthumously.
Arthur Train went almost immediately into the District Attorney’s
office in New York. He never entirely sacrificed his connection with it
until 1916, when he became a member of the firm of Perkins & Train. As
a special deputy Attorney-General of the State of New York, in 1910,
he brought about the indictment of over one hundred persons, political
offenders in Queens County, in the city of New York. He is a member
of the Century, University and Harvard Clubs of New York, and of the
Downtown Association. In his attractive home, at 113 East Seventy-third
street, New York, there is a room, up one flight, occupying the
whole width of the front of the house, with southerly windows,
book-lined walls, an ample desk, and a roomy davenport confronting a
fireplace. The fireplace is fenced about and the top of the fence is
leather-cushioned, making a comfortable seat. Nothing could be more
pleasant than to sink into the davenport and face Mr. Train, who has
seated himself on the fireplace fence and lighted a cigarette.
“But don’t you mind the interruptions?” you ask him. “Suppose you are
in the middle of a novel and a big case comes along----”
“That’s very refreshing,” he answers. “I come back to the novel as from
a vacation.”
And you recall the early writing, done, so to speak, between telephone
calls.
There _has_ been a change; Mr. Train freely acknowledges it. “I can’t
say exactly when it occurred. It was during the war. I felt differently
about my writing. I felt much more intent about it. It took hold of
me very strongly when I was writing about Ephraim Tutt--_Tutt and Mr.
Tutt_, you know. I think those were possibly the first stories I had
written which made me feel emotion.”
It is easy to see why, easier, perhaps, in Mr. Train’s new collection
of these tales, _Tut, Tut! Mr. Tutt_, than in the first book. For the
emphasis upon Ephraim Tutt’s attitude is more pronounced as we see
him deliberately employing the tricks of the law in the interests of
justice. Himself moved by that most permanent of human emotions, the
desire for the just, and by that most continual of human delights, the
extraction of good from evil or even good wreaked by means of evil, and
moved also by that human protest against the application of general
rules to individual dilemmas, Mr. Tutt would be strange if he did not
arouse in his creator the emotion inseparable from any act of art.
Once felt, never without. The practise of law seems less important
than once it did to Arthur Train. The number of cases that really are
interesting--are they growing fewer? There is something about private
practise ... duller than the old court work, less stimulating....
He has “an infinite capacity for taking pains.” It has been proven.
There, I think, our case rests.
Books by Arthur Train
1905 _McAllister and His Double_
1906 _The Prisoner at the Bar_
1908 _True Stories of Crime_
1909 _The Butler’s Story_
1909 _Mortmain_
1909 _Confessions of Artemas Quibble_
1910 _C. Q., or In the Wireless House_
1911 _Courts, Criminals and the Camorra_
1914 _The “Goldfish.”_ This book, published
anonymously, caused a sensation by its
satirisation of American social life
1915 _The Man Who Rocked the Earth_ (with
ROBERT WILLIAMS WOOD)
1917 _The World and Thomas Kelly_
1918 _The Earthquake_
1920 _Tutt and Mr. Tutt_
1921 _By Advice of Counsel_
1921 _The Hermit of Turkey Hollow_
1923 _His Children’s Children_
1923 _Tut, Tut! Mr. Tutt_
_6. The Lady of a Tradition, Miss Sackville-West_
i
There are two sides from which you may first profitably look at the
house. One is from the park, the north side. From here the pile shows
best the vastness of its size; it looks like a mediæval village. It
is heaped with no attempt at symmetry; it is sombre and frowning; the
grey towers rise; the battlements cut out their square regularity
against the sky; the buttresses of the old twelfth-century tithe-barn
give a rough impression of fortifications. There is a line of trees
in one of the inner courtyards, and their green heads show above the
roofs of the old breweries; but although they are actually trees of a
considerable size they are dwarfed and unnoticeable against the mass
of the buildings blocked behind them. The whole pile soars to a peak
which is the clock-tower with its pointed roof; it might be the spire
of the church on the summit of the hill crowning the mediæval village.
At sunset I have seen the silhouette of the great building stand dead
black on a red sky; on moonlight nights it stands black and silent,
with glinting windows, like an enchanted castle. On misty autumn nights
I have seen it emerging partially from the trails of vapour, and
heard the lonely roar of the red deer roaming under the walls.”
[Illustration: V. SACKVILLE-WEST]
Such is the opening page of V. Sackville-West’s volume, _Knole and the
Sackvilles_, a handsomely printed and illustrated account of the seat
of the Earls and Dukes of Dorset. Authentic record of the family goes
not beyond that Herbrand de Sackville who came to England with William
the Conqueror. Knole, bought by Archbishop Bourchier in 1456, and held
by Cardinal Morton, Cranmer, Henry VIII., Edward VI., Queen Mary and
Elizabeth, was granted, in 1586 by Elizabeth, to Thomas Sackville,
Lord Buckhurst, first Earl of Dorset. The name “West” enters with the
marriage of Lady Elizabeth Sackville, sister of the fourth Duke, to
John West, Earl de la Warr.
The house, of seven courts to correspond with the days of the week,
fifty-two staircases matching the weeks of the year and 365 rooms
answering to the days of the year[1] “is gentle and venerable. It has
the deep inward gaiety of some very old woman who has always been
beautiful, who has had many lovers and seen many generations come
and go, smiled wisely over their sorrows and their joys, and learnt
an imperishable secret of tolerance and humour. It is, above all, an
English house.” The garden side is the gay, the princely side. When,
in summer, the great oak doors of the second gatehouse were left open,
“it has sometimes happened that I have found a stag in the banqueting
hall, puzzled but still dignified, strayed in from the park since no
barrier checked him.”
[1] “I cannot truthfully say,” writes Miss Sackville-West in _Knole and
the Sackvilles_, “that I have ever verified these counts, and it may be
that their accuracy is accepted solely on the strength of the legend;
but, if this is so, then it has been a very persistent legend, and I
prefer to sympathise with the amusement of the ultimate architect on
making the discovery that by a judicious juggling with his additions he
could bring courts, stairs and rooms up to that satisfactory total.”
ii
In 1825 the duchess Arabella Diana died and her estate devolved upon
her two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth. Elizabeth, as has been told,
became the wife of Lord de la Warr. Dying in 1870 she left Buckhurst
to her elder sons and Knole to her younger sons, one of whom was Miss
Sackville-West’s grandfather. He was eighty and she perhaps eight,
and as he shared “the family failing of unsociability” it fell to the
child’s lot to show the house to visitors. In this, as in more natural
ways, she became highly familiar with Knole and from her earliest years
must have loved the place. On receipt of a telegram that people were
coming, Grandpapa would take the next train for London, “returning
in the evening when the coast was clear.” The Cartoon Gallery, the
Leicester Gallery, the Brown Gallery; Lady Betty Germaine’s bedchamber;
the three principal bedrooms, the Spangled Room, the Venetian
Ambassador’s and the King’s chamber, “the only vulgar room in the
house” with furniture made entirely in silver and articles of silver,
“even to a little eye-bath”--the procession of the days and years was
not more certain than the procession of the curious, the inquisitive
and the wonder-struck through these. You will fashion your own picture
of the daughter of the Sackvilles standing before the portrait of
Lady Margaret Sackville (over the fireplace in Lady Betty Germaine’s
sitting room) and endeavouring, quite vainly, to do her own hair in the
elaborate manner of young Lady Margaret’s. Or, it may be, she had been
naughty that day, and had hid herself inside the pulpit of the Chapel
of the Archbishops, where, in spite of private steps leading out of her
bedroom straight into the Family Pew, “they never found me.” Grandpapa
was “a queer and silent old man,” as Miss Sackville-West remembers him.
“He knew nothing whatever about the works of art in the house; he spent
hours gazing at the flowers, followed about the garden by two grave
demoiselle cranes.... He and I, who so often shared the house alone
between us, were companions in a shy and undemonstrative way. Although
he had nothing to say to his unfortunate guests, he could understand
a child.... When we were at Knole alone together I used to go down to
his sitting-room in the evening to play draughts with him--and never
knew whether I played to please him, or he played to please me--and
sometimes, very rarely, he told me stories of when he was a small boy,
and played with the rocking-horse, and of the journeys by coach with
his father and mother from Buckhurst to Knole or from Knole to London;
of their taking the silver with them under the seat; of their having
outriders with pistols; and of his father and mother never addressing
each other, in their children’s presence, as anything but ‘my Lord’ and
‘my Lady.’ I clasped my knees and stared at him when he told me these
stories of an age which already seemed so remote, and his pale blue
eyes gazed away into the past, and suddenly his shyness would return to
him and the clock in the corner would begin to wheeze in preparation to
striking the hour, and he would say that it was time for me to go to
bed....”
iii
At the age of thirteen Miss Sackville-West wrote “an enormous novel”
about the figure of Edward Sackville, fourth Earl of Dorset, who seemed
to her the embodiment of Cavalier romance. And perhaps he was. “He had
the advantage of starting with the Vandyck portrait in the hall, the
flame-coloured doublet, the blue Garter, the characteristic swaggering
attitude, the sword, the love-locks, the key of office painted dangling
from his hip and the actual key dangling on a ribbon from the frame of
the picture.” The dashing career of this follower of King Charles, who
fought a duel with Lord Bruce and whose younger son was murdered by the
Roundheads, became “a source of rich romance to a youthful imagination
nourished on _Cyrano_ and _The Three Musketeers_.” The half-grown
girl re-examined certain old nail-studded trunks in the attics, mute
witnesses to Cromwellian violence, some of them curved to fit the roof
of a barouche. “The battered trunks were stacked near the entrance to
the hiding-place, which, without the smallest justification save an
old candlestick and a rope-ladder found therein, I peopled with the
fugitive figures of priests and Royalists. I peeped into the trunks:
they contained only a dusty jumble of broken ironwork, some old books,
some bits of hairy plaster fallen from the ceiling, some numbers of
Punch for 1850. Nevertheless, there were the gaping holes where the
locks had been prised off the trunks, and the lid forced back upon
the hinges by an impatient hand. Down in the Poets’ Parlour, where I
lunched with my grandfather, taciturn unless he happened to crack one
of his little stock-in-trade of jokes, Cromwell’s soldiers had held
their Court of Sequestration. The Guard Room was empty of arms or
armour, save for a few pikes and halberds, because Cromwell’s soldiers
had taken all the armour away. The past mingled with the present in
constant reminder; and out in the summer-house, after luncheon, with
the bees blundering among the flowers of the Sunk Garden and the
dragon-flies flashing over the pond, I returned to the immense ledger
in which I was writing my novel, while Grandpapa retired to his little
sitting-room and whittled paper-knives from the lids of cigar-boxes,
and thought about--Heaven knows what _he_ thought about.”
iv
Miss Sackville-West is writing of Knole, of course, in her long story
called _The Heir_. The manor of Blackboys with its peacocks is not
Knole; I suppose no one makes the mistake of literal identification
of people and places in fiction; at least, none should do so. What is
truly identifiable is never anything tangible at all; it is merely
an emotion. When we read _The Heir_, subtitled “A Love Story,” and
acquaint ourselves in a leisurely sufficience with the fellow Chase we
should be stupid indeed if we grasped at the substance and neglected
the shadow. It is shadow and its correspondent sunlight for which,
after all, mankind lives a life wherein the things of substance are the
final unreality....
But her first book, which was brought to the attention of the American
publisher by Hugh Walpole, was a novel called _Heritage_, an unusual
story of young lovers. The breath of distinction upon the tale more
than redeemed its faults of construction, of which, perhaps, after all,
the most serious was merely the device of a letter immensely longer
than any epistle probable to be written. Then, in point of publication,
at least, came _The Dragon in Shallow Waters_, also a novel. Some two
years elapsed before the appearance of her third novel, _Challenge_, a
piece of work of such a character as to demand our earnest scrutiny.
_Challenge_ is being followed by _Grey Wethers_ and _The Heir_.
I have been speaking of American publication; in England Miss
Sackville-West first came to notice as a poet. Her _Poems of West and
East_ was followed by another collection called _Orchard and Vineyard_.
Her work in verse exhibited austerity of expression joined to an
emotional and descriptive power difficult to appraise. Although it may
be, as has been said, that the chief use of poetry, written when one is
young, is to produce a finer prose when one is older.
Of _The Heir_ it is best to say little since a few betraying words
can so easily spoil its secret for the reader. In the same volume
appear _The Christmas Party_, _Patience_, _Her Son_ and _The Parrot_,
a vignette dedicated to “H. G. N.” All the qualities present in _The
Heir_ may be found in the other tales, so varyingly shorter--delicacy,
precision, dramatic power and a perception of beauty translated almost
without the use of a single emotional word. In _The Christmas Party_ we
have the deferred revenge of a woman, a theatrical costumer, upon her
strait-minded family; _Patience_ is an elderly man’s recollection, in
perfectly domesticated surroundings, of his youthful affair; _Her Son_
is the inevitable cruelty inflicted upon a mother by the passage of the
years; the story of _The Parrot_ points to the only escape from the ...
cage.
The “H. G. N.” of its dedication is the Honourable Harold G. Nicolson.
Except as an author, the lady of Knole is no longer Victoria
Sackville-West but the Honourable Mrs. Harold G. Nicolson.
v
_Challenge_, a novel that may instructively be compared with Joseph
Conrad’s _Nostromo_, had the curious fortune to be published first in
America and--what is more remarkable--only in America. It might seem
altogether extraordinary that one of the most noteworthy novels by
an Englishwoman in years should not only not be published first in
England but should not be published there at all. It might seem very
extraordinary; and it is. The circumstances were perhaps without a
precedent and, it may be hoped, will be without a duplication. In
1920 an English publisher had accepted _Challenge_ and prepared it for
issuance. That is to say, type had been set, plates had been cast,
the sheets of the novel had been printed, folded and sewed. Nothing
remained but to encase them in cloth--a matter of a week, usually--when
the book would be ready to go on sale. It was the eleventh hour; 11.59
to be precise. Then fate intervened.
It transpired (or was allowed to transpire) that Miss Sackville-West
had written her novel about an actual family, portraying that family in
general and possibly in particular. The family was part of her own, or
shall we say, connected with her own; and it was not without influence.
This influence was immediately exerted to secure the suppression of
_Challenge_. How far the influence succeeded, by virtue of its own
force and considerations, and how far it was aided by the peculiarity
of the English libel law, which recognises technical libel, I am
unable to say; but succeed it did. _Challenge_ remained unbound and
the English house either put it down as a loss or, with a sanguineness
born of much publishing experience, carried it in its inventory. There
were all those folded and sewed sheets constituting a very fair-sized
edition, as English editions go, packed away in some sufficiently dry
place. At Knole and in Cornwall and it may be in other places Miss
Sackville-West continued writing.
Probably the only challenge to the suppressors of the novel in England
lay in the single figurative word of the title. Miss Sackville-West
could be said to be writing of the actual family only in the same
sense that we can say, in alluding to the manor of Blackboys in _The
Heir_, that she writes of Knole. Some South American republic, indeed,
any South American republic, would be equally justified in beginning
suit for libel against Conrad for the picture of Costaguana in
_Nostromo_--could a court be discovered in which such a suit would be
justiciable? It is charitable to suppose that the suppressors beheld
themselves mirrored in the pages of _Challenge_ because they were
victims of a narcism complex. However, the interesting disabilities
of these people were of no serious importance on this side of the
Atlantic; Miss Sackville-West had done no work of such importance
as the unborn _Challenge_; and after all those unbound sheets had
lain untouched for two years or longer the day came when an American
publisher took the whole lot, together with the plates to enable him to
print more, and _Challenge_ saw the light in the United States early in
1923.
It is still unpublishable in England and seems destined indefinitely to
remain so. Not indignation nor ridicule is likely to alter this state
of affairs, since the prototypes of Miss Sackville-West’s Davenants
must be conceived of as resembling Galsworthy’s Forsytes in one
respect: They are almost certainly impervious to the wrath or derision
of any except their own kind, and this will hardly be forthcoming.
_Challenge_, admirable in its technique, begins with an epilogue,
giving us through the eyes of disinterested bystanders a glimpse of
Julian Davenant many years afterward. We see him with his wife at a
great affair in London. He has power, wealth, distinction; and his wife
is perfectly equipped for her rôle. Many people expect that Davenant
will be the next Viceroy; he has already been in the Cabinet. A cynical
man, who believes in nothing--and a philanthropist, really. His face,
or his eyes, give one the impression that he has “learnt all the sorrow
of the world”; they are inexpressibly weary. And the two onlookers, a
man and a woman, recall that there was some “crazy adventure” in Julian
Davenant’s youth. “Very romantic, but we all start by being romantic
until we have outgrown it.”
The three parts which follow narrate in a strictly chronological
order the details of that “crazy adventure.” Julian Davenant was
the young son of a house of English Levantines, that is to say, an
English family established for several generations in the Levant and
possessing, at the time of the story, besides much land, the site of
valuable vineyards, prestige and influence and political power. It will
be recalled that the Goulds of Costaguana in _Nostromo_ constituted
a similar clan. Such English exoterics (not to say exotics) are only
moderately rare. It is not proper to speak of them as hybrids, since in
their marriages they are careful to avoid a non-English admixture and
their sons are invariably sent to England for their education. Without
in any essential degree sacrificing a single one of those peculiarly
tenacious English traits of character and without any alteration of the
English habit of thought, they are in most other matters assimilated to
the country of their holdings. They come to understand it, its ways,
its habit of thought and policy of conduct and instinct of behaviour
with a completeness that amounts to perfection and reposes, as a rule
and deep down, on a sincere distaste. They are really marvellous,
whether Goulds in South America or Davenants in Greece. And their young
men....
In any comparison of _Nostromo_ and _Challenge_ it will be found that
the most obvious likenesses are purely superficial. In _Nostromo_
we have the son, Charles Gould, determined to avenge, by a patient
commercialism and a silent political sagacity, the fate of his Uncle
Harry and the killing worry of his father; the instrumentality to his
hand is the silver of the mine. In _Challenge_ young Julian Davenant is
the victim of the romantic impulse which causes him to respond, at any
cost, to the patriotic appeal of the Islands lying off the coast and
unwillingly a part of the tiny republic of Herakleion. The girl, Eve,
and the woman, Kato, a native of the Islands and a famous singer, are
the personal contending forces in the struggle over Julian Davenant.
Eve is Julian’s cousin. In the developing story of her love for Julian,
in its culminating struggle and final disaster a precise comparison
with _Nostromo_--even in respect of the tragedy that befell Linda
Viola--is a waste of our attention.
vi
What may profitably be compared in Mr. Conrad’s acknowledged
masterpiece and Miss Sackville-West’s dramatic novel is the identity
of method and art. I say “identity” without any hesitation, for in
both cases I think the artist has achieved a proportionately impressive
and living and beautiful result. As to method, the reader will observe
for himself that either novel might have been written by either
author. In each case the actual knowledge of a totally foreign country
is perhaps the same, and in neither case is it very great or very
important. Again, in each case, the imaginative creation is on a plane
so much above the level attained in other (and very excellent) novels
that the book must definitely be set in a class apart. One accounts
for the intense imaginative insight of _The Old Wives’ Tale_ and _My
Antonia_ (to choose two especially fine examples) by saying that,
after all, both Arnold Bennett and Willa Cather had the immeasurable
aid of childhood’s unblunted perceptiveness; and in so partially
accounting for the sheer fact, one does quite rightly. But neither
memory nor the deepest well of sympathy serves to explain _Nostromo_
and _Challenge_; in these two novels the imagination had to create
something _de novo_ and actively body it forth; memories, hearsay,
would be an actual interference and the existence of an outer world a
positive interruption. They are both novels of a perfectly valid idea
recreated in terms of the subconscious personality. If that is too
cloudy an explanation I will ask you to think of the subconscious mind
as a happily benevolent oyster, of the germ-idea as an infinitesimal
particle of irritant sand, and of the accomplished story as the
resulting pearl. It is as near as I can come to conveying what I mean
... and know to be at least subjectively true.
Abandoning this difficult region and ascending to the surface on which
most art and literary method lies, the comparison becomes so easy that
one feels superfluous in making it. Have we not the same complexity of
persons presented in an intimate relation to each other and composing
a little world, complete socially, politically and in their attitudes;
so that we can perfectly conceive them in any set of circumstances?
Have we not also an atmosphere resulting from a multitude of impalpable
small touches? Is not the effect in each case more exact than any
impression to be derived from personal familiarity with either South
America or Greece? Is not the same impersonal viewpoint present?
the same astringent humour in evidence in its application to the
incongruities of the life presented? In both cases the avoidance of
any expression of emotion, the final austerity of the highest art,
exercises an effect out of all predictable proportion on the emotions
of the reader. He is led to feel amusement, ridicule, sympathy,
indignation, dismay, horror and grief; because never is it intimated to
him that it is his duty to feel any of these things.
vii
The new novel, _Grey Wethers_, taking its name from those ancient
sacrificial stones of the Druids which are the symbols of the story,
traces back in substance to Miss Sackville-West’s _Heritage_, but
is free from the faults of construction which made her first novel
so unsatisfactory. The fineness of her hand upon this more familiar
material is the delicate reward for her incessant painstaking. She is
not a person to rest satisfied, but an artist. An artist....
“What was the promise of that mediocre ease beside the certainty of
these exquisite privations?” So Chase questioned himself, in Miss
Sackville-West’s story of _The Heir_. “What was that drudgery beside
this beauty, this pride, this Quixotism?” There is only one answer. If
you would be an artist you do not even bother with the answer. But your
heart leaps.
Books by V. Sackville-West
_Poems of West and East_ [in England]
1921 _Orchard and Vineyard_ [in England]
1918 _Heritage_
1920 _The Dragon in Shallow Waters_
1923 _Knole and the Sackvilles_
1923 _Challenge_ [withdrawn in England prior to publication, 1920]
1923 _Grey Wethers_
1924 _The Heir and Other Stories_
Sources on V. Sackville-West
_Knole and the Sackvilles_, generally, and also pages 11, 17, 68, 82,
83, 219 and 220
_Who’s Who_ [in England]
Private Information
7. _Harold Bell Wright_
i
From _Who’s Who in America_, 1922-1923 (Volume 12):
“WRIGHT, HAROLD BELL, author: born, Rome, Oneida County, New York, May
4, 1872; son, William A. Wright and Alma T. (Watson) Wright; student
two years, preparatory department, Hiram College, Ohio; married,
Frances E. Long, of Buffalo, New York, July 18, 1899; married, second,
Mrs. Winifred Mary Potter Duncan, of Los Angeles, California, August
5, 1920. Painter and decorator, 1887-92; landscape painter, 1892-7;
pastor, Christian (Disciples) Church, Pierce City, Missouri, 1897-8,
Pittsburg, Kansas, 1898-1903, Forest Avenue Church, Kansas City,
Missouri, 1903-5, Lebanon, Missouri, 1905-7, Redlands, California,
1907-8; retired from ministry, 1908. Author: _That Printer of Udell’s_,
1903; _The Shepherd of the Hills_, 1907; _The Calling of Dan Matthews_,
1909; _The Uncrowned King_, 1910; _The Winning of Barbara Worth_, 1911;
_Their Yesterdays_, 1912; _The Eyes of the World_, 1914; _When A Man’s
a Man_, 1916; _The Re-Creation of Brian Kent_, 1919; _Helen of the Old
House_, 1921. Home: Tucson, Arizona.”
Such is the outline derived by the compilers of an invaluable work of
reference whose method is to ask of the individual certain standard
questions which he may answer in his discretion and which he may
supplement--in the editor’s discretion--by further information about
himself. The latitude allowed in such a work as _Who’s Who in America_,
is necessarily rather small; it would, however, have permitted Mr.
Wright to say that the sales of his fiction exceed those of any
other living American writer--perhaps those of any other living
writer anywhere. He did not say it. The impression given by the words
“landscape painter” may be misleading, for Mr. Wright at that time
made his living by sign painting and house painting; but also he made
sketches and water colors which he sold as he went along. Let this tiny
matter be as a warning that, on his own terms and in his own fashion of
speech, Harold Bell Wright is to be taken literally.
[Illustration: HAROLD BELL WRIGHT]
Always! Is there metaphor in his writing? Was there metaphor in
_Pilgrim’s Progress_? Are there parables in the Bible? Do sermons
contain allegories? We know that allegories embody sermons. Mr. Wright
has never concealed the purpose behind his novels, stories. It is to
say plainly some word that he believes will be of help, if uttered, to
men and women. In his strange personal history lies the seed of a novel
more absorbing, if less credible, than any he has written. The poor
boy, the boy left motherless at ten, the man out of work, the man with
an empty stomach and no means of filling it, the man who has been told
that “the rock pile was intended for fellows like you!”--and through
it all the sleazy thread of ill-health, down-right sickness, and the
bright scarlet stain of disease.... Two years at a little college,
cut short by illness; two years financed by hard work and ground down
in disappointment. Then the haphazard wandering, the tramping afoot
outdoors, the small painting jobs, the inability to find work at times,
the hardships of climate--and at last he finds himself in the Ozark
Mountains looking for ... what? For the chance to live, first of all.
It was there that he preached his first sermon, and there he found a
background and a setting for some of the stories he was eventually to
write. They were very far off, then, those stories, below the horizon,
out of sight as were so many other things that were to dawn on his life
when he should be thirty.
ii
In any consideration of Harold Bell Wright as an author, the usual
approaches are of no value, and not only of no value but so without
meaning as to be absurd. Almost he raises the fundamental question:
What is an author, anyway? Of course the word does apply to all whose
writing achieves publication, especially as a book or books; and
perhaps it may be used of a person who remains unpublished. But, as
always, there is here a meaning within a meaning; the word generally
carries with it some suggestion of literary skill or a pretension
thereto--as “doctor” implies a medical training, or “lawyer” admission
to practise at the bar. However, Mr. Wright neither possesses any
literary skill nor ever pretended to have any, comparatively speaking.
He has more than once uttered an emphatic disclaimer, but like other
very popular writers his sensitiveness to adverse criticism is keen.
He is a moralist, a fabulist, a preacher of sermons, a Sayer, and an
Utterer. There is in the impoverished English language no word for his
rôle. The English language, so full of words for things that do not
exist, has none for this type of man who has always existed among the
English-speaking peoples though rather sparsely among other peoples.
When forced to recognise his existence as a power for evil in politics,
we borrow the word demagogue; if his activity is rather indefinitely
“religious,” we affix the word evangelist. There is a common factor
in John Bunyan, Theodore Roosevelt, James Whitcomb Riley, Harold Bell
Wright easily recognised in whatever field it operates. In the case
of Mr. Wright, it has been said that he appeals “to the thousands
upon thousands who crave to see their humble doings, their paper
fantasies exalted and made memorable in the bright guise of a seeming
romance.” Unfortunately for the success of this diagnosis, it is not
the great masses of mankind who are sentimental, but the minority who
have accustomed themselves to the contemplation of mankind in great
masses. If Mr. Roosevelt had addressed himself to the “thousands
upon thousands” he would have been almost without influence; and Mr.
Riley’s verses are most noteworthy for their intimate personal appeal.
Such a Sayer as Walt Whitman, speaking to men _en masse_, receives
from men small attention. One can neither speak, write, paint, carve
or build for the thousands; one must do it for the individual every
time. In a short study of Roosevelt some years ago the editor of the
Atlantic Monthly, Ellery Sedgwick, admirably indicated Roosevelt’s real
achievement, which was--not that he moulded national policies but that
he made the homegoing day labourer, sitting in a trolley car, his empty
lunch pail beside him, trace with a stubby forefinger in the evening
newspaper the simple precept for that day, whether a command against
race suicide or a “Don’t flinch! Don’t foul! Hit the line hard!” He who
would speak to many men and women must always address each one; he must
not make the mistake of appealing to a lowest common intelligence and
he must perfectly understand that what is called “sentimentality” is
not a weakness but a sign of health--pink thoughts like pink cheeks.
iii
“She stood before him in all the beautiful strength of her young
womanhood.”
“He was really a fine looking young man with the appearance of being
exceptionally well-bred and well-kept. Indeed the most casual of
observers would not have hesitated to pronounce him a thoroughbred and
a good individual of the best type that the race has produced....”
These sentences, from Wright’s novel, _The Winning of Barbara Worth_,
have been quoted with the comment that Wright himself is that casual
observer and that, to the more thoughtful, Abraham Lincoln, who “was
anything but a thoroughbred, anything but well-kept” is the best type
of individual that the race has produced. Mr. Wright could crushingly
reply that Lincoln was not a type; but the failure in perception goes
much deeper. The critic of the passage quoted must know very well that
the respect of mankind for appearances is well-founded. Appearances
can be arrived at and kept up, being thus one of the few things
definitely within our powers of accomplishment and control; for what
lies under the appearance may be beyond our power to make or change.
It is not instinct, or even reason, but a solid regard for fact that
prizes appearance. Further, in the affair in question, two subjects
for a possible mating, the usual man or woman is as unromantic and
unsentimental as possible in his or her satisfaction at the good looks
of hero and heroine. Those good looks and good manners are something
to go upon. Each has an asset with the other and there is some chance
for the children, if any. Only a dangerous sentimentalist would wish
the man to be a mongrel. Mr. Wright knows all this; so do we all of us;
why, then, is he called a sentimentalist?
Because, I suppose, an inveterate tradition of the minority brands
the majority as sentimental. Were they so, they could not live. The
majority, not being victims of self-delusion, go through life, eating,
sleeping, working and feeling. The capacity to feel has not in them
been weakened. They may be robbed of their cheeks’ pinkness, but it is
more difficult to take away the pinkness of their thoughts (the mere
mental accompaniments of their feelings). Indeed, it has so far proved
impossible to enslave them by any intellectual system, as they have
been enslaved by this or that economic system. If it were possible to
persuade these men and women that physical mongrelism should take the
place of Mr. Wright’s hero’s thoroughbreeding, the world would have
become sentimental with a vengeance likely to recoil on the heads of
those who wrought the persuasion. The French Revolution would be as
nothing to the new era then dawning.
In other words, the young man used to advertise linen collars (and Mr.
Wright, at the young man’s age, might easily have served as the model)
is the people’s proper hero. He represents, to a considerable extent,
something within the average power to become. No more suggestive
antithesis can be imagined than between a novel like _The Shepherd of
the Hills_ and such a work of fiction as Mr. Sinclair Lewis’s _Main
Street_, crammed with the things beyond the average power to alter. It
is the interesting inevitability of the visitor to humble homes in out
of the way American places to encounter, on the parlour table or its
equivalent, a Bible, a “gift” edition of Longfellow’s Poems, _The Wreck
of the “Titanic”_ (with complete horrors, last words of all on board,
and full text of “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” as played by the ship’s
band) and a copy of _The Shepherd of the Hills_, or, perhaps, _When a
Man’s a Man_. But _Main Street_? That, if it was ever in the house, has
gone the way of all wood pulp very quickly. For these people have none
of that difficulty experienced by the literary critic in distinguishing
books, and their applied canons are not matters of taste or sentiment
or intellectual theory, but principles of living as they are compelled
to practise them daily, personal and intimate, directed toward the
best appearance, unsentimental, unintellectual, individual, healthful,
sensibly ambitious, emotionally direct and ... free.
iv
Suppose, instead of audibly deploring Mr. Wright, and uttering in their
assaults upon him an unconscionable amount of twaddle, the literary
critics were to transform themselves into students of the popular
psychology. In such case they would see at once how the usual person
unsentimentally proceeds through life with the assistance of attainable
ideals. Of course, definitions of sentimentality may and do differ.
My idea here is simply that to espouse the shadowy ideal is to come
much more under the charge of being sentimental than to aspire to wear
the newest style of linen collar, or acquire good manners. I think at
once, too, of a writer whose best work meets the severe tests applied
by the critic of literature, Mr. Arnold Bennett. What is _The Old
Wives’ Tale_, what is _Clayhanger_, each a work of accepted art, but a
faithful transcription of the average person’s utter unsentimentality
and complete devotion to the attainable ideal? Mr. Bennett made
the same veracious observation as Mr. Wright makes; it is only the
presentation that is different--objective in the case of Bennett,
immersed in the case of Wright. For Bennett’s purpose literary art
is essential, for Wright’s, literary art is a handicap. Moreover, the
identification is unlike. The people Bennett writes about, with the
exception of Clayhanger, would not recognise themselves in his two
novels; the people of Mr. Wright, would. Why? Because Wright expresses
them in their own fractions--known to themselves. Bennett carries them
out to a decimal repetend--·142857142857142857 and so on, instead of
⅐, subscribed by Mr. Wright. Virtue, vice, greed, ambition, youth
and the like are the simple fractions in which Mr. Wright’s characters
are stated. Whatever realities these names represent, it had better
be realised that they are in themselves the simplest, most necessary
conventions. And as such, and as such only, has Wright used them.
His method of work was, I think, the innocent source of the general
misunderstanding surrounding him in the discussions of the minority. It
is well-known that before writing a novel he prepares a short argument,
as other writers prepare an outline or plot. “The system I use,” he
has explained, “may have been used for centuries, or it may be no
one else has ever used it. I have wondered whether it is old or new.
Whichever it may be, here it is: When I start to write a novel, the
first thing I do is to figure out why I am going to write it. Not what
is the story, but why? I mull this over a while, and when it is pretty
straight in my mind, I write out an argument. No suggestion of plot,
you see. No incidents, scenes, location, nothing done at first except
the argument, but it is the heart and soul of the novel. The novel
is merely this argument presented through the medium of characters,
plot, incidents, and the other properties of the story. Next come the
characters, each standing for some element or factor in the argument.
Up to the last copying of _The Eyes of the World_, not a character
had been named. They were called in the copy, Greed, Ambition, Youth,
or whatever they represented to me in the writing of the story.” This
simple explanation has been derided by asserting that “Mr. Wright seeks
to prove some abstract notion of his own concerning good and evil by
means of a picked assembly of human beings.” But how so? They are not
picked human beings at all, but like Bunyan’s characters, expressions
of the One. They prove nothing and are intended to prove nothing, being
merely expository, fabulous, moralistic, and the natural presentation
of no easy notion but some familiar fact--far from abstract! Take
_The Re-Creation of Brian Kent_, one of Wright’s least satisfactory
books to its author and to many readers and released by Wright with
great reluctance. An abstract notion is the last thing in the world
it touches upon; all is simple, vivid, commonplace, centred around
the actuality that, with another chance, many a man can set his life
straight.
If there is any shortcoming it arises from Wright’s personal
strength. The man who can do what he has done, persistently fighting
tuberculosis, risking public opinion in several matters and adhering
to his method in spite of a great change of personal attitude and a
personal revolution in ideas--that man is no weakling. It would be
interesting to survey the personal change in Mr. Wright but as it
nowhere extrudes in his work, there is no justification for an inquest.
But the very circumstance has its positive value in establishing him
for what he is not, namely, an artist. But there is another aspect of
Mr. Wright as phenomenon (not as person) and his success cannot be
understood without examining that aspect.
v
Wright’s boyhood, to the age of ten when he lost her, was focussed
about the personality of his mother. When she died he lost, if not
perhaps his only friend, his strongest. Before he could read she had
told him the Hiawatha legends, had read aloud to him the stories
of the Bible (the King James version), had retold Shakespeare for
him. Her death made him clutch to his heart these books, as well as
the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ and the portions of Ruskin they had read
and re-read together in the home--which, by the way, was really at
Wrightstown, just outside Rome, New York, though Wright’s birthplace is
spoken of as “Rome.” A feeling that these books of his mother’s were
as sacred books was fixed in the boy’s mind. Wright has never ceased
to read them, nor to try to pour himself into those molds; and in
conversation he sometimes lets slip a phrase from one of them. Without
literary aptitude and with a very ragged species of formal education,
he speaks in his extraordinary fashion and the millions hearken. So
much so that his success from the outset may be said to have entirely
reconstructed--for the purpose of merchandising his books--the retail
machinery of book-selling.
The author of _That Printer of Udell’s_ had the means of reaching
the folks in little villages and on isolated farms, people who could
scarcely be reached by any of the books ordinarily being published.
The very inadequate machinery of retail distribution serving the book
trade was insufficient for his purpose. It is insufficient for most
purposes, but its insufficiency in the case of Harold Bell Wright was
painful and intolerable. With the most remarkable courage, effort
and persistence the publishers constructed a new and complete retail
mechanism to serve the special need. Those who have no knowledge of
the problems of merchandising will be unable to appreciate what they
did. A few details are in order. First, the larger book publishers
in the United States seldom sell directly to retailers in cities of
less than 50,000; smaller publishers seldom enter cities of less than
100,000. The needs of bookstores in little cities and towns, mixed and
important only in the aggregate, are taken care of by jobbers. There
are possibly 1,000 first-rate bookstores to serve a nation of well over
100,000,000 people--of whom, however, some 20,000,000 are incapable of
ever reading a book of any importance in an understanding way. There
are cities of 50,000 in which no first-rate bookstore exists. On the
other hand a magazine like Pictorial Review, solidly established on the
demand for dress patterns, or a magazine like Saturday Evening Post,
promulgating fiction patterns, penetrates into places where no new book
is ever seen. So, too, do certain denominational religious papers.
And in vast areas of the Middle and Far West, there is a seepage from
those reservoirs of modern merchandising, the mail order houses, the
Roosevelt Dams of commerce, constantly seeking, more and more achieving
the reclamation of the deserts of trade.
The “producers,” in stage parlance, of Harold Bell Wright determined
to utilise all these channels. It was a great risk of judgment and
money at the outset but it succeeded. This is no place to go into the
history of a unique performance in merchandising but the results have
a distinct place in any record of the author exploited. For one thing,
it may be asked if the success with Wright is of value in selling other
authors, and while there can be no dogmatic answer to the question it
is probable that in most cases it is not. And another phase of the
results throws a significant light on the nature of Wright’s work,
confirming what we have said about the terms of his appeal to his
readers. When a Wright novel is published the orders pile in from
stores and places with which a publisher has ordinarily no contact; and
the order from a hamlet in North Carolina is likely to exceed the order
from Brentano’s in New York.
This means two things. It means, naturally, that with the heavy
campaigns of advertising in all sorts of periodicals from Saturday
Evening Post to Zion’s Herald, the publishers reach the people who
buy a book a year or less often. But also it means that Wright is
the moralist, the fabulist and the Sayer we have termed him. On the
technical side, perhaps the most instructive detail of this selling
performance is the way in which it is initiated. Six months before a
new Wright story is to be published, thousands of tradespeople all
over the United States know that the story is to be published, and
when, and with what enormous advertising placed in forty specified
periodicals and several dozen newspapers it will be “pushed”; and then
begins the steady succession of personal letters and even telegrams,
circulars and placards and posters, honest-minded persons in remote
settlements discuss with enthusiasm and awe the prodigious sum of
money to be expended on “just this one book, a _book_,” librarians
grow anxious and advertising men eager, preachers prepare sermons,
in thousands upon thousands of homes the Christmas gift to Mother is
pre-determined,--until at last, in a wide-rolling wave of excitement,
a vast surge of the people of simple faith and worthy ideals, the day
comes when the book is born....
vi
It has been said that Wright is of magnetic personality, with fine,
clean, inspiring ideals, a man of tireless endeavour, a person who
“stirs in one emotions of which one is not ashamed.” Also that “he
radiates a Lincolnian type of rugged honesty” ... and much more of the
same sort. All such lingo is meaningless outside the atmosphere of
Wright’s books. The language of those novels is not one of literary
conventions but of certain inalterable thought-conventions; and
so, necessarily, is language addressed to those who read Wright.
“She stood before him in all the beautiful strength of her young
womanhood.”... “It is his almost clairvoyant power of reading the
human soul that has made Mr. Wright’s books among the most remarkable
of the present age.” These two statements are demonstrably true to
the many whose minds, struck by such sentences, give back the ring of
silver. They are not true in themselves; but then, we know no things
that are. To be “true” is simply to signify enough, at a given time, in
particular circumstances, to some individual or individuals.
That truth Mr. Wright has had enormously, and still has. His newest
novel, _The Mine With the Iron Door_, although in no way an elaboration
of the traditional tale of that mine--it was supposed to be a wonder
mine, where the old Spanish Fathers got the gold that enriched their
splendid altars--weaves the old legend through its texture of incident.
This gives to the novel a colour beyond the colour it has from its
Arizona setting; but the point with Mr. Wright is something like this:
Every life has its “mine with the iron door,” its dreams that can
never come true, its hopes that belong to a past that is forever dead.
Nevertheless, he will have you believe, though the lost mine may never
be found nor the iron door opened, some riches of happiness is still
possible. Were it not for this element, this presentation of something
that at a given time and in particular circumstances can signify truth
to many, many people, Mr. Wright’s new novel would be no more than a
picturesque and exciting adventure narrative of the Arizona desert.
vii
Mr. Wright went to Tucson, Arizona, some ten years ago on a business
errand. Three days after reaching the city he had bought a cottage.
Now he owns eighty acres outside Tucson and has built a new home,
a comfortable but by no means pretentious house with a garden
transplanted from the neighbouring desert. The scale of living is
modest. Wright and his wife take care of the grounds and house, to
a large extent; and there is usually not more than one servant. Mr.
Wright has a motor car that he has driven for six years and will
continue to drive for some years yet. He is fond of horseback riding
and spends as much time camping as at home. Two or three tents, the
car, some tinned stuff and staples and plenty of ammunition are all Mr.
and Mrs. Wright need, for both are good marksmen. They shoot for food,
but Wright will not kill a deer.
The stories are frequently written, or largely written, on these
expeditions into the desert. Because he is not an artist, Wright has
a sadly difficult time. He will submit a story like _The Winning of
Barbara Worth_ to five engineers in order that they may check up
his account of the irrigation of the desert. A long time was spent
in worrisome “looking over the ground,” visiting factory towns,
interviewing employers and workmen, before _Helen of the Old House_
took even preliminary shape. As a rule, the incidents Wright uses are
transcribed from life, producing the effect of extreme incredibility
of which his readers sometimes complain. Being his readers, they are
silenced when he tells them of the actual occurrence.
Hildegarde Hawthorne has pointed out the very great and incontestable
service of Wright: He creates book readers. It requires very little
examination of the facts to discover that thousands whose reading has
been nothing but newspapers and magazines have been led by Wright’s
stories into the habit of reading a book occasionally. That is an
accomplishment of an importance hard to overrate.
As for the man, there is one story I like better than any he has
written. Some years ago, riding horseback on a narrow trail, Wright was
struck by an automobile that came suddenly around a corner of rock.
Horse and rider were pitched into a gully; the horse was killed and
Wright’s particularly bad lung so suffered by the fall that everyone
assured him there was nothing left but to die. He said: “I won’t die.”
Because he couldn’t be moved, a tent had to be erected over him there
in the gully, so that he might die in the shade. Lying there under the
tent, he fulfilled his purpose by getting well. He also, under the same
tent and in the same place, wrote _When a Man’s a Man_.... And now he
is again in good physical shape, riding his horses after the day’s work
is over through the desert or up into the foothills of the Catalina
Mountains.
The preacher he began, the preacher he must probably remain. There may,
perhaps, be something pitiful in the spectacle of a man struggling
with the palette of words, as there is something bizarre in the voice
proceeding from the wilderness with a perfectly mundane message: That
every valley had better be filled, every mountain and hill nicely
graded; the crooked carefully straightened, the rough ways ... paved
with asphalt.
Books by Harold Bell Wright
1903 _That Printer of Udell’s_
1907 _The Shepherd of the Hills_
1909 _The Calling of Dan Matthews_
1910 _The Uncrowned King_
1911 _The Winning of Barbara Worth_
1912 _Their Yesterdays_
1914 _The Eyes of the World_
1916 _When a Man’s a Man_
1919 _The Re-Creation of Brian Kent_
1921 _Helen of the Old House_
1923 _The Mine With the Iron Door_
Sources on Harold Bell Wright
_Harold Bell Wright._ Booklet published by D. Appleton & Company
_Harold Bell Wright, the Man Behind the Novels_, by HILDEGARDE
HAWTHORNE. Booklet published by D. Appleton & Company
Private Information
_8. “Ah, Did You Once See Shelley Plain?”_
i
Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you?
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems, and new!
BROWNING: _Memorabilia_
The four lines, and, indeed, the twelve remaining lines of this
one of Robert Browning’s shorter poems illustrate very well the
man’s superlative faculty of drama. With a little of our Edwin
Arlington Robinson, he mixed a little of our Eugene O’Neill; and,
on occasion, expressed himself with point and passion. Such was his
simplicity that he appeared (it is now laughable to remember) rather
especially unintelligible. Not far distant yet are the days when we
banded together to understand him. But the number of Browning Clubs
now surviving must be very few. How curious that we never thought
to try to understand the man himself! How queer that we didn’t
concentrate, as he would have concentrated in a similar instance,
upon the thirteen years that unlock his life; but we didn’t. We
generalised about him concerning whom, of all men of his day, it
was least safe to generalise. It has remained for Frances M. Sim
in her _Robert Browning, The Poet and the Man: 1833-1846_ to do the
thing that has so needed doing. She has very wisely avoided the form
of the full biography and equally the form, which would be sterile
in this instance, of a full-length critique. Her book is at once a
freely-handled and intensive study of the years that lay between the
publication of Browning’s first poem, “Pauline,” and his marriage
with Elizabeth Barrett. She starts with “Pauline,” accompanies him to
Russia and with him brings back “Paracelsus,” goes with him to Italy
and recreates “Sordello.” Then, with almost no preliminaries, we are
into the love affair. When that has been lived again to its fruition,
we are in possession of “the poet and the man” in the only possible
fashion apart from the body of his work. Frances M. Sim has given us
a valuable and interesting study, and simply by obeying the wisdom in
Arthur Waugh’s words: “Browning’s marriage, in short, was the last
stage in his artistic education”--words that open a fascinating path of
speculative insights into the lives of how many of the world’s artists!
Contrast, if you will, the temperamental difference between such a man
as Robert Browning, who had his early and well-nigh fatal intoxication
from reading the poetry of Shelley, and a fellow like Joseph Farington,
the painter, whose death occurred when Browning was a lad of nine.
No literary discovery in years has made half the sensation of the
finding of _The Farington Diary_, and quite rightly, for what could be
compared to the disclosure of a contemporary account in which Boswell,
Burke, Goldsmith, Horace Walpole, the Thrales, Garrick, Mrs. Siddons,
Nelson, Howe, Mirabeau, Marat, Napoleon, Hoppner, Turner, Pitt, Warren
Hastings, Lady Hamilton and Robert Burns were intimately noted? And yet
Farington, ruler of the Royal Academy though a most indifferent artist,
came into touch with all these personages and was apparently never for
one moment carried off his feet. I think it is quite true, as Robert
Cortes Holliday suggests in a review of _The Farington Diary_ (The
Bookman, June, 1923) that Farington saw only the surface of that great
age, that he was devoid of humour and lacked the malice which a diarist
should feel. He was sane, not to say stupid; but as a conscientious
accumulator of facts I can think of no one who is his equal. Amid
riches and grandeur, intriguery and wars and revolutions, surrounded
by a glittering society in which one knew not which to worship, genius
or scintillance, Joseph Farington scrupulously set down all the
diseases of people he knew, all the dishes served at a dinner, how much
everything cost and the money that everyone made, inherited, bequeathed
or borrowed. It was only accidentally, that matters touched with
human interest flowed from the point of his pen; but in a fairly long
lifetime the number of such leakages runs high, and the result, despite
every exasperation and handicap, is to make a book of very great and
most indubitable value. The first volume of _The Farington Diary_,
covering the years 1793-1802, is the most complete portrait album we
have of its time; the remaining volumes, which, it is understood, go
on to Farington’s death in 1821, should not be less valuable.
ii
Great times, in producing great men, produce great books as well. In
the lifetime of Walter H. Page, publisher, business man and American
Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, the number of persons who
had any comprehension of his greatness was singularly small. Those
who had the fine fortune to be associated with him in the day’s work
knew, of course, the stature of the man; but it was scarcely possible
to impress their knowledge on others. When Mr. Page at last became
conspicuous in the public service it was at a post where his work and
the character enforcing it were necessarily almost completely obscured.
An American Ambassador at the Court of St. James’s at the present time
may conceivably bring himself into a good deal of notice; it is not
impossible to be done and the opportunities for doing it legitimately
are not infrequent; but Mr. Page was never one for that sort of thing,
and I doubt whether, even if the war had not hidden him in its drifting
mists as he steered the ship, he would have come in all his lifetime to
our not always intelligently directed attention. There are some men,
and among them our greatest, whom death alone fully discloses. Such
was Walter H. Page, and in the magnificent biography wrought by Burton
J. Hendrick, _The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page_, the subject is
handled with a justness and a careful proportioning for which praise
should not be stinted, and has not been. Unquestionably this is one
of the great American books in the biographical field; this life and
these letters have something so vital that one hunts a ready comparison
in vain. At times they seem to paint the man with rich colour and a
splendid handling of light; at other times they carve and sculpture
him in some detail of a rare personality; but the figure fails before
the ruddiness, the mobile vigour and the unresting intellect which
the book sets forth. In a day when the state of America is rather
often canvassed and most often with pessimistic conclusions, it is
significant that _The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page_, a fairly
expensive work in two volumes, has sold half a hundred thousand copies
and now, a year after its publication, continues to lead in sales of
non-fiction.
It is but one, of course, of a number of great books yielded by the
times we have lived in. _The Irish Guards in the Great War_, by Rudyard
Kipling, is surely another. Mr. Kipling has not always been regarded
as a sympathetic and understanding friend of Irishmen. His son, John
Kipling, was an officer of the Irish Guards and, as such, gave his
life. The choice of Mr. Kipling as the historian of the regiment was
one which only the resultant chronicle would justify; but to my mind
there is no possible question that the work justifies and more than
justifies. The reviewer for the London Times puts the matter pithily
when he says: “The true gold of Mr. Kipling is to be found unalloyed
in this memorial.” The temptation to embitteredness, the impulse to
“handle” and fashion his material or to give it stylistic treatment
and the natural inclination to fix the point of view have all been
quietly laid aside; and we have a book of continuous vividness that
results from the inner perspective to which Mr. Kipling rigidly holds
his account. He constantly uses the sentences on the lips of his
Irishmen and we are seldom conscious of a narrator--then only when
some Kiplingesque epithet or phrase carries us above the trench and,
as it were, above the battle. The London Times reviewer speaks of
the “wealth of detail, varied, terrible, and sometimes grotesque, as
in the best Gothic” in the presentation of which Kipling manages to
preserve a clean simplicity of outline and a unity or totality of
effect; but this is merely a way of saying that the book is epically
written. Mere largeness of subject has nowadays a way of being taken
for “epic” treatment, although the word should properly be confined to
a treatment in which a great mass of detail is not allowed to obscure
the simplicity of the whole. But I do not think anyone can fail in
appreciation of _The Irish Guards_, and to any who may be tempted to
forgo the reading of the history let me quote these closing words: “Of
all these things nothing but the memory would remain. And, as they
moved--little more than a company strong--in the wake of their seniors,
one saw, here and there among the wounded in civil kit, young men with
eyes that did not match their age, shaken beyond speech or tears by the
splendour and the grief of that memory.”
The final distinction of Mr. Kipling’s book is, to be sure, that it
is the work of a man who knows how to write. This distinction it
shares with the fewest possible number of contemporary histories,
but _The World Crisis_, by Winston Churchill, must be admitted within
the slender group. Perhaps we had rather forgotten Winston Churchill,
the young journalist in Africa during the Boer War (and the hero,
incidentally, of one of the greatest prisoner escapes to be found in
all history). There may also be some heredity in Winston Churchill’s
literary gift, as in his other brilliant personal endowments. But
that’s no matter. As a former British Home Secretary, First Lord of
the Admiralty, 1911-15, and Minister of Munitions in 1917--above
all, perhaps, as the man chiefly held responsible for the Gallipoli
venture--Mr. Churchill’s account would be of the very first interest
and importance were he never so unskilful among words. But _The World
Crisis_ makes apparent what some of us had suspected before, that among
leading statesmen there has rarely been one whose ability to defend
his course and make other courses appear small has equalled Winston
Churchill’s. The sense of scale amid vastness in sums of money, tonnage
of ships and lives of men that Mr. Churchill possesses is laid by some
commentators to his American blood. “He savours hugeness like a dainty;
and when he writes of carnage or battle he dips his pen in blood,” says
Filson Young, adding, “But he never for a moment loses his grip of the
subject, or his sense of ever-marching destiny; and he never fails to
thrill the reader with the sense of the human tragedy lurking in its
every step.” Mr. Young thinks _The World Crisis_ places its author
“in the very first rank of British historians; and I think it places
him in very nearly the first rank of British statesmen.” The two most
famous living British statesmen, Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Asquith,
flank Mr. Churchill’s book with what went before and what may come
after. The Right Honourable Herbert Henry Asquith’s _The Genesis of the
War_ contains, of course, many noteworthy pen portraits; no doubt these
will make the most immediate appeal to readers; yet his disclosures
regarding the British War Book, begun in 1910 and his exposition of
“the purposes and methods of British policy” in the pre-war years
are the book’s greatest justification and its strongest historical
importance. Mr. Lloyd George, characteristically, is far less concerned
about the past than about the future. In _Where Are We Going?_ he moves
alertly over troubled ground of European affairs, discussing the League
of Nations, Russian republicanism, Socialism, national armaments, the
Irish Treaty, the position of France, England’s war debt, prohibition,
the disclosure of war secrets, “the next war” and many other topics.
His preface is particularly interesting.
iii
Naturally, the climax of interest is reached when we can say: “This
man has written of himself.” G. Stanley Hall’s _Life and Confessions
of a Psychologist_ is an autobiography of which one feels a keen
anxiety lest the many whom it can reward may somehow miss reading it.
“I am far older than my years”--he is seventy-seven--“for I have laid
aside more of the illusions and transcended more of the limitations
with which I started than most.” These simple and striking words
define his attitude. The truly popular result of a work that has been
undertaken and carried through in such a spirit ought to be emphasised.
Dr. Hall is the author of important treatises on _Adolescence_ and
_Senescence_, exhaustive in character and highly technical in their
bearing; but I have yet to read anything of his which was not to a very
large extent “popularly written” as well as scientifically valuable.
Certainly his _Life and Confessions of a Psychologist_ deserves the
wider audience. It begins on a New England farm with some chapters that
reflect with ampleness and feeling and charm the life of New England
in the 1850s; it continues through the various stages of an unusually
rounded education; in its record of teaching and college executiveship
the book constitutes a sort of history of the American college in
the last half-century, and this is enlarged and given the value of
ripened conclusions by a longer chapter near the close of the book.
There is also a tremendous chapter covering “Process in Psychology”
and practically constituting a history of the science in Dr. Hall’s
long lifetime--one might almost say since psychology was recognised
as a science at all. But these points, while they demonstrate easily
enough that the book is one no teacher or psychologist can afford
to omit attending, do not make the case for the book as a sample of
autobiography or as a work of popular interest. Then let some of the
contents make it! Here is the report of an American who has known Mark
Hopkins, Charles Eliot Norton, Henry Ward Beecher, George Bancroft,
Treitschke, Wundt, Helmholtz, William James, Lord Kelvin, Jowett,
Pasteur and many others; an American who can write of his boyhood with
something of the charm of W. H. Hudson and much the same feeling for
nature; who can write with frankness of the _vita sexualis_ in the New
England of Emerson; who can--we fall back upon it--write!
A fellow-scientist of Dr. Hall’s though in quite another field has
also written his autobiography, and the extraordinary circumstances
of Michael Idvorsky Pupin’s life will be enough to attract popular
attention to his _From Immigrant to Inventor_. Forty-eight years ago a
Serbian boy who hadn’t a cent and who couldn’t speak a word of English
landed in New York. Since 1901 this immigrant has been professor of
electro-mechanics at Columbia University; he is the inventor of the
Pupin coil, which, by reducing the necessary diameter of copper wire,
has saved millions of dollars, and he also invented the device for
tuning which many people use daily on radio sets. Michael Pupin was
born at Idvor, Banat, Hungary, in a little community of Serbs rewarded
for their services against the Turks by the gift of some land and
political rights. In assessing his performance it must be borne in
mind that he had the handicap of an utterly alien race and culture and
speech to overcome in a far greater degree than Jacob A. Riis, who was
Danish, or Edward Bok, who came from Holland. Pupin’s autobiography is
of manifold interest; for one thing, he seems completely in sympathy
with an American tradition which so many immigrants have never been
able whole-heartedly to accept; for another, he traces the developments
of electrical science by the bright thread of his interest and
participation in them, and he does actually succeed in making some very
difficult scientific achievements quite simple and beautifully plain.
iv
Very different, if possible more magical, has been the career of the
Russian glovemaker whose adopted surname is now known everywhere that
motion pictures are exhibited--Samuel Goldwyn. It is only about nine
years since he paid ten cents to see a two-reel picture in depressing
surroundings on Broadway, and came home to tell his brother-in-law,
Jesse Lasky, that a fortune could be made in five-reel pictures!
Samuel Goldwyn’s book, _Behind the Screen_, showing on every page the
fine journalistic skill of his collaborator, Corinne Lowe, is less
an autobiography than a personal record of the people of the screen.
Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Garden, Pauline
Frederick, Geraldine Farrar and plenty of others are here described
with an intimacy and a frankness and a general wit and good humour that
it isn’t easy to imagine will be soon surpassed. The popular appeal
of such a series of “closeups” should be as limitless as the movie
audience, but the book will serve a less immediate and more important
purpose to the reader whose interest, not fervidly personal, goes
into the general subject of the films--how they came about, what and
why they are, what may come of them. I do not mean that Mr. Goldwyn
concerns himself directly with any of these questions, for he scarcely
touches them; and yet I think that the indirect light he throws may
be more finally enlightening than anything else that has come out of
Hollywood--certainly more so than would be likely to be got by any
outsider who might go there in a direct search. But let that pass. The
book, as a book, is irresistible reading.
v
The boundaries between history, biography, autobiography, memoirs and
the best journalism are often uncertain and are better so. It does not
matter except to formal minds whether an interest begins with a person
or an event, or in what direction it proceeds; for the mind, like the
body, has its own system of nutrition, and within pretty broad limits
should be allowed its own dietary. The suggestions below are additional
to those books already discussed and the classifications need not be
taken as anything more than a general convenience:
Historical.
ADMIRAL SIMS’S _The Victory at Sea_ (World War).
BRAND WHITLOCK’S _Belgium_ (World War).
RAY STANNARD BAKER’S _Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement_.
_Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story_ (World War).
_Memories of a Turkish Statesman_, 1913-1919, by DJEMAL PASHA. A
very spirited account, well-written; almost unique as a book from the
Turkish side. Interesting in its contradictions of Morgenthau.
_An Ambassador’s Memoirs_, by MAURICE PALEOLOGUE. By the last French
Ambassador to Russia. Volume I. covers July 3, 1914-June 2, 1915;
Volume II. continues to August 18, 1916.
LAURANCE LYON’S _The Pomp of Power_ and his _When There Is No Peace_,
both published anonymously. The author is in close touch with French
policy.
_Old Diplomacy and New: 1876-1922: From Salisbury to Lloyd George_, by
A. L. KENNEDY.
_The Drama of Sinn Fein_, by SHAW DESMOND. A new and pretty complete
history.
_The Life of Sir William Harcourt_, by A. G. GARDINER. Harcourt was
born before Victoria ascended the throne and he outlived her; Mr.
Gardiner brings unusual talents to what becomes less a biography of one
man than a portrayal of an era.
_Memoirs of the Empress Eugenie_, by COMTE FLEURY. Here likewise the
historical interest is as strong as the biographical.
_Lady Palmerston and Her Times_, by MABELL, COUNTESS OF AIRLIE. Of
value for its picture of the period from George III. to the middle of
the Nineteenth Century.
PAUL VAN DYKE’S _Catherine de Medici_, in two volumes, now in its third
printing, is distinguished by lucidity, an avoidance of easy ornament
and floridity, and by great literary charm.
More Purely Personal.
_The Letters of Lord and Lady Wolseley_, edited by SIR GEORGE ARTHUR.
The intimacies of a great soldier and his brilliant wife, with many
glimpses of British society from 1870 to 1911.
_Margot Asquith: An Autobiography._ Volumes III. and IV., although
dealing with British war politics, are chiefly personal in interest.
_Memories of Later Years_, by OSCAR BROWNING. By a much-travelled
Englishman, a friend of Queen Mary, Lord Curzon and Lloyd George, now
past eighty. He deals principally with persons and events since 1897.
Arthur Bartlett Maurice, reviewing the book in the New York Herald,
speaks of the book as “a narrative which gives the flavor of Europe of
yesterday, of a world that is gone.” The volume is a mine of anecdotes
of the great.
_Post Mortem_, by C. MACLAURIN, M.D., somewhat resembles Dr. Joseph
Collins’s _The Doctor Looks at Literature_--only in this case
historical figures are the persons dissected. Henry VIII., the
historian Gibbon, Joan of Arc, and Samuel Pepys are some of the
subjects.
_A Nineteenth Century Romance_, by MAJOR C. H. DUDLEY WARD. A love
story in two generations based on authentic letters and beginning in
the days of Napoleon the Great with the love letters of Dora Best to
George Brett and continuing with the love affair of their son who, in
1897, became Viscount Esher.
_Lady Rose Weigall_, by RACHEL WEIGALL. Lady Rose was the favourite
niece of the great Duke of Wellington. Her long life (1834-1921)
brought her in contact with Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn, Rubenstein, Jenny
Lind, Bismarck, Browning, Disraeli, Lord Palmerston, Dickens, the
Empress Eugenie and many royalties. Not the least interesting things
are her letters exchanged with Germany during the World War.
_“Indiscretions” of Lady Susan_, by LADY SUSAN TOWNLEY. Entertaining
and well-edged gossip by the wife of a diplomat who was stationed in
many countries.
_The Literary Spotlight_, with an introduction by JOHN FARRAR. Personal
portraits of contemporary American writers, first published in The
Bookman, and anonymous to permit greater candour. Louis Untermeyer,
Mary Johnston, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Floyd Dell, Sinclair Lewis, Owen
Johnson, Edna Ferber, Amy Lowell and others are included.
Unusual Biographies and Autobiographies.
_Thomas Nelson Page: A Memoir of a Virginia Gentleman_, by ROSWELL PAGE.
_All in a Lifetime_, by HENRY MORGENTHAU.
_My Life and Work_, by HENRY FORD in collaboration with SAMUEL CROWTHER.
_My Boyhood_, by JOHN BURROUGHS.
_Lord Northcliffe: a Memoir_, by MAX PEMBERTON.
_Fourteen Years a Sailor_, by JOHN KENLON. The Chief of the New York
Fire Department in a naïve and pleasing account of his Irish boyhood.
_The Life of an American Sailor: Admiral William Hemsley Emory_, from
his letters and memoirs edited by ADMIRAL ALBERT GLEAVES.
_Mr. Lloyd George_, by E. T. RAYMOND.
_The Americanization of Edward Bok_, by EDWARD W. BOK. One of the most
widely read of American autobiographies and still in strong demand.
_A Man From Maine_, by EDWARD W. BOK. A biography of Cyrus H. K.
Curtis, head of the Curtis Publishing Company of Philadelphia.
_From McKinley to Harding: Personal Recollections of Our Presidents_,
by H. H. KOHLSAAT. The political interest is strong.
_The Print of My Remembrance_, by AUGUSTUS THOMAS. For all who are
interested in the theatre and its people.
WALTER DAMROSCH’S _My Musical Life_ begins with a childhood in Germany
and aside from its autobiographical interest constitutes to some extent
a history of orchestral music in America.
_My Memories of Eighty Years_, by CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. About evenly
personal and political in interest.
_Letters of James Gibbons Huneker_, edited by JOSEPHINE HUNEKER, and
MR. HUNEKER’S _Steeplejack_ (autobiographical). The record of one of
our most brilliant critics, versatile in all the arts.
_John H. Patterson: The Pioneer in Industrial Welfare_, by SAMUEL
CROWTHER. Of a similar interest with HENRY FORD’S _My Life and Work_.
_The Editorials of Henry Watterson_, edited by ARTHUR KROCK. They
complete his own account of himself in “_Marse Henry_.” The political
interest is naturally the main thing and is exceedingly vivid
(1868-1921).
_The Life of Lord Rosebery_, by E. T. RAYMOND. Analytical biography.
_C. K. S., An Autobiography_, by CLEMENT K. SHORTER. The author is a
veteran English critic and writer.
_The Life of William Schwenk Gilbert_, by SIDNEY DARK. Gilbert of
Gilbert and Sullivan, “The Mikado,” “H. M. S. Pinafore,” etc.
FRANK SWINNERTON’S _George Gissing: A Critical Study_, and his _Robert
Louis Stevenson: A Critical Study_. The interest is literary rather
than biographical.
_Tennyson: A Modern Portrait_, by HUGH I’ANSON FAUSSET. Both literary
and biographical in its interest. Richard Le Gallienne, in the New York
Times, says: “The manner of this portrait is very attractive. Biography
and criticism are artfully and suggestively blended, and the influence
of Tennyson’s environment throughout his life on the development of his
character and his poetry is vividly and for the most part convincingly
illuminated.”
_The Life of William Hazlitt_, by P. P. HOWE. The only biography we
have of a remarkable literary figure.
_Victor Hugo: His Work and Love_, by ANDREW C. P. HAGGARD. A new
account. The romantic element in Hugo’s life is emphasised, although
not unduly.
_Embassies I Have Known_, by WALBURGA, LADY
PAGET. The English, German and Austrian Courts in the last half-century.
Two Books About English Seats.
_Knole and the Sackvilles_, by V. SACKVILLE-WEST. See Chapter 6.
_Earlham_, by PERCY LUBBOCK.
_9. Alice in Authorland and Penrod’s Five-Foot Shelf_
Alice in Authorland.
Stuff and nonsense!” said Alice, to the White Queen, flinging the book
on the floor.
“Exactly,” the White Queen replied.
“Haven’t you anything a self-respecting person can read?” Alice
inquired.
“A self-respecting person,” answered the White Queen, “would not ask
such a silly question. She would accompany me into Authorland and make
the acquaintance of the people there and learn to find her way about.
Instead,” added the White Queen, cuttingly, “instead of bothering me. I
am very busy.”
“Well, if you’re very busy, you won’t want to take me with you and
introduce me to all those people,” Alice observed, a trifle sulkily.
“Of course I will!” The White Queen spoke with annoyance but also
with cheerfulness, for she prided herself on seldom being one-sided.
“I am never too busy to loiter. And let me tell you that when _you_
become too busy to loiter you will find everyone else too lazy to live
with--and then what will you do?”
Alice admitted she didn’t know. The White Queen was in a great hurry
because, as she said, once in Authorland it would only be possible to
make haste slowly. They looked up the timetable and found any number of
editions just leaving. As they were entering a compartment the guard
came along, crying: “Here! You can’t go in there! That’s reserved for
fairies”--but a very pleasant-looking woman who was already seated
inside stuck out her head and said: “Oh, do let the little girl come
in. Besides, she’s with the White Queen, who may ride anywhere.” So the
guard let them in, with a good deal of grumbling, slammed the door and
blew his whistle and they were off. The pleasant-faced woman smiled at
Alice, and Alice took courage to ask:
“Are you a fairy, then?”
“No, my dear, but I write about them. It’s more fun than being one,
really. My name is Rose Fyleman and I live part of the time in London
and part of it in Fairy Hills--that’s the nice residence section of
Authorland, you know.”
“What are your books, please?” Alice asked, primly.
“Oh, there’s _Rose Fyleman’s Fairy Book_, and _The Fairy Flute_, and
_The Fairy Green_ and _Fairies and Chimneys_--all poems--and _The
Rainbow Cat_, whom I knew very well and admired no end. He used to walk
about the Child’s Garden of Verse--that’s the little village green with
flower-beds in Fairy Hills.”
Rose Fyleman lent Alice some of her books to read on the train. The
White Queen slept in a corner, but finally sprang up, crying: “We’re
here, we’re here!”
“But the train isn’t stopping,” protested Alice. Rose Fyleman and the
White Queen laughed. “Silly,” said the White Queen, “it isn’t a train,
it’s an edition, and editions never stop in Authorland. You just jump
off anywhere.” And with that she jumped. So did Rose Fyleman, pausing
to say: “You won’t mind it. Landing in a heap of books is such fun.”
Alice finally summoned her courage and jumped, too. A man six feet tall
and over caught her nicely and set her down right side up. Then he very
politely introduced himself. He was Frederick Arnold Kummer, he said,
and it was his business to catch girls and boys and set them down right
side up. “With care,” he added.
Alice thanked him and took the two books he handed her, _The First Days
of Man_ and another called _The First Days of Knowledge_. “You won’t
need these here,” he explained, “but you’ll find them very useful and
probably interesting and maybe exciting when you go back.”
There was no trace of the White Queen, so Alice went down the
road, picking her way among the books planted everywhere, until a
white-haired and smiling old lady sent out her boy, Nils, to show her
the way about. Nils said the white-haired woman was Selma Lagerlöf, and
she had written for him two sets of wonderful adventures. He had been a
rather bad boy and Selma Lagerlöf had turned him into an elf and later
had sent him through animal land. “I’ll give you the books,” said Nils,
picking out a couple that stood between two book ends at corners of
the road. “Here they are--_The Wonderful Adventures of Nils_ and _The
Further Adventures of Nils_.”
Alice thought she should like to go back and talk with Selma Lagerlöf,
whose smile had seemed mysterious and wonderful, but Nils was bent on
showing her the animals. Of these there were quantities, and Nils knew
them all, it appeared, and their owners.
“That there’s Brer Rabbit,” he was beginning, when Alice interrupted
to say, “You can’t say ‘that there.’” “Yes, I can,” he retorted, “I’ve
just said it.” Alice saw he was hopeless, like all boys, and paid no
further attention to his grammar, while Nils discussed the creatures,
both wild and tame, all about. Some grazed peacefully, some were
frisking and playing, and a few gyred and gimbled in the wabe like
the slithy toves Alice had heard her friend, Mr. Lewis Carroll, tell
about. Brer Rabbit didn’t in the least resemble the White Rabbit, being
brown in colour and having no vest pocket with a watch and chain. Uncle
Remus and Uncle Remus’s friend, Joel Chandler Harris, kept tabs on
Brer Rabbit. Forrestine C. Hooker was feeding lumps of sugar to the
Comanche pony named Star that she has written about in _Star: The Story
of an Indian Pony_, and Prince Jan, the St. Bernard of her other book,
stood gravely by her. Ernest Thompson Seton, looking more wild than his
wildest animals, was racing about, trying to keep track of his grey
squirrel, Bannertail, of Krag and Randy and Johnny Bear and Chink, of
Lobo, Rag and Vixen, and especially of the Sandhill Stag. “It’s the
hardest work,” he assured Alice, stopping for a moment to subdue his
hair and wipe his forehead, “to observe all their habits. I simply
couldn’t ever do it if I didn’t have wide margins in my books and
make a little drawing whenever I noted a new habit. Bad habits in the
lefthand margins, good habits in the righthand margins.” “But,” said
Alice, wonderingly, “the drawings all look alike to me.” “You might as
well say all animals look alike to you,” said Mr. Seton, impatiently.
“But they don’t know good and bad, though; all they know is habits.
Now, if children only had habits they would be as interesting as
animals.” “I’m sure I don’t know,” answered Alice, doubtfully.
Nils had disappeared and the White Queen was nowhere in sight, either.
“It’s a strange place,” thought Alice. “It is, indeed,” said a man who
was busy painting magnificent pictures in most glowing colours. “It’s
strange because no one ever stays long enough to bore you.” “Oh, is
that it?” Alice answered. But she was really much impressed. She looked
at the gorgeous paintings, each signed “N. C. Wyeth” and each outdoing
the one before. She thought with secret ecstasy: “I’m only going
to have books with his pictures in them.” Mr. Wyeth, who seemed to
understand her thought, said out loud: “You’ll find others--Kay Nielsen
and Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac and Noel Pocock.” Alice said, “Yes,
no doubt,” but in her own mind she decided it must be because he was as
modest as he was wonderful.
“Do you like boys’ stories?” asked a boy much older than Nils, who had
come up suddenly. “Of course!” Alice responded. She looked at him
more closely. “Why you must be the boy in _High Benton_, aren’t you?”
He grinned. “I guess I am. I was only going to say, if you like boys’
stories--and all the girls I know do--my friend, William Heyliger, has
written a new one, _The Spirit of the Leader_. It’s stuff like _High
Benton_, a high school story. Great!” Alice was about to ask him for
the book when all the editions began running past so rapidly that she
became dizzy and screamed and shut her eyes. When she opened them a
moment later, Authorland had vanished and she was back at her starting
place and the White Queen was asking with sharpness:
“Have you been all this time deciding on something to read? You have to
read, you know, in order to grow up; and at this rate you’ll never grow
up at all!”
Penrod’s Five-Foot Shelf.
Feeling the need of solitude, Penrod Schofield moved slowly toward the
barn. As he walked he kicked desultorily at such objects, animate and
inanimate, as obtruded themselves in his path--the round top of the
water cutoff in the lawn, on which he had broken the blades of the
lawn mower last Saturday; a bag of clothes pins reposing harmlessly
on its side, and the white cat, Sherlock Holmes. “Ole cat!” Sherlock,
untarnished by the hostile toe, trotted off complacently. Creatures
like Penrod were little in the life of one who had been victor over the
hound of the neighbouring Baskervilles.
Choosing Entrance Two, the youth ascended to Apartment B-3 of the barn,
a second-story location offering an outside window with no bath but
with proper seclusion. Here on a conscientiously measured shelf of his
own manufacture was the beginning of the Penrod Schofield Library.
The shelf, constructed in his leisure hours, was exactly five feet in
length, a noted educator having assured Penrod and others, through the
medium of many full-page advertisements, that the books on a five-foot
shelf could furnish the equivalent of a college education. With a
passion for exactitude, and in pursuance of a further condition, Penrod
was devoting to the books on his five-foot shelf a requisite fifteen
minutes a day.
“Five feet divided by fifteen minutes a day makes--makes----.” The
youth struggled for a while with this intricate problem in arithmetic,
at length muttering: “I know. Y’ count the pages, and then divide
by fifteen; no, by the number of pages y’ c’n read in fifteen
minutes;--no, that ain’t right either, is it?” There was no answer;
there would be none if he looked in the back of one of the books,
either; and for a while Penrod had a doubt whether, on looking in the
back of the noted educator’s head, any answer would be found there. He
did not understand how the educator could possibly be right, nohow, for
of course the first and indispensable item for any book shelf was the
complete works of G. A. Henty. He ran his eye along these:
_Bravest of the Brave; or, With Peterborough in Spain_
_By Sheer Pluck: A Tale of the Ashanti War_
_With Clive in India; or, The Beginnings of an Empire_
Few, but still a beginning. A catalogue recently procured assured him
that there were at least thirty-five more that he should possess.
Allowing an inch per volume, which he had found necessary, fully three
feet of the five must be reserved for the author of _By Pike and Dyke:
A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic_ and other classical studies
in the historical field. Still, the two feet remaining gave probable
space for a coupla dozen lesser masterpieces. He examined the volumes
already in place:
_Treasure Island_, by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
It had sixteen full-page pictures in colour, lining papers and a
coloured title page by Wyeth, and was quite satisfactory.
_The Boy Scouts’ Year Book: 1923_
Penrod had belonged to a troop which had busted up and there was no
use joining another as he expected to begin smoking shortly, anyway.
However, this book was useful, containing stories and talks on sports
and tales of true adventure and Dan Beard’s camping stuff and “Boys
Who Have Made Good” and a bunch of funny stories and--best of all--all
about radio.
_For the Good of the Team_, by RALPH HENRY BARBOUR
This was a brand-new, regular hot story about Stuart Harven captaining
the football team at Manning School and his roommate, Neal Orr, and
other fellows. Penrod regarded it as a slick story and nobody was
going to borrow it from him for a darn good long while because it was
brand-new and a hot story.
_Lochinvar Luck_, by ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE
One of those he-men, you said it, this Albert Payson Terhune and
two-fisted and all, and writes the grandest dog stories a fellow ever
gets hold of, no Black Beauty here-nice-doggie story but a corkin’
story about how Jamie Mackellar, a plucky little truck driver,
mortgages his truck to own a fine th’rough-bred collie and the kennel
owner who is a crook stings him bad; but the measly pup runs away and
lives wild and grows a wonderful bone and coat; and then Jamie captures
him back and takes him to the show and what Jamie and the dog do to
that crook kennel owner is some cautionary warning to all crooks.
_Fourteen Years a Sailor_, by JOHN KENLON
This here’s a good sea story, especially when they get shipwrecked
on the desolate Crozet Islands and make a wonderful escape, hard to
believe but it musta been so, because Kenlon he comes to New York later
and sees a fire panic in a theatre and that turns him to be a fireman.
Now he’s Chief of the New York City Fire Department, can you beat it?
What wouldn’t I give to ride to a four-alarm fire with him, going like
mad!
_Kim_, by RUDYARD KIPLING
Things in this story of _Kim_ I don’t just get hold of, but it’s a
great story all right and I’ve read it twice and I bet I read it some
more. Got to get the _Jungle Books_ and _Captains Courageous_ to put
alongside it. Certainly Kipling’s the real thing, most especially on
India.
_The Boy’s Book of Inventions_, by RAY STANNARD BAKER
Well, of course. A fellow’d have to have that, and the on’y thing was
to get hold of the other, _The Boy’s Second Book of Inventions_ it was
called, to go with it. Couldn’t have too many books like that which
besides being useful, and the kind you c’n always get your folks to
give you for presents, was interesting, like most of the books they
give hardly ever are.
Penrod reflected. No use to worry. He had room for ’most twenty
more books, anyway, allowing for Henty; and when he had read some
of these enough he could give one away now and then. Or maybe start
a circulating library, a cent a week, which would leave room on the
shelves and bring in money for new books.... From the distance came a
voice: “Penrod!” His mother was calling, and as it unquestionably was a
call to supper, perhaps he had better respond. He moved away. “Gosh,
my fifteen minutes was gone an’ I never read anything. Takes fifteen
darn minutes a day deciding what to read. Maybe she’s got strawberry
shortcake I c’d eat five feet of that no trouble at all!”
Books for Alices and Penrods.
It has become the fashion to try to classify books for boys and girls
by ages, but as children’s mental ages, tastes, interests and other
details vary not less widely than adults’, it is much more discreet to
arrange the “juveniles,” so-called, by general characters. Books not
explicitly named above are included in the following very limited and
rather carefully chosen groups:
All About Animals.
MARGERY WILLIAM’S _The Velveteen Rabbit_, with colour pictures by
William Nicholson. Unusual pictures drawn on stone by the artist.
MARSHALL SAUNDERS’S _Bonnie Prince Fetlar_ and her _The Wandering Dog_
ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE’S _Buff: A Collie_ and his _Further Adventures of
Lad_
WILLIAM T. HORNADAY’S _The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals_
ERNEST THOMPSON SETON’S _Bannertail: The Story of a Grey Squirrel_, his
_Wild Animals I Have Known_, his _Lives of the Hunted_--all illustrated
by the author.
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS’S _Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings_, with 112
illustrations by A. B. Frost. Mostly about animals. It is important to
have Mr. Frost’s pictures.
RUDYARD KIPLING’S _The Jungle Book_ and _The Second Jungle Book_ have
been mentioned; likewise FORRESTINE HOOKER’S _Star_ and her _Prince
Jan: St. Bernard_. _The Elephant’s Child_, _the Sing-Song of Old Man
Kangaroo_, and _How the Alphabet Was Made_ are Kipling selections now
published as separate small books
For quite little boys and girls there are the MAY BYRON books: _The
Little Black Bear_, _The Little Brown Rooster_, _The Little Yellow
Duckling_, and _The Little Tan Terrier_; and also books by JOHN BRECK,
as follows:
_Mostly About Nibble the Bunny_
_Nibble Rabbit Makes More Friends_
_The Sins of Silvertip the Fox_
_Tad Coon’s Tricks_
_The Wavy Tailed Warrior_
_Tad Coon’s Great Adventure_
_The Bad Little Owls_
_The Jay Bird Who Went Tame_
Introducing Fairies.
All the books named above by ROSE FYLEMAN, including _The Rainbow Cat_
_Fairy Tales_ by the BROTHERS GRIMM, illustrated by Noel Pocock
_The Twelve Dancing Princesses and Other Tales for Children_, retold by
SIR ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH and illustrated by Kay Nielsen
The Fairy Ring Series: Andersen’s Fairy Tales illustrated by Dugald
Stewart Walker--_Thumbelisa and Other Stories_, _The Mermaid and Other
Stories_, and _The Garden of Paradise and Other Stories_
KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN’S and NORA A. SMITH’S _The Fairy Ring, with
Children’s Bookplate_, and their _Magic Casements: A Second Fairy Book_
The Most Wonderful Pictures.
The series of classics illustrated in colour by N. C. Wyeth includes:
_The Scottish Chiefs_, by JANE PORTER, edited by KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN
and NORA A. SMITH
_Westward Ho!_ by CHARLES KINGSLEY
T_he Last of the Mohicans_, by J. FENIMORE COOPER
_The Boy’s King Arthur_, by SIDNEY LANIER
_The Black Arrow_, by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
_Kidnapped_, by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
_Treasure Island_, by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
_The Mysterious Island_, by JULES VERNE
_Poems of American Patriotism_, chosen by BRANDER MATTHEWS
Among the books illustrated by Howard Pyle are:
_The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire_
_The Story of King Arthur and His Knights_
_The Story of the Champions of the Round Table_
_The Story of Sir Launcelot and His Companions_
_The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur_
The two books illustrated by Kay Nielsen are:
_The Twelve Dancing Princesses and Other Tales for Children_ retold by
SIR ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH
_East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Old Tales from the North_
Here are two books illustrated by Maxfield Parrish:
_The Arabian Nights_, edited by KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN and NORA A. SMITH
_Poems of Childhood_, by EUGENE FIELD
Some other books with especially fine illustrations in colour are:
_A Child’s Garden of Verses_, by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, illustrated by
Jessie Willcox Smith
_The Wind in the Willows_, by KENNETH GRAHAME, illustrated by Nancy
Barnhart
LOUIS DODGE’S _The Sandman’s Forest_ and his _The Sandman’s Mountain_,
both illustrated by Paul Bransom
MARY MAPES DODGE’S _Hans Brinker, or, The Silver Skates_, illustrated
by George Wharton Edwards
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT’S _Little Lord Fauntleroy_, with illustrations
by Reginald B. Birch
MAUDE RADFORD WARREN’S and EVE DAVENPORT’S _Tales Told by the Gander_
and their _Adventures in the Old Woman’s Shoe_, both illustrated by C.
A. Federer
_The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha_, edited by J. B. TREND and
illustrated by Jean de Bosschere
_Robinson Crusoe_, by DANIEL DEFOE, illustrated by Noel Pocock
_Stories from Hans Andersen_, illustrated by Edmund Dulac
_Stories from the Arabian Nights_, retold by LAURENCE HOUSMAN, with
pictures by Edmund Dulac
_The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales from the Old French_, retold
by SIR ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH, illustrated by Edmund Dulac
HAWTHORNE’S _A Wonder Book_, illustrated by Arthur Rackham
ÆSOP’S _Fables_, illustrated by Arthur Rackham
_A Fairy Book_, illustrated by Arthur Rackham
The Outdoor Life.
WARREN H. MILLER’S _Camping Out_, his _The Boy’s Book of Hunting and
Fishing_, and his _Canoeing, Sailing and Motorboating_
_The Boy Scouts’ Year Book_ for 1923 or earlier years, as each annual
contains outdoor information of permanent interest
_The Boy Scouts’ Book of Campfire Stories_, and the _Boy Scouts’ Book
of Stories_, both edited by FRANKLIN K. MATHIEWS
EDWARD CAVE’S _Boy Scout’s Hike Book_ and his _The Boy’s Camp Book_
ERNEST THOMPSON SETON’S _The Book of Woodcraft_, his _Sign Talk_, his
_Woodcraft Manual for Boys_, and his _Woodcraft Manual for Girls_
JEANNETTE MARKS’S _Vacation Camping for Girls_
DAN BEARD’S _Shelters, Shacks and Shanties_, his _Boat-Building and
Boating: A Handy Book for Beginners_, his _The Field and Forest Handy
Book_, his _The Jack of All Trades_, his _The Outdoor Handy Book_, and
his _The American Boy’s Handy Book_
LINA and ADELIA B. BEARD’S _Recreations for Girls_ and their _The
American Girl’s Handy Book_
Fiction.
JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER’S stories. Altsheler wrote seven romances (_The
Last Rebel_, etc.), eight books in The Young Trailers Series, beginning
with _The Young Trailers_; three books in The Texan Series (_The Texas
Star_, etc.) and three miscellaneous Indian stories (_The Last of the
Chiefs_, _The Quest of the Four_ and _Apache Gold_) as well as two of
The Great West Series, _The Great Sioux Trail_ and _The Lost Hunters_.
He wrote three stories dealing with the World War, but his French and
Indian War Series (six books beginning with _The Hunters of the Hills_)
and his Civil War Series (eight books, beginning with _The Guns of Bull
Run_) are old favourites
RALPH HENRY BARBOUR. School stories. Besides fifteen not in any series
and the Yardley Hall stories (eight, beginning with _Forward Pass_)
five series of three books each--Hilton, Erskine, the “Big Four,”
Purple Pennant and Grafton
WILLIAM HEYLIGER. The author of _High Benton_ and _High Benton,
Worker_. There are three books in the Fairview Series, five in the St.
Mary’s Series, six in the Lansing Series, besides the extremely popular
books about Don Strong in the Boy Scout Series--_Don Strong of the Wolf
Patrol_, _Don Strong, Patrol Leader_, and _Don Strong, American_
FRANK T. BULLEN’S _The Cruise of the Cachalot_, a classic for boys
RALPH D. PAINE’S _A Cadet of the Black Star Line_, his _The Fugitive
Freshman_, his _The Head Coach_, his _College Years_, his _Campus
Days_, his _Sandy Sawyer, Sophomore_, his _The Stroke Oar_, and his
_Sons of Eli_
LAWRENCE PERRY’S _For the Game’s Sake_, his _The Big Game_, and his
_The Fullback_ (Fair Play Series)
DAN BEARD’S _The Black Wolf Pack_
FRANK B. LINDERMAN’S _Lige Mounts: Free Trapper_
FRANCIS LYNDE’S _The Golden Spider_
LEO E. MILLER’S _Adrift on the Amazon_, his _In the Tiger’s Lair_, his
_The Hidden People_ and his _The Black Phantom_
ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER’S _The Boys of Saint Timothy’s_
JULES VERNE’S _Around the World in Eighty Days_, his _A Journey to the
Centre of the Earth_, his _From the Earth to the Moon_, and his _Twenty
Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS’S _The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys_
JESSE LYNCH WILLIAMS’S _The Adventures of a Freshman_, his _Princeton
Stories_, and his _The Day Dreamer_ (“The Stolen Story,” a newspaper
classic)
FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER’S Young Journalists Round the World
Series--_Plotting in Pirate Seas_, _Hunting Hidden Treasure in the
Andes_, _Heroes of the Ruins_, _A Toreador of Spain_, _The Magic-Makers
of Morocco_
STEWART EDWARD WHITE’S _The Adventures of Bobby Orde_
RUSSELL DOUBLEDAY’S _Cattle Ranch to College_, and his _A Gunner Aboard
the “Yankee”_
O. HENRY’S _The Ransom of Red Chief_ and _Other O. Henry Stories for
Boys_
RALPH STOCK’S _The Cruise of the Dream Ship_. The hobo seafaring
adventures of a boy. A fine book, not nearly well enough known
LEWIS E. THEISS’S _A Champion of the Foothills_
CAROLINE DALE SNEDEKER’S _The Perilous Seat_. The story of a young
Greek girl who saved her country
JOSLYN GRAY’S _Elsie Marley_, her _Rosemary Greenaway_, and her newest
tale, _The Old Mary Metcalf Place_. Other Joslyn Gray stories are
_Bouncing Bet_, _The January Girl_, _Rusty Miller_, and _Kathleen’s
Probation_
MARGARET W. EGGLESTON’S _Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens_
E. F. BENSON’S _David Blaize_ and his _David Blaize and the Blue Door_
ISLA MAY MULLINS’S _Captain Pluck_ (founded on fact)
MARION AMES TAGGART’S _The Annes_, her _Captain Sylvia_, her _The
Daughters of the Little Grey House_ (_The Little Grey House_ should be
read first) and her _“Who Is Sylvia?”_ (a sequel to _Captain Sylvia_)
Mainly Historical.
FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER’S Romance-History of America Series--_In the Days
Before Columbus_, _The Quest of the Western World_, and _The Coming of
the Peoples_, each illustrated by C. A. Federer
NOAH BROOKS’S _First Across the Continent_. The story of the Lewis and
Clark expedition
CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY’S _In the Wasp’s Nest_ (War of 1812) and _On the
Old Kearsage_ (Civil War)
SIDNEY DARK’S _The Child’s Book of England_ and his _The Child’s Book
of France_
BASIL MATHEWS’S _The Quest of Liberty: The Adventures of the
“Mayflower” Pilgrims_
H. E. MARSHALL’S _This Country of Ours: The Story of the United States_
EVERETT T. TOMLINSON’S _Young People’s History of the American
Revolution_, his _Places Young Americans Want to Know_, his _Fighters
Young Americans Want to Know_, his _The Story of General Pershing_, his
_Scouting on the Border_, his _Mysterious Rifleman_
Young Heroes of Our Navy, a series comprising ROSSITER JOHNSON’S _The
Hero of Manila_, J. BARNES’S _Commodore Bainbridge_, his _With the Flag
in the Channel_, his _Midshipman Farragut_, and his _The Hero of Erie_
(Commodore Perry); and MOLLY ELLIOTT SEAWELL’S _Decatur and Somers_,
her _Paul Jones_, and her _Little Jarvis, the Heroic Midshipman_
_Theodore Roosevelt’s Letters to His Children_, edited by JOSEPH
BUCKLIN BISHOP
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS’S _Real Soldiers of Fortune_ and his _With Both
Armies in South Africa_
A. HYATT VERRILL’S _The Real Story of the Pirate_, and his _The Real
Story of the Whaler_
STEWART EDWARD WHITE’S _Daniel Boone: Wilderness Scout_
BERNARD MARSHALL’S _The Torch Bearers_, a new novel of the time of
Oliver Cromwell
RUSSELL DOUBLEDAY’S _Stories of Inventors_
Inventions, Games, Plays, and the Fascinations of Science.
A. FREDERICK COLLINS’S _The Book of the Microscope_, his _The Book of
Wireless Telegraph and Telephone_, his _The Book of Stars_, _The Book
of Magic_, _The Book of Electricity_, _The Home Handy Book_, _How to
Fly_, _The Amateur Mechanic_
FRANK M. RICH’S _The Jolly Tinker_. How to make all sorts of things
out of the simplest materials, how to mend shoes, repair books, make a
cardboard loom, etc.
RAY STANNARD BAKER’S _The Boy’s Book of Inventions_ and his _The Boy’s
Second Book of Inventions_ have already been mentioned
GILBERT T. PEARSON’S _The Bird Study Book_
FRANK M. CHAPMAN’S _Bird Life_, his _Our Winter Birds_, his _What Bird
Is That?_ and his _Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America_
_Birds Worth Knowing_, by NELTJE BLANCHAN; _Butterflies Worth Knowing_,
by CLARENCE M. WEED; _Flowers Worth Knowing_ (NELTJE BLANCHAN adapted
by ASA DON DICKINSON); and _Trees Worth Knowing_, by JULIA ELLEN ROGERS
Game books by EDNA GEISTER--_It Is To Laugh_, her _Let’s Play_, and her
_Fun Book_
_The Magic Sea Shell and Other Plays for Children_, by JOHN FARRAR
_Three to Make Ready_, by LOUISE AYRES GARNETT. Plays
_Ten Minutes by the Clock_, by ALICE C. D. RILEY. Plays
S. LYLE CUMMINS’S _Plays for Children_
Three Books for Parents.
FLORENCE V. BARRY’S _A Century of Children’s Books_
ANNIE CARROLL MOORE’S _New Roads to Childhood_, and her _Roads to
Childhood: Views and Reviews of Children’s Books_. By the supervisor of
work with children in the New York Public Library.
_10. The Man Called Ralph Connor_
i
Once upon a time there was a Scotsman of Clan Gordon, those Highlanders
ye ken of Blair Athol in the North Country, properly named with a
God-fearing name, Daniel, and a fine, stirring preacher, too. Fire
was on his lips but the flame burning in his heart was tender and you
should have lived to hear him piping “Lochaber No More.” The pibrochs
sounded something beautiful as he played; and when he stopped piping
it was to begin relating wonderful old stories; he kenned them all.
Away back in the 1840s it was he came out to Canada with other folk
from the North of Scotland and fetched up in a Highland settlement in
Ontario, Glengarry, in the Indian Lands. Full twenty years this man of
God spent in Glengarry, taking a wife from among the Robertsons. Her
father had come to New England first, moving on to Sherbrooke in the
Province of Quebec. I could tell you a deal about her family; there was
a cousin, Andrew Murray, of Clairvaux, led the Dutch Reformed South
African Church; ye’ll have heard of Robertson Smith and he was another
cousin; the writer M. M. Robertson was a sister. Mary Robertson
taught philosophy as a lass of twenty in Mount Holyoke College in New
England. They offered to make her principal on the death of Mary Lyons
and she was duly considering for a while. She was of the Robertsons
of Aberdeen, ye ken, and twenty-two years aged. But there was this
young Highlander, Daniel Gordon of Glengarry in the Indian Lands, who
was swaying congregations. Well, then, she turned her small, straight
back on the principalship and married him, and went away from that
pleasant place and company and fine position that stood waiting for
her to live in the backwoods of Canada, a rare wild parish with the
railway twenty-five miles off and a long journey to everywhere. She was
a remarkable woman. Daniel Gordon took her to his home in the woods.
In the year 1860 she bore him a son; they named the boy Charles. The
laddie played about the square brick house with wide verandas that
stood in a natural park of pines and maples, with a glebe of some
twenty-four acres and forest all about. Two miles by a path through the
woods took him to school in a clearing, and two miles back. They played
games in the shadows of the pines. There was a rich green darkness and
a curious coolness and a curious warmth there for them; the tops of the
pines murmured like distant bagpipes and everything smelt sharp and
sweet.
On a day when the boy was eleven Daniel Gordon went to sway another
congregation in Western Ontario, taking his wife and the boy along,
for that there were better schools for Charley to go to. What with
this, and high school in a neighbouring town, the lad makes ready for
Toronto and the University. He didna do badly at the University,
though he was no sober-sided student. He sang in the glee club and
played quarterback at Rugby football in the champion team for Western
Ontario. Some honours in classics he got and went on to the study of
theology at Knox College. He was not too strong in those years and
capturing scholarships and prizes in the three years’ courses at Knox
College did him no good bodily. So then it was settled he should take
a year abroad, spent mostly in Edinburgh, where he could walk along
gay Princes Street and see the grand sight of Castle Rock, or climb
to Arthur’s Seat and look over the Firth of Forth with its speckle of
green islands and white sails and the bare country of the Kingdom of
Fife, or pace slowly down the Royal Mile to Holyrood, with every step a
threefold memory and an historic lesson. I’ll not say this did him any
harm, maybe, and what it lacked in one way he made up on his return to
Canada, taking his brother and travelling deep into the forest on Lake
Nipissing, they seeing no other white man for three months. To crown
these journeyings and to confirm the habit of health Charles Gordon
spent two more years at Banff. There, in the heart of the Rockies, he
climbed mountains and rejoiced in wildness. “Yes, I ought to have been
an Indian!” he used to exclaim.
ii
He was ripe to receive his call at last, and it came. It took him to
a life of rough hardship as a missioner in the North-West, all among
lumbermen and miners with a congregation to be gathered first, and
sore deeficult to sway in assembly. He came well-shod to the work of
treading out the harvest in the Lord’s vineyard. He could go into the
woods and come out again, or face a man mad with drink, or comfort a
sick mother. A tall, slender, well set up young missioner with no very
much ruddiness of complexion and a thoughtful, serious face that could
yet smile, for a’ that, with crinkles in the eye corners. You would
know him for Scots by his look, but the rest is puir American. And he
loved those men among whom his work lay. When, along in 1894 and him
just well into his thirties, he was asked to a city church, he didna
want to respond favourably until he saw where his duty lay. Well, then,
he came to Winnipeg and to the ministry of St. Stephen’s because it
offered him the grand chance to help those roughened men whose needs
he knew. Ye ken, perhaps, Mr. J. A. MacDonald of the Toronto Globe
newspaper. MacDonald had been a classmate of Charley Gordon’s and a
year or two after Charley Gordon came as preacher to St. Stephen’s,
MacDonald was owner of a new little paper called The Westminster and
concerned with Canadian Presbyterianism--a frank experiment. Into the
office of The Westminster dropped Charley Gordon one fine day. He was
in a great heat for money to put into the foothills and the mountain
camps. They needed missions out there; I’m burning up with the wish
to write an article telling about those men in the pines and along
the upland lakes, Charley Gordon tells MacDonald. I’ve facts and
figures. MacDonald was quick to say, if Charley wanted to bring home
his message to people and loosen the purse-strings, he had a duty to
write the thing as a tale, paint a picture with lifelike figures and a
warm feeling running through it all. Gordon minded himself of what he
had seen and heard in such good plenty; and he went home and sat down
to write a story of Christmas Eve among the lumbermen in the Selkirk
mountains. When he was fair into it, he found himself carried back and
away, so much so that in reading it through after he didna see what
brother clergymen might make out of the ringing speech of some of his
characters. MacDonald agreed, but sent to find out what name to put on
the story. Gordon invented a name, Cannor, out of the first letters of
“Canada” and “North-West.” MacDonald picked up the reply telegram and
snorted disdain. Cannor, he commented, what sort of a name is that!
I’ll make it Connor. And where’s a first name? Frank? Fred? Chris? No.
Ralph? Aye, we’ll make it that. This was the birth and christening
together, ye’ll ken. The tale of the lumbermen’s Christmas Eve in the
mountains was later to become the first chapter of the novel, _Black
Rock_, the first novel by Ralph Connor, that was read everywhere.
iii
I’ll not have to be telling you what it was in _Black Rock_ won so
many readers for Ralph Connor. Humour and pathos are bound up in the
lives the young minister of St. Stephen’s was writing about; ye could
lay hold quickly of his sympathy for those men who were in some
ways as helpless as bairns and were half-brutalised by their work
and surroundings. It’s the effect they have on each other, too. Them
picking up _Black Rock_ to read were struck with something fresh and
wild and clean, withal. They sensed a tenderness about the feeling of
the story, like heather softening the bare hillside, and more than a
morsel of the everlasting hope in which men endure hard and lonely
toils. The same held true of the books that followed _Black Rock_;
for there had to be other books. Ye mind _The Sky Pilot_ and _The Man
From Glengarry_ and _The Foreigner_ and _Corporal Cameron_ and _The
Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail_. Take _The Foreigner_. On the edge of
Winnipeg, Charles Gordon found a Settlement of Slavs--Ruthenians,
Russians, Galicians and who not. They lived in a grim little collection
of huts, a dozen in a room, all huddled up, drinking and dirty and
violent; and on them was still the shadow of tyrannies in the Old
Country. Drinking and dirty and violent with a violence dark and
beautiful, Charles Gordon found them. Aye, he found the huts and the
men, and Ralph Connor that was in him found a story. Ralph Connor
took the splendid young heart in Kalmar, the son of a nihilist, and
brought it to fight its way out of the ruck of aliens and make for the
new country beyond the Saskatchewan, where there is prairie and where
the lakes lie on the surface of the prairie like jewels on a woman’s
breasts. Then, in _Corporal Cameron_, was Connoring the first grand
tale of the North-West Mounted Police, by a man who kenned them, as
followers in his tracks scarce can be said to. A richt fine love story
is this of the lad who was born in a Scottish glen and came to ride out
in the Canadian blizzards; it’s furthered in _The Patrol of the Sun
Dance Trail_, which makes use of the half-breed and Indian rebellion
of Louis Riel. But there’s a muckle I love in the book besides the
adventure--Cameron and his gold-haired, plucky wife and the hesitant
wonder of the first fine feeling of the lover. It fashes me how a man
says what’s down in the hearts of such a many other men and women. Give
me to understand how it’s done! Here’s the Reverend Charles Gordon
dwelling this quarter century and longer in Winnipeg, building up St.
Stephen’s and seeing it transformed from a plain chapel of wood into
a handsome church of stone, with a church house where the young men
without homes can live, and where there’s sewing and amateur acting and
films and bowling every night of the week. In the daytime the Reverend
Gordon will maybe attend court to help get some boy straightened
out and become a guardian to him; or he’ll be at meetings in his
church where revolutionary agitators are spouting the downfall of all
institutions and then voting thanks to the preacher because, as they
put it, he has given us an absolutely square deal. And after supper you
would find him in his home at evening prayers with the three youngsters
who appeared to enjoy their devotions. There’s no stiltedness in the
man at all. He reads from Scripture concerning Paul taking Timothy with
him to learn what were the problems of that day. And he closes the book
on his finger to remark what a sensible, canny thing for Paul to do.
Some of our theological seminaries, adds the father, shut a man out
from contact with life, shut him up with professors, and when he comes
out of his cloister he canna recognise a social problem if it walks
up to him on the street. The trouble with me, he finishes, when I had
gotten out of the seminary.
But he’s generous to a fault sore in a son of Scots folk. If his right
hand is earning moneys with a pen, his left hand is spending lavish
and free. There’s his salary as minister to the kirk goes flowing out
several times over in gifts and helpings to people. I mind the year
quite long back when the Presbyterian General Assembly of Canada was
meeting in Toronto and Doctor the Reverend Gordon put down $10,000 so
every missionary minister and his wife in the breadth of Canada might
attend the General Assembly, expenses paid. Some of these men and their
wives hadn’t been out of the woods in years. Ralph Connor knew what
this meant.
iv
Then, when the Great War came thundering, our sky pilot stood up and
said Canada must send a half million men. Many scoffed at him; but he
was right, and we sent the half million and over sixty thousand didna
come back. From St. Stephen’s there was an enlistment of close on four
hundred, including the minister and five members of the Session. The
dominie went in the spring of 1915 after the congregation had confirmed
his leave of absence--Major Charles W. Gordon, chaplain to the
Forty-third Battalion Cameron Highlanders of Canada. Many St. Stephen’s
men were enrolled in this battalion and one of the members of the
Session, Robert McDonald Thomson, was their first colonel. It was the
Western Front--from the Ypres Salient, Sanctuary Wood, the bloodshed
of the Somme and back again to Arras. In that time Ralph Connor saw
the regiment shrunk from full strength to two officers and sixty-five
men. He knelt down amid the roar of guns and the hailing of machine
gun bullets to do last rites for his own men and comrades. Among them
was Colonel Thomson. On the eighth day of October, 1916, the outfit
stormed the Regina Trench on the Somme. Unable to advance, they wouldna
retreat. So they died where they stood.
v
_The Major_ and _The Sky Pilot in No Man’s Land_ are books ye’ll verra
well recollect; likewise the novel of twa years back, _To Him That
Hath_. Since ye hanna read it, it’s the new novel from the pen of Ralph
Connor, I’ll just speak a word of to ye. He calls it _The Gaspards of
Pine Croft_ and explains it is “a romance of the Windermere Valley.”
A story of the life and moulding of Paul Gaspard, it is. Here’s a mon
with two powerful strains mixed and fighting for mastery of him. From
his mither, Paul inherits a rare sense of the presence of God; his
father gifted him with a fine artist sense, and a bounding spirit,
a passion for life to the full. The clash of the two men in the boy
grows with him to manhood, so that after the death of his mither he
stands between two women, who beckon different ways. Then when a great
decision is put before him the mon takes upon himself a burden and
a responsibility that test him body and soul. ’Tis a life and death
struggle set in the grand country Ralph Connor makes his own. There’s
the valley of the Windermere before you with the Gaspard ranch, Pine
Croft, flanked on one side by a great bend of the Columbia River and
on the other by a mountain wall of virgin forest. In this mysterious
wilderness, the figures of Indians do come and go, touching the lives
of the white people with disaster, with dread--with an unco beauty as
well.
Books by Ralph Connor
_Beyond the Marshes_
1898 _Black Rock_
1899 _The Sky Pilot_
_Ould Michael_
1901 _The Man from Glengarry_
1902 _Glengarry School Days_
_Breaking the Record_
1904 _The Prospector_
_The Pilot of Swan Creek_
_Gwen_
1906 _The Doctor of Crow’s Nest_
_The Life of Dr. James Robertson_
1909 _The Foreigner; A Tale of Saskatchewan_
_The Angel and the Star_
_The Dawn by Galilee_
_The Recall of Love_
1912 _Corporal Cameron of the North-West Mounted Police:
A Tale of the MacLeod Trail_
1914 _The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail_
1917 _The Major_
1919 _The Sky Pilot in No Man’s Land_
1921 _To Him That Hath_
1923 _The Gaspards of Pine Croft_
Sources on Ralph Connor
_Ralph Connor, the Well-Beloved._ Booklet published in 1914 by George
H. Doran Company. Now out of print.
_Silver Jubilee, 1895-1920, of St. Stephen’s, Winnipeg._ Booklet
published by the congregation of St. Stephen’s Presbyterian Church,
Winnipeg, Manitoba.
_II. Here, There and Everywhere_
i
In his new book, _The Humanizing of Knowledge_, the author of that
fascinating study, _The Mind in the Making_, James Harvey Robinson,
says: “Personally I have reached the conclusion, after many years
of teaching, that one should choose for instruction, whether one be
dealing with young or old, _some phase of human interest rather than
some field of scientific investigation_”--and he goes on with force
and plainness to point out the defect of an educational scheme in
which knowledge is imparted by going in and out of great numbers of
pigeonholes. He is really pleading for methods of instruction that
shall take account of the ordinary man’s interest in his world, and
shall proceed by the natural process of mental associations instead
of by artificial and arbitrary tetherings to the post of this and
that “subject.” Seldom has the difficulty been put with more brevity,
simplicity and general sweetness of temper, or in a way to give such
decent courage to individual self-respect. “We are not many of us
interested in isolated scientific facts of any kind. That species of
interest, as we have seen, is reserved for the few. But all of us are
open to the effects of such new knowledge as gets under our skins.
And the great art is not to exhibit our own insight and learning but
really to influence those whom we are aiming to influence.” There could
be no better text or opening for a chapter devoted to books of many
varieties, inasmuch as books have always taken, except where restricted
by school formulas, the lines of human interests and the path of some
natural association of ideas. In this sense, though teaching may need
to be humanised, knowledge has never been without its humanisation. A
James Harvey Robinson cannot write about science without being led into
the absorbing history of the mind that is slowly achieving science. A
Camille Flammarion, discussing astronomy, finds it above all things
natural to relate his knowledge with man’s religious ideas. An L. P.
Jacks, analysing religious doubts, moves directly over the border of
so-called psychology into the sphere of conduct and behaviour, because
the answer lies over there. A George Santayana employs poetry to state
those portions of his philosophy which prose can scarcely embody with
sufficient expressiveness; bases criticism on his philosophy and
distils or re-distils philosophical ideas from all the varieties of his
learning.
To take M. Flammarion, for example. His new work, _Dreams of an
Astronomer_, could without any essential inaccuracy be styled “A
Humanisation of Astronomy.” Here is a book produced in this French
scientist’s eighty-first year, at an age where “isolated scientific
facts” had lost all fanciful meanings and were seen only in their warm
and present human significance. The point with M. Flammarion was not
that we live on a poor little world in a vast universe composed of
worlds within worlds and flaming suns and revolving planets, nor that
this universe so immense is but an item of larger immensities. The
point was in the significance of these facts to the heart and mind of
a man or a woman. What does it mean as regards our attempt to know
God? In what perspective does it place our aspirations and our efforts
toward what we sometimes call “righteousness”? Flammarion gives the
richness of his physical knowledge in untechnical language; in words
that summon the imagination he constructs pen pictures of other worlds
than ours. That we may have the value of comparison, he describes Venus
and Mars--the latter possibly inhabited by creatures millions of years
ahead of us in their development. This moving and inspiring book ends
with a sentence that might serve as the quiet challenge of science to
much of philosophy and religion. Says M. Flammarion: “Let us not be
personal, like infants or the aged, who see only their own room, let us
know how to live in the infinite and in the eternal.”
But this lofty idea needs translation into the terms of our finite
existence and our character of religious beliefs. It finds it in such a
book as L. P. Jacks’s _Religious Perplexities_. Like _The Humanizing of
Knowledge_, this is a slender book that can be read through in about an
hour and it is equally a book that is likely to influence a lifetime.
It is beside my point that Professor Jacks is one of the greatest
living philosophers and religionists; but it is a fact of the highest
relevance that he writes as no one writing on these subjects has
written since William James. The same power to pierce to fundamental
questions--and answer them; the same lucidity of thought and expression
are characteristic of the two men. Jacks exhibits the same tolerance
of the forms of religious belief; and it is only after a discussion of
“Religious Perplexities in General” that he closes with a talk about
“Perplexity in the Christian Religion.” He says: “Far be it from me
to set up an exclusive claim for Christianity. Anyone who does that
goes a long way towards forfeiting his title to be called a Christian.
Let each of us look for truth where it is most accessible and where
it speaks the language he best understands.” He begins with the two
ultimate questions that man asks himself: “Why are we here?” followed
by, “Why am I--I, and not John Jones or James Smith--here and now?”
The answer to the first is the need of the One to differentiate itself
into the Many, proving its universality and its power to integrate and
raise up the good. But, he shows, the answer to the second question is
in the conduct of the individual. Insofar as I by my courage in the
face of life justify my particular existence, I supply the reason why
myself, rather than Jones or Smith, exists in my place, here and now.
Faith is not a new faculty added to us, it is simply our reason grown
courageous. As Carlyle repeated, we all must answer the alternative:
“Wilt thou be a hero or a coward?” Professor Jacks adds: “No philosophy
can relieve us from the responsibility of having to make that
choice”--and religion, telling us our choice must be the heroic one,
strengthens us in making it.
It is religion, I think, that George Santayana represents--Santayana
who contrasts for me with that rooted countryman of his, Miguel de
Unamuno. I have a love for both, the one tenacious of his soil and
its traditions, the other early detached, flung into the New England
of Harvard and William James, now lodged in Paris, and always with
his roots feeding orchid-like on the air. It is inevitable that one
like Santayana should bear his blossom in poetry and criticism and his
fruit in philosophy-religion, or religious philosophy. Thus he calls
his _Scepticism and Animal Faith_, “an introduction to a system of
philosophy,” but it is so only in the literal sense probably necessary
to secure the proper recognition from a too unimaginative world. The
book, which has a charm unbecoming a philosophical overture, can be
read independently of the volumes that are to follow it; but who reads
it may be trusted to put independence on one side and “follow, follow.”
Santayana as poet is possibly matter to consider in a later chapter
of our book, but since, as he says in the preface to his _Poems_,
their subject “is simply my philosophy in the making,” we should be
privileged to a passing consideration here. “I see no reason why a
philosopher should be puzzled. What he sees he sees; of the rest he is
ignorant; and his sense of this vast ignorance (which is his natural
and inevitable condition) is a chief part of his knowledge and of
his emotion. Philosophy is not an optional theme that may occupy him
on occasion. It is his only possible life, his daily response to
everything”--call it religion, if you please, and regard its expression:
O world, thou choosest not the better part!
It is not wisdom to be only wise,
And on the inward vision close the eyes,
But it is wisdom to believe the heart.
Columbus found a world, and had no chart,
Save one that faith deciphered in the skies;
To trust the soul’s invisible surmise
Was all his science and his only art.
Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine
That lights the pathway but one step ahead
Across a void of mystery and dread.
Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine
By which alone the mortal heart is led
Unto the thinking of the thought divine.
And to all who care for fine intellectualism neither arid of
inspiration nor robbed of beauty and emotion I commend Santayana in all
his books, those named and, of course, _The Life of Reason_, _Winds of
Doctrine_, _The Sense of Beauty_, and _Character and Opinion in the
United States_ and the _Soliloquies_ as well. For those unacquainted
with the man, _Little Essays Drawn from the Works of George Santayana_,
by Logan Pearsall Smith, may offer the readiest approach.
ii
The task to which James Harvey Robinson calls us has already been
undertaken with the highest success by himself and some others. Among
these has from the first been Edwin E. Slosson who now, with Otis W.
Caldwell, the botanist and educator of Columbia University, has edited
an admirable volume, _Science Remaking the World_. This book is so good
and represents so intelligent a collaboration, that I hope it is only
the forerunner of a number of similar volumes. In the dual editorship,
Dr. Caldwell’s contribution was his working familiarity with every
field of modern science while Dr. Slosson lent his magic touch of the
born populariser. The fifteen chapters, eleven of which are contributed
by specialists in various fields, deal directly along the average
person’s lines of interest with such subjects as gasoline power, coal
tar products, the modern idea of the atom, what we know of “infantile
paralysis,” our present knowledge of tuberculosis, the lengthening of
human life, the world’s health, botanical science, evolution, warfare
against insects, forestation, the chemistry and economy of food, and
those two basic foods, bread and the potato. Dr. Caldwell writes the
general opening chapter and the chapter on lengthening human life with
its special reference to Louis Pasteur’s work; as was desirable in view
of the great popular success of his _Creative Chemistry_, Dr. Slosson
contributes the discussions of gasoline power and of the miracles
wrought from coal tar.
Our quest shuttles back and forth between the discoveries of man and
man the discoverer. At every stage we have to consider not only what
man has gained in the way of knowledge but his potentialities in
respect of all knowledge. That is why we have such a succession of
books as Madison Grant’s _The Passing of the Great Race_, those books
by Lothrop Stoddard which are brought to attention in Chapter 22 of
this volume, and, now, Roland B. Dixon’s _The Racial History of Man_.
The professor of anthropology at Harvard treats impressively and from
a broad point of view the whole question of race. His account of race
distribution and historical development is divided geographically.
Beginning with Europe and a general outline of its racial history,
he then takes up the separate countries or areas. In the same way
he deals with Africa, Asia, Oceania, North and South America. His
interesting conclusions, in some respects original and without the
dogmatism that vitiates much writing on the subject, are given in a
final chapter. But the best part is that this book is simply the first
in a group of probably ten volumes, each to be written by a leading
American authority, which is to describe, in the light of the latest
investigation and discovery, the formation of worlds, the evolution of
species, and the emergence and development of man.
Such books are desperately needed, to resume James Harvey Robinson’s
argument, if science is to save itself. Such is the present situation
that “if no precautions are taken to bridge the gap between scientific
knowledge and popular prejudice it may grow so wide that the researcher
himself may be engulfed.” It would not be the first time in human
history when light was swallowed up in darkness. How dense that
darkness can be, how persistent, how ironical and, perhaps, pathetic
may be learned from the slightest perusal of Dr. James J. Walsh’s
astonishing and engrossing new book, called _Cures_. This is a history
of new remedies of every sort in all ages which have cured for a
while and then have failed. It will scarcely surprise us, although it
may make us rather uncomfortable, to know that not Europe with its
ancient and superstitious peoples but modern America has supplied the
greatest number of cure delusions. Dr. Walsh puts the explanation on
a charitable ground: “Americans are more enterprising and as a result
we have had ever so many more successful discoveries of new”--but
less permanently successful--“remedies.” The subject is not without
its humorous aspects. Insofar as Dr. Walsh has occasion to treat of
some forms of curing which are still much adhered to, with or without
correlated religious beliefs, his book treads on live and resentful
toes. As a Catholic avoiding the discussion of Lourdes and other
shrines, he invites reprisals; as a physician of very distinguished
service and high standing, he is well-qualified to counter them. But
aside from any possible controversy, what an amazing history of human
credulity and ignorance he exposes--Dowie, rattlesnake oil, magnetic
iron, metallic tractors, sympathetic powders, hypnotism, mesmerism,
electric belts, plasters, pads, chest protectors, psychoanalysis and
spiritualistic healing along with the various forms of “New Thought”
come under review. It will be observed that as a rule Dr. Walsh gives
credit for cures to even the most impossible notion or contraption--at
first. A cure is a cure, perhaps only the more so if the actual
curative agent is suggestion.
Suggestion! Is it possible that, on a subject so bedevilled, a book
could now appear of genuine usefulness, sanity and popular value?
Personally I should have inclined to answer emphatically, “No!” But
I cannot, for the book is before me. Dr. Louis E. Bisch, a physician
practising in New York, lecturing on psychology at Columbia and
directing the treatments given in mental and nervous cases at the
large sanitarium in the North Carolina mountains, has been known to me
hitherto by his _Your Inner Self_--without exception the best popular
account of psychoanalysis and modern psychology I have ever seen. Now
he has written _The Conquest of Self_, in which he expresses with
the same directness and accuracy all that body of actual truth which
the “How to Succeed” books build into such amazing forms of lies and
nonsense. There is, of course, a certain power of accomplishment in
each of us; there is a general direction for each of us to take; there
are personal obstacles to overcome, and there is a power of progression
to be developed. A better comprehension of one’s self, as of others,
can definitely be arrived at. All these facts Dr. Bisch translates into
practical detail and illustrates with concrete instances, avoiding the
claptrap with which the whole subject is now so heavily overloaded.
In that general enterprise of the humanisation of knowledge to which
(I hope) we are all fully committed, such a book as _The Conquest of
Self_ has a special merit; for where ignorance is thickest, it lights a
clear and modest path, and where pseudo-science has done and is doing
the greatest havoc, it puts truth in armour for the hardest part of a
difficult journey.
iii
If, as some contend, the purpose of fiction is entertainment--an
assertion we need not either attempt to refute nor deny--then the
mark of good fiction is that, while perhaps entertaining us, it does
something else. And about the “something else” I should think we need
not be narrow in definitions. Maybe the entertaining novel we are
reading adds its unobtrusive item to our understanding of this or that;
maybe it tunes up our emotional natures. Or it may accomplish its
bye-purpose in other directions. We may or may not be conscious of the
additional result, or, if conscious of it, we may continue (perhaps
wisely) to read for the sole purpose of being entertained. I do not
believe one should read fiction with the something else in mind, nor,
in a brief account of some new novels, would I attempt to suggest
what the something else--differing, it is likely, with the individual
reader--may turn out to be. If one asks me for bread, I will not offer
him a loaf of vitamins, but palatable bread from which his body may
take the elements it pleases.
For examples, you may derive from John Buchan’s _Midwinter_ your
clearest idea of Dr. Samuel Johnson, or your greatest knowledge
about the affections of a young lady; your own mind will satisfy
its proper need. From Compton Mackenzie’s _The Altar Steps_ and its
sequel, _Parson’s Progress_, certain temperaments gain religious and
ecclesiastical satisfactions. The modern, intimate taste for sensory
impulses can be gratified in reading John Dos Passos’s unusual novel,
_Streets of Night_; just as the correlative instinct for a fresh and
daring idealism is fed by such a fine first novel as Cyril Hume’s _The
Wife of the Centaur_. Arnold Bennett’s _Riceyman Steps_, with its story
of a young charwoman who works for a miserly bookseller and his wife,
renews the heart in its assurance of our common humanity, and offers
the rich nourishment which rejoiced us in _The Old Wives’ Tale_. And so
it goes with fiction.
We think of Brand Whitlock now as the author of _Belgium_, but a
further thought recalls him, and with pleasure, as a writer of fiction.
His new novel, _J. Hardin & Son_, was planned ten years and more ago
and discussed with the late William Dean Howells, whose interest in
it was keen. The actual writing had begun in the summer of 1914 at a
small country place near Brussels when the catastrophe of war began
its pre-emption upon all of the American Minister’s time and energy.
Except for intervals of thinking about it and occasional notes, Mr.
Whitlock could do nothing but protect the manuscript on journeyings to
and fro--until the end of 1918, when, after the armistice, he resumed
writing as opportunity offered. The book was progressing in earnest at
Biarritz and Spa in 1922, and was completed in New York in the spring
of 1923. Mr. Howells’s interest will be understood when it is explained
that _J. Hardin & Son_ takes place in a little Ohio town. The story
begins when Paul Hardin, the son, is ten and accompanies him to middle
age--perhaps one should say to that point in or at the beginning of
middle age where, as with Sinclair Lewis’s Babbitt, a man’s character
takes its final determining shape in some act or decision which
controls the rest of his life. For Paul Hardin this moment comes when
he recognises one of the buggies made forty years before by his father,
takes hold of one of the spokes and finds it as solid, as resistant
as on the day it was made. Paul had hardly liked his father, whose
sternly-held and sternly-expressed views and whose passion for moral
reform in the shape of prohibition seemed like a life-long and perverse
obstinacy, embittering all the preludes to affection, sympathy or even
understanding. Yet now! Something comes out of that spoke, something
out of his father’s life that settles his behaviour toward the two
women who are for him to deal with in regard to himself. Mr. Whitlock
has aimed, however, at the reconstruction of a period in American life.
His momentous personal problem in the life of Paul Hardin is simply the
foreground for a study of American ideas in a certain kind of community
in the years within his own recollection, say from 1880 on pretty well
into our century. Over a hundred characters, many of them of more than
passing importance, are involved in the extremely varied but entirely
naturalistic incidents of the novel.
_J. Hardin & Son_, the work of an American at fifty, makes a contrast
with the work of a Norwegian of fifty, the age at which Jonas Lie wrote
his _The Family at Gilje_. The Norwegian novelist, whose story is just
offered in a careful translation, uses a much simpler scheme. His tale
opens with a picture of a home in the mountains of Norway where a
father and mother are anxious to get their children married off. It
ends when each child has solved his or her problem. If environment
conquers in one child, individuality is sure to come out on top in
another. Jonas Lie’s book, I am told, makes Norwegians feel that they
are living again the scenes of early life; and at the same time the
novel is full of the most modern ideas about marriage, the home and the
management of children, introduced not by main strength and the hazard
of fictional illusion but subtly, by an artist who shared Ibsen’s
supply of “social dynamite” but whose artistry was paramount. Lie is
called a realist, as, I suppose, Bojer and most of the Scandinavians
would be (except Jens Jacobsen in _Marie Grubbe_); but what is the
white magic in these writers of the white snow-countries that makes
their realism so unfailingly poetic? Is it indigenous? Cannot we
acquire it here in America? Shall we exile our artists to Canada,
whence now comes little but the worn-out stories of strong men and
their uniform primitiveness with women?
I do not know the answers to these questions, nor do you; but I do
know that certain writers are _simpatico_ in certain provinces of
society--Frank Swinnerton, for example, in the stratum whence he
drew his _Nocturne_ and his _Coquette_ and in the somewhat different
middle-class level on which we meet the characters of his new story,
_Young Felix_. Here is a satisfactory representative English novel
in the mode called realism to contrast with our American and our
Norwegian. I say “contrast”--for I don’t think comparisons will get us
very far. What we are better employed in doing, in my opinion, is a
species of addition rather than subtraction; we shall find a difference
in the attitude as well as the art of Brand Whitlock, Jonas Lie, and
Frank Swinnerton. Is not each worth our while? I think so. I think such
a novel as Jay William Hudson’s _Nowhere Else in the World_ is worth
the while of most readers, who may, however, be a bit puzzled at first
to discover how different it is from his _Abbé Pierre_. Mr. Hudson
may possibly have written the Great Chicago Novel as Carl Sandburg is
sometimes thought to have written the great Chicago hymn or chant. At
least, his _Nowhere Else in the World_ is in its essence apocalyptic.
Stephen Kent, who had been enchanted by Paris after a youthful
rebellion against Chicago and its blatant commercialism, lives to look
upon the city of his birth as “like Rodin’s ‘Thinker,’ primitive,
powerful, with mighty sinews,” as “the spiritual capital of America,”
as a place where he and others will join in “moulding, not paintings
and statues, but a civilisation destined to be the summit of all art,
of all dreams.” There is incidentally in this tense story a competent
picture of American academic life which will cause squirmings. Mr.
Hudson’s knowledge of American colleges is derived at first hand.
Much first hand knowledge, I happen to know, has gone into the writing
of George Looms’s second novel, _John-No-Brawn._ The action of this
rather terrible but certainly impressive piece of fiction takes place
in Louisville, Kentucky, the author’s home town, and in and near
Denver, Colorado. The book is one of an intensity that has already
occasioned extremely divergent opinions. The story is that of a sick
man, an indeterminate character trapped by the horrible and inescapable
fact of disease. He comes to the conclusion that he is a hopeless
drag on his young wife. Against the warnings, protests and threats
of doctor and nurse, he walks out of the hospital. “They watched him
near the stairway, saw him reel slightly and then reach out his hand
and take hold of the banister--saw him steady himself. He paused for
a moment ... and then he passed around the partition corner, out of
sight.” Such an ending is exalting or deadly in its depressiveness, as
you please; just as the story itself is a thing of magnificence or of
utter drabness. Like the powerful war novel by Thomas Boyd, _Through
the Wheat_, a violent reaction in one direction or another is to be
expected of the reader. It is probably an advantage in Mr. Boyd’s novel
over Dos Passos’s _Three Soldiers_ that _Through the Wheat_ is almost
entirely a story of fighting in the front line. All agree that this was
war, at least, and something is gained at the outset by the setting
aside of various prejudices and preconceptions. _Through the Wheat_,
far more than _Three Soldiers_, contrasts with high effectiveness
with Henri Barbusse’s _Under Fire_. Again may I plead that if the two
novels, the French and the American, are to be entered in a fight by
rounds, there can and should be no decision. _Through the Wheat_ is a
wonderful thing to have been plucked in Belleau Wood, at Soissons and
Saint Mihiel by a boy not yet twenty.
While Mr. Whitlock is going back of our day for his Middle Western
picture, Meredith Nicholson, slightly his senior, has been busy with
the immediacy not only of the present day but the very hour. Mr.
Nicholson’s new novel, _The Hope of Happiness_, like its predecessor,
_Broken Barriers_, reckons with a social life in which, if they have
not been entirely swept aside, American standards of conduct have been
very much altered. The young woman who drinks too hopelessly much is
put before us, but the essential story is one of a situation between
father and unacknowledged son with the probable complications of men’s
business and women’s love. There is an ability of characterisation and
a temper and evenness in the writing which make the reader feel that
Mr. Nicholson writes for a much ampler purpose than would be served by
a novel of changing manners and enlarged social license. These are mere
appurtenances of the story he has to tell.
Not to have a story to tell is to forfeit the best claim to
consideration at the hands of most readers of fiction; and among
those Americans who have never made the forfeiture I would have no
hesitation in naming Irvin S. Cobb. The award of the O. Henry Memorial
Prize for 1922 to the title story in Cobb’s _Snake Doctor and Other
Stories_ seems to me more or less of an irrelevance; Cobb has written
so many capital stories and the award, if it had then existed, might
so easily have gone to him years ago. The tales collected in _Snake
Doctor and Other Stories_ exhibit, perhaps, a greater variety than
some of the earlier collections, and there is a Judge Priest story
without which, I am certain, a majority of Cobb’s readers would
consider the book incomplete. “Snake Doctor” itself has been criticised
as being altogether mechanical. My suggestion to those who advance
that criticism would be conveyed in the form of a question, or two
questions: Did they get no thrill from reading the story? And if they
did, was that thrill a purely mechanical effect? For the point is not
whether the thing producing an effect is a mechanism, but the nature
of the effect itself. Nothing is more mechanical than the theatre, but
a good play is not made the less art thereby. Actors, you may say, or
acting; but a scene has been “made” or destroyed more than once by that
utterly mechanical detail, the stage setting.... If as has sometimes
been predicted, a machine will be invented to produce upon us all the
effects of good fiction, we shall none of us quarrel with the inventor
nor will anyone try to destroy the device unless it be our fictioners.
In the meantime, I advise no one to neglect them, lest the day of the
obvious and unconcealed machine never arrive.
iv
To blaze a trail for the reader through the rich forest of books
educational, philosophical, scientific, and withal “popular” is no easy
task. I have not attempted to do more than put down the titles of some
new and recent “general” books, with the authors, and sometimes a note
upon the volume. But should these not be classified? Dear reader, if
you will give me the classification of the things you are interested
in, I will classify the books....
_Christ or Mars?_ by WILL IRWIN. A passionate but documented
indictment. Mr. Irwin says we do not want peace hard enough; the mood
of man must be changed before peace can come about. He believes it can
be done. “We are trying to hide in squirrel-holes from God. And the
church, which purports to interpret to our world His intentions, is
hiding too.”
NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER’S _Building the American Nation_ is a series
of lectures on Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Washington, Hamilton,
Madison, Jefferson, John Marshall, Webster, Jackson and Lincoln.
_The Ideals of Theodore Roosevelt_, by EDWARD H. COTTON. The book
deals especially with Roosevelt’s religious beliefs and his creed as
expressed in a life of action. Theodore Roosevelt’s sister, Corinne
Roosevelt, writes the preface.
_The Spirit of Islam_, by SYED AMEER ALI. Recognised as the one
authoritative work in English for use in Moslem centres of instruction.
Of especial interest in connection with Lothrop Stoddard’s _The New
World of Islam_.
_Man and the Attainment of Immortality_, by JAMES Y. SIMPSON. After
a careful outline of biological evolution, the author interprets
Christianity as the most important stage in the evolution which,
from being physical, is tending more and more to become a mental and
spiritual process.
G. STANLEY HALL’S _Jesus, the Christ, in the Light of Psychology_, an
interpretation of what we know of Christ in the light of present-day
psychological knowledge, is now procurable in one volume.
A new and useful introduction to the study of philosophy is JOSEPH A.
LEIGHTON’S _The Field of Philosophy_.
JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON’S _The Humanizing of Knowledge_, discussed above,
is one of the volumes of the Workers’ Bookshelf series, books primarily
planned for use in American trades union colleges but of varying
general interest. Other books in the series are _Joining in Public
Discussion_, _The Control of Wages_, _Women in the Labour Movement_,
etc. (by various authors).
_The Greek View of Life_, by G. LOWES DICKINSON, a book of charm and
permanence, should possibly rather be assigned to Chapter 15 of this
book.
_The Making of the Western Mind_, by F. MELIAN STAWELL and F. S.
MARVIN. A short survey of the leading elements of the European cultural
inheritance from the days of classical Greece to our own day.
_Suggestion and Mental Analysis_, by WILLIAM BROWN. Takes into account
Coué and Badouin and psychoanalysis, and culminates in an exposition of
Bergson’s philosophy.
_The Dominant Sex_, by MATHILDE and MATHIAS VAERTING, translated by
Eden and Cedar Paul. Argues that there are no distinctively “masculine”
traits but that the traits so-called have been characteristic of either
sex when dominant in a particular society; with evidence to support the
theory.
_The Mechanism and Physiology of Sex Determination_, by RICHARD
GOLDSCHMIDT, translated by W. J. Dakin. Remarkable breeding experiments
carried out with insects; intersexuality; a subsection deals with man.
A book of importance to biologists.
_How to Sing_, by LUISA TETRAZZINI. Practical advice by the great
coloratura singer.
_The Art of the Prima Donna_, by FREDERICK H. MARTENS. Discussions
by Bori, Calve, Easton, Farrar, Galli-Curci, Hempel, Homer, Jeritza,
Schumann-Heink and others are the feature of the book.
_Public Speaking_, by FRANK H. KIRKPATRICK. Those interested in this
subject will probably want also ALFRED DWIGHT SHEFFIELD’S _Joining in
Public Discussion_.
_The Process and Practice of Photo-Engraving_, by H. O. GROESBECK, JR.
There has hitherto been no handbook and manual.
_Construction of the Small House_, by H. VANDERVOORT WALSH. For the
architect and the layman alike.
As an example of the finest type of book in one of many special fields,
there may be mentioned ARTHUR T. BOLTON’S _The Architecture of Robert
and James Adam_, in two volumes with about 700 illustrations, folio
size, $60.00.
_The Book of Building and Interior Decorating_, edited by REGINALD T.
TOWNSEND. Practical advice from experts.
_Interior Decoration_, by FRANK ALVAH PARSONS. A standard work.
_The Psychology of Dress: Life Expressed in Clothes_, by FRANK ALVAH
PARSONS, is a history of costume made still more interesting by
illustrations.
The Amateur’s Book of the Garden Series, edited by LEONARD BARRON,
offers:
_The Vegetable Garden_, by ADOLPH KRUHM
_Planning Your Garden_, by W. S. ROGERS
_Lawns_, by LEONARD BARRON
_House Plants_, by PARKER T. BARNES
_The Flower Garden_, by IDA D. BENNETT
For the owner of the greenhouse there is _Gardening Under Glass_, by F.
F. ROCKWELL; SYDNEY MITCHELL’S _Gardening in California_ is a guide for
the amateur on the Pacific slope; and _Adventures in My Garden and Rock
Garden_, by LOUISE BEEBE WILDER (author of _My Garden_ and _Colour in
My Garden_) is the descriptive history of a piece of land hardly more
than an acre in size.
_The Plain Sailing Cook Book_, by SUSANNA SHANKLIN BROWNE. Simple
recipes for beginners.
_A Handbook of Cookery for a Small House_, by JESSIE CONRAD. With a
preface by her husband, Joseph Conrad. This was the meat on which our
Cæsar fed and grew so great.
_A Pocket Bridge Book_, by WALTER CAMP. For those who must have their
daily dummy.
_Modern Auction, 1923_, by GRACE G. MONTGOMERY. The new edition of a
standard work.
_Singles and Doubles_, by W. T. TILDEN, 2D., world’s tennis champion,
1920, 1921.
_The Gist of Golf_, by HARRY VARDON. Vardon writes most readably and
gives a chapter to each club. Pictures.
_Field Soccer and Hockey for Women_, by HELEN FROST and HAZEL J.
CUBBERLEY. Pictures and diagrams.
_Ski-ing Turns_, by VIVIAN CAULFIELD. With card diagrams that can be
removed from the book.
_How to Box_, by NORMAN CLARK. With 61 photographs.
_Training for Power and Leadership_, by GRENVILLE KLEISER.
_The Making of an Executive_, by A. HAMILTON CHURCH. Personal
qualifications and the special knowledge required.
_Creative Selling_, by CHARLES HENRY MACKINTOSH. Making and keeping
customers.
_The Law of Sales_, by JAMES BURTON READ. The law relating to the
transfer of personal property for considerations.
_Advertising for the Retailer_, by LLOYD DALLAS HERROLD. Complete
information on every type of advertising used by the retailer.
Illustrations of layouts, window decorations, show cards, letters, etc.
_The Leadership of Advertised Brands_, by GEORGE BURTON HOTCHKISS and
RICHARD B. FRANKEN. Successful advertising and marketing methods.
EDWARD H. SCHULZE’S _Making Letters Pay_ covers business letters from
the viewpoint of “better results, in less time, at lower cost”; while
CARL A. NAETHER’S _The Business Letter_ offers thoroughgoing practice
in making good business letters a habit. SALLIE B. TANNAHILL’S _Ps and
Qs: A Book on the Art of Letter Arrangement_ is concerned with personal
letters.
_Funds and Their Uses_, by FREDERICK A. CLEVELAND. Now available in
a revised edition. Methods, instruments and institutions of modern
financial transactions. The revision adds chapters on the United
States Treasury, commercial banks, the Federal Reserve system, trust
companies, investment bankers and agricultural credit institutions.
_Cotton and the Cotton Market_, by W. HUSTACE HUBBARD. Production,
marketing, the future contract system, the speculative factor; a pretty
complete survey.
_Reminiscences of a Stock Operator_, by EDWIN LEFEVRE. The chief appeal
of this book is the appeal of fiction, although it is obviously founded
on the facts of one or more Wall Street careers. Much market wisdom.
_Co-operative Marketing_, by HERMAN STEEN.
_Historic Textile Fabrics_, by RICHARD GLAZIER. More than 200 varieties
are illustrated.
_The Business of Writing_, by ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY and ALEXANDER VAN
RENSSELAER. A trustworthy book on marketing the writer’s product.
_Writing to Sell_, by EDWIN WILDMAN. What will be marketable and why,
from short pieces for household periodicals to special feature articles
for monthly magazines.
_The Community Newspaper_, by EMERSON P. HARRIS and FLORENCE HARRIS
HOOKE. Developing the newspaper to the community’s benefit and the
owners’ profit.
Readers interested in the subject of JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON’S _The
Humanizing of Knowledge_ will be interested in ABRAHAM FLEXNER’S new
book, _A Modern College and a Modern School_.
_Modern Industrialism_, by FRANK L. MCVEY, presents in very full
outline and from the examples of many countries present-day industrial
organisation.
_Trade Unionism in the United States_, by ROBERT F. HOXIE. A revised
edition is ready.
_Everybody’s Business_, by FLOYD PARSONS. A readable survey of
America’s natural resources and the story of the development of our
major industries.
_The Great Game of Politics_, by FRANK R. KENT.
_Too Much Government--Too Much Taxation_, by CHARLES NORMAN FAY.
* * * * *
NOTE: The list of every publishing house has its special
characteristics and the reader of books will naturally associate
certain types of books with certain imprints; it is desirable that
he should, aiding the bookseller, when possible, in the quest for
publications of a special sort. I have tried to name below, as a
general guide supplementing the fragmentary list above, the chief types
of publications of the four houses associated in the production of this
book:
D. Appleton & Company, whose long history has given them the honour of
publishing important works by Charles Darwin, Haeckel, Froebel, Thomas
Huxley, John Stuart Mill, Max Nordau, G. Stanley Hall, Muensterberg,
Flammarion, Florence Nightingale and L. Emmett Holt, publish many
scientific, business, educational, technical and industrial books,
military and naval textbooks; books on the Spanish language and many
translations into Spanish from English, including fiction; medical
books; fiction by Zona Gale, Joseph C. Lincoln, Harold Bell Wright,
Edith Wharton, Brand Whitlock, etc., and general literature.
George H. Doran Company publish many books of historical importance,
memoirs, biographies, etc.; contemporary politics; travel; sport;
belles lettres; a very large list of religious books; spiritualistic
books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and others; poetry; plays; and a
remarkable fiction list including Walpole, Mary Roberts Rinehart, W.
Somerset Maugham, Arnold Bennett, etc.
Doubleday, Page & Company are noted as the publishers of many garden
and nature books; of important biographies and historical works;
travel; poetry; belles lettres; general literature and fiction by
Joseph Conrad, Booth Tarkington, Gene Stratton-Porter, Edna Ferber,
Kathleen Norris, etc. They publish the works of Rudyard Kipling (except
the Outward Bound Edition: Scribner).
Charles Scribner’s Sons publish works on architecture; historical
and biographical books and memoirs; letters; belles lettres; books
dealing with problems of race and society; sociological works; poetry;
plays; books on sports; works on art and decoration, philosophy and
religion; many books illustrated in colour; and fiction. In a long
career the house has had the distinction of publishing the works of J.
M. Barrie, Thomas Carlyle, Edmund Gosse, W. E. Henley, Maurice Hewlett,
James Huneker, Henrik Ibsen, Henry James, George Meredith, Theodore
Roosevelt, George Santayana, Robert Louis Stevenson, etc.
All four houses publish books for boys and girls.
Fiction.
In addition to the fiction already discussed attention may be invited
to the following new and recent books (for new fiction by Galsworthy,
Conrad, V. Sackville West, Arthur Train, Harold Bell Wright, Ralph
Connor, Booth Tarkington, Zona Gale, Gene Stratton-Porter, Joseph C.
Lincoln, Edith Wharton, Christopher Morley see respective chapters on
these authors; also see Chapters 3, 15, and 18):
_Cross-Sections_, by JULIAN STREET. Short stories.
_Butterfly_, by KATHLEEN NORRIS.
_Rufus_, by GRACE S. RICHMOND.
_Miss Bracegirdle and Others_, by STACY AUMONIER. Short stories.
_The Motherless_, by BENGT BERG, translated by Charles Wharton Stork.
The story of a motherless boy and a motherless bear cub.
_The Shadowy Third_, by ELLEN GLASGOW. Short stories.
_The Middle Father_, by ANTHONY M. RUD. Norwegian settlers in the
Middle West.
_Conquistador_, by KATHARINE FULLERTON Gerould.
_The Orissers_, by L. H. MYERS.
_Four of a Kind_, by J. P. MARQUAND. Four little novels.
_The Love Legend_, by WOODWARD BOYD.
_The Marriage Verdict_, by FRANK H. SPEARMAN.
_The Really Romantic Age_, by L. ALLEN HARKER.
_Broken Barriers_, by MEREDITH NICHOLSON.
_Timber Wolf_, by JACKSON GREGORY.
_Colin_, by E. F. BENSON.
_Eris_, by ROBERT W. CHAMBERS.
_Pandora Lifts the Lid_, by CHRISTOPHER MORLEY and DON MARQUIS.
_The House of Helen_, by CORRA HARRIS.
_The Gay Year_, by DOROTHY SPEARE.
_The Middle of the Road_, by SIR PHILIP GIBBS.
_La Parcelle 32_, by ERNEST PEROCHON.
_North of 36_, by EMERSON HOUGH.
_Fires of Ambition_, by GEORGE GIBBS.
_Madame Claire_, by SUSAN ERTZ.
_Corduroy_, by RUTH COMFORT MITCHELL.
_The Public Square_, by WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT.
_The Ground Swell_, by ALFRED B. STANFORD.
_The Song of the Dragon_, by JOHN TAINTOR FOOTE. Short stories.
_12. Totalling Mr. Tarkington_
i
In the interesting procession of his work, Booth Tarkington has pretty
well paralleled the somewhat vacillating development of popular
literary taste in his country. This, there is every reason to believe,
has resulted from no conscious intention. The fashion, in considering
Mr. Tarkington, has usually been to contrast what are called his
two natures--the romanticist who wrote _Monsieur Beaucaire_ and the
realist (more or less) who wrote _The Gentleman From Indiana_ and _The
Turmoil_. Very sensibly has it been pointed out that the two strains
are manifest side by side in a number of his novels, such as _The
Conquest of Canaan_, where the realism of character is sadly impaled on
the rocks of plot. But, if I may advance the idea with due diffidence,
such as Tarkington always shows in any discussion of his work, the much
more instructive comparison lies deeper in the man and is the result of
an unrelenting pressure of environment on a personality endowed with
most exceptional talent and even unmistakable genius. One can say, I
think, although with a great deal of hesitation over its unavoidable
crudeness, that Mr. Tarkington in some sense repeats what Mr. Van Wyck
Brooks conceives to be the tragedy of Mark Twain, only in Tarkington’s
case it has no air of tragedy. The common view of the author of _Alice
Adams_ is that he is a lucky fellow who deserves all his luck. Only
in a narrow, godlike perspective would he appear tragic. And such
a conclusion might easily be premature. When _Monsieur Beaucaire_
appeared Mr. Frederic Taber Cooper declared it certain that we knew the
extent of the author’s capabilities, adding that it was unthinkable
that he should ever again essay the realism of _The Gentleman From
Indiana_. A couple of years ago plenty of persons qualified to have and
to express an opinion asserted that Tarkington would never overcome
his propensity toward a pulled-together and “happy” ending in a novel;
and in the same year appeared _Alice Adams_. As Mr. Tarkington is only
fifty-four, and may easily have a dozen years and a half a dozen prime
novels directly in front of him, to be dogmatic is to run a perfectly
unreasonable risk of stultification. I shall try to avoid that.
ii
“An unrelenting pressure of environment on a personality endowed with
most exceptional talent....”
[Illustration: BOOTH TARKINGTON]
Newton Booth Tarkington was born in Indianapolis, 29 July 1869,
the son of John Stevenson Tarkington (died 1922, aged ninety) and
Elizabeth (Booth) Tarkington. The father, a Civil War soldier and a
lawyer, was for some years in politics; the son was a member of the
Indiana Legislature in 1902-3. The mother’s family is not traceably
connected with those Booths celebrated as actors. In his study of
_Booth Tarkington_ which is and will for a long time remain the chief
resource and delight of those considering the novelist, Robert Cortes
Holliday points out that the Indianapolis of Booth Tarkington’s youth
was a town, and that B. T. is neither a city nor a country boy, but a
town boy. For a while in his childhood the boy was affected by nervous
disorders resembling St. Vitus attacks. At about the age of eleven,
he became a friend of James Whitcomb Riley, who was a neighbour.
In his teens, Tarkington had the behaviour of a normal boy and a
spirit of deviltry showed itself that was to last him until he was
thirty. He went to Phillips Exeter, then to Purdue University, and
finally to Princeton, where he “made” Ivy, than which, in the way of
social success, Princeton offers nothing more beautiful. Much on the
sentimental side is made to this day of Tarkington’s singing of “Danny
Deever” at class gatherings and reunions. After leaving Princeton,
Tarkington returned to Indianapolis and pursued the busy social life
possible to a young man of the town while at the same time he read a
good deal and tried various styles of writing. Mr. Holliday intimates
that, like Stevenson, Tarkington “played the sedulous ape” to a
succession of literary masters, to find out how the thing was done.
The interesting point is that the beginner kept this activity quite
strictly to himself. “It was probably a consciousness of the foolish
look which his unrewarded activities may have had outside that caused
Mr. Tarkington at that time modestly to describe the serious schooling
which he gave himself as ‘fussin’ with literachoor,’” Holliday tells
us. The fact that the young man earned only $22.50 gross, or $62.50,
or whatever it was, by his first five years of literary effort has
since been as widely published as Joseph Hergesheimer’s fourteen years
without a single acceptance.
The junior Tarkington was under no necessity of earning his living
and a notebook kept at that time by his father records the repeated
return by publishers of his first novel, _The Gentleman from Indiana_.
_Monsieur Beaucaire_ was a long time getting accepted. The whimsical
_Cherry_ was bought by Henry Mills Alden for Harper’s Magazine,
pigeon-holed as a mistake and then unearthed and printed when _Monsieur
Beaucaire_ had made Tarkington “valuable.” Forty thousand words of an
early draft of _The Gentleman from Indiana_ had had to be discarded
because, having got his hero out for a walk, Tarkington could carry
neither him nor the story any further. After an interruption of some
length, _The Two Vanrevels_ was resumed and wound up only with the
greatest difficulty.
Mr. Tarkington was married in 1902 and again in 1912. He lived for a
while in France and Italy (Capri). His summer home, at Kennebunkport,
Maine, is usually spoken of with some reference to the study, where
models of vessels of every rig, a valuable collection, are displayed.
This is sometimes spoken of as “the house that _Penrod_ built” and the
ship models are perhaps natural to a home overlooking a New England
harbour. It is also to be recollected that certain of Mr. Tarkington’s
ancestors hailed from Salem. Perhaps any other significance in those
ships is merely fanciful.
No one who meets Booth Tarkington is insensible to the personal charm
of the man. He is absolutely without affectation, and the perfect host,
the staunch friend, the sympathetic listener and the contained and
modest talker. Whatever the vicissitudes he has undergone, whatever the
pressures put upon him, he has weathered them all with a steady helm.
It seems an astonishing, unwarranted and probably an impudent thing to
suggest that this man has been to a deplorable extent the victim of
circumstances (largely comfortable circumstances); and that, with a
less winning personality--if some outward expression for the thing must
be sought--the chances are he would have been a much greater writer
than, on his record, he is today.
iii
You see, of course, how handicapped he was from the start by being
“a good fellow.” The extent of that handicap can only be realised, I
think, by knowing that to this day “nothing, apparently, so much gives
Mr. Tarkington the horrors as the idea of the ‘literary.’ He does
not want to be ‘caught,’ he declares, writing ‘prose.’” I quote Mr.
Holliday, who adds: “Some literary editor in New York told him that
some of the passages in _The Turmoil_, in particular (I think) the
cemetery scene, were noble English prose, worthy, I suppose, of the
author of _Urn Burial_. ‘He liked them,’ says Mr. Tarkington with a
wry face, as though, if he knew just how, he would cut those passages
out.” But why should Tarkington be horrified by the thought that he may
have written “literature”? What black curse lies upon “literature”?
The only one I know is the contempt of “good fellows” and other
philistines for an affair they know nothing of and self-defensively
profess to despise. And if Mr. Tarkington thinks, as perhaps he does,
that he spent painful years of reading and practise writing without the
secret hope that he would some day write a piece of literature, then,
I suspect, he is much mistaken. But what is it, this mental process?
Why should he be “very quick to insist” that none of his family have
been “offensively” literary? Who is offended by literature? “Good
fellows” have been known to be very much annoyed by the presence among
them of one whose possession of a taste they did not share seemed to
impugn their own completeness. There is more than a suspicion that
“Tark” has jekyllhyded others so long as to have concealed something
very precious to him from himself. There could be no greater contrast,
for example, than between Joseph Hergesheimer and Booth Tarkington (in
this matter). Both are persons of some taste and genius who follow the
profession of letters. I reveal nothing when I say that Hergesheimer,
of whom personally I am fond, is considered by many people to be
most conceited. Mr. Hergesheimer would be the first to uphold such a
statement. One of the universally-praised traits of Mr. Tarkington is
his utter lack of self-conceit. What is the explanation?
Nobody lacks self-conceit, least of all a person with Tarkington’s
endowment. It may not be detectable, but any psychologist will tell
you it exists. Hergesheimer was just as “conceited” in the days when
no editor would take his stuff as he is today; only the quality wasn’t
visible, there being (practically speaking) no one to observe it. And
the quality itself was fully engaged and enterprised in sustaining
Joseph Hergesheimer, until such time as a measurable success, some
rounds of applause, should sustain him. When that hour has struck in an
artist’s life, fortunate the artist if he can turn the “self-conceit”
(which is really self-sustention) into the direct channel of his work!
But to return to Booth Tarkington: The environment of the Indianapolis
of the 1880s (a pleasant town), was perhaps not the most favourable
for a boy of a specially nervous constitution and that excessive
sensitiveness so frequently found in company with a fine imagination.
It isn’t to be wondered at that he was “precocious” until about the age
of four, and “slow” after he began going to school. Phillips Exeter,
like all such places, is devoted to finding the highest common social
factor in the boy. What Purdue may have been when Tarkington went
there, I have no idea; but it cannot possibly have exceeded Princeton
as a place where self-disguise was imperative for self-preservation.
There are plenty to remember those Princeton days, when students wore
paint-stained corduroys and drank constructively, innocently mistaking
eccentricities of dress and conduct for the achievement of personality.
The real Tarkington underneath was forcing itself up at this time; he
was writing for the college magazine such stuff as college magazines
are made on. He went back to Indianapolis to continue writing; but the
long era of good fellowship had done its work, a certain “self-conceit”
and with it a decent open dignity had been put under battened hatches,
and the young man was preparing to pay the fairly serious penalty--the
penalty of an inability to take himself seriously enough, the penalty
of wasted time, vitiated effort, delayed arrival, deferred achievement.
iv
Little wonder, then, that Mr. Tarkington told Mr. Holliday in 1917 that
he was writing a book (_The Magnificent Ambersons_) that he didn’t
think anybody would read; and a year or so later he was talking in the
same strain about _Alice Adams_. The last remaining vestiges of an
attitude which has crippled him are perceptible in such utterances.
He was ready, in 1917, to admit that he couldn’t read Stevenson any
longer, to confess that the stories of American politics called _In the
Arena_ were about all of his early work he “could stand to re-read.”
Popularity and unpopularity, he thought, had always been an accident
with him; his idea seemed to be that “anybody can write a popular
story”--of course, anybody can’t--and, as for himself, he had never
“played the goat to entertain anybody.” And devices in his books that
might have the air of being bids for popular favour were there simply
because, when he wrote, he didn’t know any better. As for putting them
in to please an editor or reader: “Really, I’d as soon have forged a
check.”
Holliday quotes him further: “I’ve written things only as I thought
they ought to be written. I thought in my youth that life could be
got into books with prettier colours and more shaping than the models
actually had; and I fell in with a softer, more commonplace and more
popular notion of what a _story_ should be. Where that acceptance
definitely stopped in _me_ (though the book may not show it) was
_Beauty and the Jacobin_. It was at that time that I was painting with
my old ornamental picture framer. Until then, I thought they were the
‘cheese,’--not for sales, but the _right_ ‘cheese.’”
Perfectly honest! If there is anything else, and I think there is,
it is hidden from Mr. Tarkington himself, or was. We may look upon
the melodrama and sentimentalism of _The Gentleman from Indiana_, or
_The Conquest of Canaan_ and feel less distaste for them than does
Tarkington who, at their mention, looks pitifully unhappy. He is
suffering the acute reaction of the years after, whereas it is possible
for us to note the simple fact that what now seems conventional and
cheap in those novels was much less conventional, and not nearly so
cheap, in 1899 and 1905. The fact remains--doesn’t it?--of Tarkington
having written an essentially realistic novel, his first, when we were
all wild about _Richard Carvel_ and _Prisoners of Hope_ and _When
Knighthood Was in Flower_--that sort of thing. Although, to be sure,
there was _The Honorable Peter Sterling_, there had been the earlier
novels of William Dean Howells, and Theodore Dreiser was putting on
paper _Sister Carrie_. Another fact that remains is the co-existence
(1905) of _In the Arena_ and _The Conquest of Canaan_ and the fixed,
large achievement, in 1912-13, of the novel called _The Flirt_.
It is easy to agree with Mr. Holliday that the efforts at invention in
the story surrounding Cora Madison are “childlike,” but I am convinced
that _The Flirt_ is a novel for which a place must be reserved in
any list of twenty distinguished American novels. The portrayals of
Cora and her brother, the boy Hedrick, seem to me to settle that.
Thackeray’s picture of Becky Sharp is, I feel, no more biting than
Tarkington’s delineation of Cora; Hedrick has as much gusto as any
character of Dickens; and in both cases Mr. Tarkington has accomplished
the thing with less than half the effort Thackeray and Dickens brought
to bear. Of Tarkington, as they would say in golf, it is all in the
wrist. The same undemonstrative precision, skill and force which went
into the porcelain perfection of _Monsieur Beaucaire_, which fumbled
so badly in such a mixture (“the rough”) as _The Two Vanrevels_, is
felt on every page of _The Flirt_ where Cora or Hedrick are “in play.”
Unfortunately, the inspired suggestion of the present Mrs. Tarkington
which was responsible for the existence of Hedrick Madison is also
responsible indirectly for the boy Penrod. Those Penrod stories which,
Tarkington admits, cost no effort to write! Toward this variety of
work several attitudes are possible. The strictest condemns it, and
because of it rates down the author. Obviously, such a view is just
only where the author has held his writing throughout as a sacred
vocation. The severe, exalted standard of judgment cannot very well
be applied to anyone like Arnold Bennett or Booth Tarkington, both of
whom, for quite different reasons, have a lively sense of what I would
call the amenities of living. A more tolerant attitude holds the author
justified for one or several excuses--he may have his living to make,
he may have the thing in him and need to get it out of his system, the
demand for Penrodism may carry its vox-populi-vox-Dei conviction, there
may be nothing else to write.... Between the smashing drive and the
perfect strokes on the putting green, one is not allowed to intermit
the bad brassy or the futile iron shot; one is required to play.
_The Flirt_ appeared in 1913, _Penrod_ in 1914, _The Turmoil_ in 1915,
_Penrod and Sam_ in 1916, _Seventeen_, an outgrowth of _Penrod_,
in 1916 also; _The Magnificent Ambersons_ in 1918, and _Ramsey
Milholland_, the last wring-out of Tarkington’s Bad Boy in 1919. Even
those who declare the creation of Penrod and William Sylvanus Baxter,
Jr. (in _Seventeen_) to be “great work”--and they are numerous and
their opinion is respectable--will perhaps feel, as they contemplate
the prolonged attack of Penroditis, that this adolescent in literature
gave his fashioner a distinct setback. They may look with admiration at
a photograph of the study in The House That Penrod Built and witness
all those ships, and the thought may occur to them that these beautiful
toys took too long the place of ampler vessels, which, with rich
cargoes, with the help of the stars and in spite of weather, might have
been worked home.
v
One such fine vessel, richly-freighted, made port at last, in 1921, the
_Alice Adams_. To praise this novel, the first in which Mr. Tarkington
made an entirely successful passage, is easy; to discriminate in regard
to it is difficult, for the simple reason that Mr. Tarkington’s past
work has made such a performance incomparable. Here was a man who in
his greatest feats had always shown corresponding blemishes. _The
Flirt_ had been spotted with melodrama (as if the drama of Cora and the
mordancy of Hedrick did not serve to tarnish any artificial sheen).
_The Turmoil_, more skilfully constructed than _The Flirt_, suffered an
entire loss of the detachment which Tarkington preserved toward Cora
Madison; and instead of a pitiless portrayal we had a modern morality
play. _The Magnificent Ambersons_ was afflicted with a pulled-around
ending. But in _Alice Adams_ all of these defects were met and
adjusted; the movement was natural and not “plotted”; no moral underlay
the exposed incidents; Mr. Tarkington was impartial without being in
the least unsympathetic. Then why discriminate? Surely, _Alice Adams_
has everything! Not at all. No author’s one book ever has, I suppose;
and in finally achieving the symmetry and truth and grace of _Alice
Adams_ there was the sacrifice of a nervous force which animated, in
a varying extent, all three of the earlier novels. One must learn, in
criticism, to value above all else what can only be called “vitality,”
whether in painting, or sculpture, music or literature. This mysterious
but indispensable flame burns with a different intensity in individual
writers. In Mr. Galsworthy, for example, it is low in novels, somewhat
higher, at times, in plays; but relatively low throughout his work. In
Mr. Tarkington, I cannot help feeling, it is higher in _The Flirt_ than
in anything else he has written; for savage and powerful as are the
stories of _In the Arena_, the material is something that the author
touches with his foot, rather than shapes with his hands. Indeed, this
instinctive repugnance in Mr. Tarkington, as inveterate in him as in so
many American writers, is one of the strictest limitations on his art.
In older cultures than ours in America, where it is well understood
that admission to the human race cannot be denied by some to others, a
Balzac or a Conrad or even a Dickens can write with the same manifest
vitality of almost anybody, however inhumanly horrible--as, for
example, the “incorruptible” Professor and mad anarchist in Conrad’s
tale of _The Secret Agent_. In the case of Tarkington, Mr. Holliday has
cleverly observed the type of material in which our writer’s vitality
is most evident--the memorable procession of drunkards in his stories,
the unmatched darkeys of the stable alleys, the large number of
Tarkington characters vocal with song.
As to plays: the man doesn’t regard them as his “real trade.” All the
earlier ones were written in collaboration, usually with Harry Leon
Wilson; and Tarkington, with an engaging candour, admits at once that
the great cost of a theatrical production must be met, if possible, by
filling the house. Writing alone, he has given the stage such utter
ineptitude as _Poldekin_ and such delicious comedy as _Clarence_. He
now writes a play, usually, because a particular producer wants one
with a particular actor in mind. In his book-length fiction he is
unrestricted, unless the engagement in advance of the next couple of
novels for serial publication may have its oblique effect. After all,
it must be very difficult, knowing that your next two books are first
to be placed before a certain large constituency of women readers, not
to select your material “according” and not to mould it imperceptibly
somewhat nearer the--supposed, suspected, or ascertained--hearts’
desire of all those ladies.
vi
Booth Tarkington’s home in Indianapolis, at 1100 North Pennsylvania
Street, is a plain brick house, far from new. Business creeps into
the street, but there is some “lawn” still about the house, a hedge,
Virginia creeper on the brick walls. Six winter months are spent here,
the other six in the house at Kennebunkport, which, being newer, is
furnished with more simplicity and taste. Tarkington’s workshop is
upstairs--a tilted drawing board beside an east window, a flexible
electric lamp, plenty of large-size sheets of yellow paper, two dozen
pencils kept sharp by two pencil-sharpening machines. Tarkington has
never used a typewriter and dictates only letters and not all of
those. His sister-in-law, Miss Louise Keifer, copies his pencilled
yellow pages of manuscript on the typewriter. Spectacles of all sizes
and weights lie on a table. The man breakfasts between nine and ten,
works until 1.30, and then pauses to eat a slender lunch brought to
his study on a tray. He continues working until 3.30, and sometimes
writes in the evenings, although the habit of writing pretty regularly
at night has been abandoned. Even so it is a longer working day than
most writers can keep. Mrs. Tarkington intercepts all interruptions; no
telephone call can break in, nor any thought-distracting piece of news.
On evenings when there is no engagement and Tarkington is not writing,
he will play double-deck solitaire for an hour, read until about one
o’clock, then go to bed. In Maine the day’s programme is a half-hour
earlier throughout; work stops around noon; a short motor ride and a
quick dip in the ocean follow; and the afternoon is most likely to be
spent in a motorboat. The Maine evening frequently includes a walk
of a mile to and from the movies; this is mainly for the sake of the
walk, although the worse the picture is, the more restful Tarkington is
likely to find it.
Notes, sometimes covering several dozen pencilled pages and
undecipherable by anyone else, precede the composition of a play or
novel. They are vague ideas and suggestions, the writer endeavouring
not to crystallise his story too suddenly. When this occurs, it is
sometimes necessary to write the next to the last chapter or scene
and then go back to the general plan or the beginning. Work proceeds
every day, Sundays included, and averages about 1,400 words a day of
fresh output, preceded by correction of the previous day’s writing. In
addition to this day by day revision, Tarkington revises a story or
book as a whole; it is then typed, and after that is seldom altered.
“He has never resorted to neurotic realism or the much over-exploited
nastiness of high life to give zest to his fiction,” says a recent
utterance in praise of Mr. Tarkington. And the author is quoted as
himself saying: “The problems of youth had been interesting me for some
time, more than I realised”--when he turned to _Penrod_--“except the
one problem that most people who call themselves realists feel that
they must deal with--that is, in an untrammelled fashion--the problem
of sex, which I have never felt was a subject for exploitation.”
“Neurotic realism” is a phrase of wabbly connotation, but if a study of
neurotic characters and tendencies be meant, there are plenty of those
in Tarkington fiction. Most of the Tarkington drunkards are neurotic,
Cora Madison is a victim of the narcism complex, and, as Mr. Holliday
has pointed out, “_The Turmoil_ is remarkable as a book of nervous
diseases.” One of the most unlifelike things about Penrod (still more,
William Sylvanus Baxter, Jr., he of _Seventeen_) is the absolute
erasure of that contact with “the facts of life” which constitutes one
of the indubitable facts of boyhood. And though as many crimes have
been committed in the name of realism as in the name of liberty, the
painfully sincere purpose of some of our most “untrammelled” writers
in their treatment of sex cannot justly be called “exploitation.” One
thinks of Sherwood Anderson. The analysis of Holliday, in a final
quest for the secret of Tarkington’s popularity as an author (not
invariable, but abundant), is perhaps as good as we shall get:
“He is very much like most people. There is nothing, except its
energy, peculiar about his mind; it has no strong idiosyncratic bias,
no strange, abnormal quality. At first, as in _Cherry_, he may have
been excessively belletristic. That was not only not odd, but quite
natural in a well-educated, young writer. But, just for the joke of the
thing, think for an instant of Mr. Tarkington in connection with such
a writer as, let us say, George Moore. In this wearer of the literary
ermine you find laid bare a soul compacted of nearly everything that
is detestable to the mind of a plain citizen going about his business
in the marketplace. He has confessed consuming egotism, quivering
sensibility, fastidiousness, vanity, timidity coupled with calculating
shamelessness, sensuality, a streak of feline cruelty, and absolute
spiritual incontinence. Or try to think of Mr. Tarkington coming along
with some such perverse thinking (however shrewd) as Samuel Butler’s:
‘the worst misfortune that can happen to any person is to lose his
money; the second is to lose his health; and the loss of reputation
is a bad third.’ Mr. Tarkington admires all those things which every
decent, ordinary, simple-hearted person admires: dash, courage,
honesty, honour, feminine virtue and graciousness and beauty, and
so on. He hates precisely those things hated by all honest, healthy
‘American’ people: sham, egoism, conceit, cruelty, affectation, and
so forth. In short, though he is a red hot artist (and most Americans
‘don’t care a nickel for art’), he believes in all those things
which make up the creed of the average sane, wholesome person in
this country. He has infectious humour, and (though savage in attack
upon what he feels to be vicious) abounding ‘good humour.’ Added to
all this, he has a most winning and rich, though not at all complex,
personality. He is in his own person, indeed, what most of us would
like to be. In a word, doubtless his books are popular because of the
same qualities that made their author popular as an undergraduate.”
There are compensations of all kinds on this earth, and one of Mr.
Tarkington’s--the most enviable of all, I think--must be knowledge of
a certain occasion in which he was of the utmost possible service to
another American writer. The course he took at that time, the energy he
displayed, would have been very improbable in one whose natural vanity
of himself as an artist was in the least like George Moore’s. If it was
for too long a literary misfortune that Mr. Tarkington’s “self-conceit”
lay in the direction of being a good fellow, at least he made of good
fellowship, in this instance, the minted gold of personal greatness.
No! Now it can_not_ be told; but there will be those alive to tell it.
Books by Booth Tarkington
1899 _The Gentleman from Indiana_
1900 _Monsieur Beaucaire_
1902 _The Two Vanrevels_
1903 _Cherry_ earlier, in composition, than _The Gentleman
from Indiana_
1905 _In the Arena_
1905 _The Conquest of Canaan_
1905 _The Beautiful Lady_
1907 _His Own People_
1908 _The Guest of Quesnay_
1909 _Beasley’s Christmas Party_
1911 _Beauty and the Jacobin_
1913 _The Flirt_
1914 _Penrod_
1915 _The Turmoil_
1916 _Penrod and Sam_
1916 _Seventeen_
1918 _The Magnificent Ambersons_
1919 _Ramsey Milholland_
1921 _Alice Adams_
1922 _Gentle Julia_
1923 _The Fascinating Stranger and Other Stories_
Plays by Booth Tarkington
1901 _Monsieur Beaucaire_ with E. G. SUTHERLAND
With HARRY LEON WILSON:
1906 _The Man from Home_
1907 _Cameo Kirby_
1908 _Your Humble Servant_
1908 _Springtime_
1909 _Getting a Polish_
1916 _Mister Antonio_
1917 _The Country Cousin_ with JULIAN STREET
With HARRY LEON WILSON:
1919 _The Gibson Upright_
1919 _Up from Nowhere_
1919 _Clarence_
1920 _Poldekin_
1921 _The Wren_
1921 _The Intimate Strangers_
Sources on Booth Tarkington
_Booth Tarkington_, by Robert Cortes Holliday. DOUBLEDAY, PAGE &
COMPANY. Authoritative, honest, delightful; especially sound in its
detailed criticism of the books up to and including _The Turmoil_
and _Seventeen_. When Holliday’s book was written, Tarkington was at
work on _The Magnificent Ambersons_, for an estimate of which see
Holliday’s _Broome Street Straws_.
_Contemporary American Novelists_, 1900-1920, by Carl Van Doren. THE
MACMILLAN COMPANY.
_Booth Tarkington at Home_, by John R. McMahon, LADIES’ HOME JOURNAL,
November, 1922 (page 15).
Private Information.
Articles, reviews, etc., are plentiful and the reader is advised to
consult the READERS’ GUIDE TO PERIODICAL LITERATURE for the years since
1914.
_13. A Parody Outline of Stewart_
i
About two years ago, when Donald Ogden Stewart had just abandoned the
bond business for the pursuit of a literary career, he was asked to
write a brief account of his life, with the following result:
“Donald Ogden Stewart was born in Columbus, Ohio, on November 30, 1894.
In his early years he gave manifold evidences of his gift for humour,
and many of his bright childhood remarks are still related by his proud
mother upon the slightest provocation, or in fact, upon no provocation
at all. There were others, however--principally among the guests at the
hotel where Donald lived--who did not think that this child prodigy was
so funny. Mr. Stewart bears a long red scar on his head--such as might
be made by a brick or other missile--as mute evidence of one little
red-headed girl’s particular lack of appreciation of his early humorous
efforts.
“At the age of 14 he was sent to the Phillips Exeter Academy because
it was a good preparatory school for Harvard. In the fall of 1912, Mr.
Stewart entered Yale. While at New Haven, Mr. Stewart went out for all
the athletic teams possible, and was always among those of whom it was
said in the college paper at the end of the season, ‘And we also wish
to thank those members of the third and fourth teams who have worked so
faithfully without reward--and yet we cannot say without reward--for
they are rewarded with the knowledge that they have worked for old
Yale,’ etc.
“Mr. Stewart was graduated in 1916 and selected a certain large public
service corporation as the scene of his future success. It was his
desire to start at the bottom and work up; the first half of this wish
was readily granted him. After a brief, inspiring visit with the head
of the corporation, Mr. Stewart was sent to the Birmingham, Alabama,
office which was about as far away as the head of the corporation could
possibly send Mr. Stewart. While in Birmingham, Mr. Stewart took a keen
interest in his job and read the complete works of Anatole France,
George Moore, Fyodor Dostoievski, Henrik Ibsen, Gustav Flaubert and
many others. He also intended to read the Alexander Hamilton business
course, but did not quite get around to it before he was sent to the
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, office.
[Illustration: _Photo by Nickolas Muray_ DONALD OGDEN STEWART]
“In Pittsburgh, Mr. Stewart took a keen interest in his job and read
the works of Leo Tolstoy, Friedrich Nietzsche, G. B. Shaw, Thomas
Hardy, Joseph Conrad and others. He also started to take piano lessons
and got as far as ‘The Happy Farmers.’ He was just on the point of
reading the Alexander Hamilton business course when he was sent to
Chicago. After ten months in Chicago, Mr. Stewart joined the Navy.
Having never been on a ship or the ocean in his life, he was at once
appointed an instructor in Practical Navigation, Seamanship, Naval
Ordnance, and Signals. This experience was invaluable and Mr. Stewart
came out of the Great War a deepened man.
“His old position with the great corporation awaited him and Mr.
Stewart went back to the work of the world in the spring of 1918. He
was sent to the Minneapolis office, where he took a keen interest in
his job and read the works of H. G. Wells, Havelock Ellis, and H. L.
Mencken; met F. Scott Fitzgerald, and led two cotillions. He was also
preparing to take up the Alexander Hamilton business course when he
accepted an offer of employment in Dayton, Ohio, with a financial
organisation.
“Mr. Stewart spent a delightful year in Dayton where he learned to
play golf, and read the works of Max Beerbohm, Sainte-Beuve, Casanova,
Swift, James Branch Cabell, James Huneker, and William Congreve. He
also renewed his piano lessons, getting as far as the Bach three-part
inventions and ‘Easy Classics.’ On December 30, 1920, he read the
first volume of the Alexander Hamilton business course, after which he
decided that he wanted to go in for literature. In January, 1921, Mr.
Stewart came to New York City to find a job (literary if possible), but
there were so many symphony concerts that month that he didn’t get a
chance to look around until the middle of February.
“The idea for the _Parody Outline of History_ came to Mr. Stewart in
March, while hearing Mr. Mengelberg conduct the National Orchestra in
the Pathetique Symphony.
“Mr. Stewart is unmarried and very near-sighted. He is fond of
Beethoven, Scotch, and Max Beerbohm.”
ii
So much for Mr. Stewart’s life up to the publication of _The Parody
Outline of History_. In the following year (1922)--but let Mr. Stewart
again speak:
“After the appearance of the _Parody Outline_ Mr. Stewart, having heard
a great deal about Europe in the course of his naval war service in
Chicago, decided to go abroad. Many of his friends recommended Paris as
a pleasant city in which to work, so Mr. Stewart went to Paris, which
he found indeed very pleasant but not for work. So after a brief period
of recuperation he journeyed to Vienna where he grew a splendid red
beard and wrote _Perfect Behavior_.
“Finding, however, that the beard was exhausting too much of his
creative energy, Mr. Stewart shaved and went to Budapest, where he
enjoyed himself immensely at the rate of 700 Hungarian crowns to the
dollar.
“But in the middle of October he began to feel strangely uneasy, and
as his condition grew steadily worse he consulted an authority and
learned, to his surprise and delight, that he was going to have another
book.
“Bidding a hasty farewell to the gay life of Budapest, which now seemed
all too empty and frivolous, Mr. Stewart journeyed with his precious
secret to Capri, there, under the ever-blue Italian skies, to await
the happy event. He prayed with all his heart that it might be a novel,
for he had never had a novel, although he had wanted one all his life.
But early in February, 1923, Mr. Stewart discovered that the ‘little
stranger’ was to be another satire, and although it was a bit of a blow
at first, after a few days he got over his disappointment at not having
a novel; and when, in June, Mr. Stewart returned to America he took
with him, proudly, his little third book, which he had christened _Aunt
Polly’s Story of Mankind_.”
iii
Alexander Woollcott speaking in “Shouts and Murmurs” in the New York
Herald of March 18, 1923:
“Stewart is a preposterously tall, blonde man, with an enviably large
amount of his twenties still to squander. His profile is faintly
reminiscent of that most delightful and fantastic of all creatures,
Winsor McKay’s Gertie. He knows more about the music than he does about
the books of the world, and has, we suspect, gone in for reading so
recently that he probably thinks all novels are like Joyce’s _Ulysses_.
We ran across him here and there in France last summer, starting out on
one pilgrimage together from the Café Valterre, in the Place Stanislas
at Nancy, that celebrated restaurant which set forth marvellous dishes
even when the bombs were dropping on Nancy every evening and there was
not another good meal to be found anywhere else in Lorraine. Up the
street somewhere was M. Coué, healing away for dear life, and on the
outskirts of the town an imitation Oberammergau was in full swing. But
the two of us were minded rather to move on to the battlefields, and
for the purpose engaged a morsel of a French car, driven by a youngster
who spoke a horrible dialect he had picked up three years before from
the Americans stationed at Neufchateau. The memories of that rambling
excursion into a cheerless countryside, still littered with the rusted
snarls of barbed wire and still gashed with the trenches no one has
had time or strength to obliterate, are brought flooding back by the
inscription in the copy of _Perfect Behavior_ lying open here on the
desk. It is inscribed: ‘In memory of terrible days and ghastly nights
on the battlefields of France,’ and winds up with this disconcerting
proclamation: ‘“It shall never happen again.”--Stewart.’
“Marc Connelly was agitated the other day by the receipt of a cablegram
from Stewart in Capri which read thus:
“‘The Queen of Sweden is here. What shall I do?--Stewart.’
“Connelly’s cabled reply must be admired equally for its sagacity and
its thrift. It was: ‘Compromise.’”
Books by Donald Ogden Stewart
1921 _A Parody Outline of History_
1922 _Perfect Behavior_
1923 _Aunt Polly’s Story of Mankind_
Sources on Donald Ogden Stewart
_The Making of a Humorist_, by DONALD OGDEN STEWART, suppressed by the
author, 1921.
_My Naval Career_, by DONALD OGDEN STEWART (Privately unpublished,
1921).
_14. Miss Zona Gale_
i
No one any longer doubts that Zona Gale belongs in the very small
company of American women novelists whose work is of the first artistic
importance. Her history is interesting. Of old New England parentage,
she was born in Portage, Wisconsin, where she now lives. She wrote, at
thirteen, a novel “which almost simultaneously came back to me from
a publisher.” At sixteen, just after she had entered the University
of Wisconsin, she submitted a 3,000-word short story to the Milwaukee
Evening Wisconsin, which paid her $3. When she finished college she
went to work for that newspaper. “I secured a position by attrition. I
presented myself every morning at the desk of the city editor. At the
end of two weeks the city editor let me write about a flower show. I
have never put such emotion into anything else I have written.” She
was another month getting on the staff. Later, by offering a list of
suggestions based on the day’s news, she succeeded after many weeks in
getting on the staff of the New York World.
An anonymous writer in The Bookman has pictured Miss Gale in New York:
“When she was a reporter on the World, and as beautiful as any girl
could be, she was put on difficult assignments that might well have
terrified one as fragile and flower-like and feminine as she; but she
never winced.... She covered murders and robberies--anything given
her to do she did, at any hour of the day or night. But all the while
she was writing exquisite poetry; and every day of her life she sent
a letter to her mother, who was back in Wisconsin. If she was waiting
for an interview with some financier of the hour, she did not dawdle
her time away in the corridor of his hotel. Instead, she pulled out a
pad and pencil and wrote as many pages as she could on a short story;
or she dashed off a lyric; or she made copious notes for future work.
I think she was about the most ambitious girl in New York at that
time--too ambitious, some said; her praises were being sung--too much
sung was a common rumour; her picture--how lovely she was, and is!--was
published repeatedly--too repeatedly, dear enemies whispered; and
everyone was waiting to see just how long it would take her to make
good.”
ii
It took some time. Not until the year in which she was 29 did she
land anywhere “to speak of,” though for ten years previous to that
acceptance, by Success Magazine, she had constantly submitted stories.
That was in 1903. Then, in 1911, the Delineator held a short story
contest in which over 15,000 stories were received. Miss Gale took
first prize with a tale called “The American Dawn.” It was $2,000 and
in addition her other two entries (each person was allowed to submit
three stories) were deemed good enough to be purchased. But meanwhile
she had written stories about Pelleas and Ettare, two old lovers,
and stories about Friendship Village--some forty of the first and,
ultimately, about sixty of the second--and the process of collecting
her Friendship Village fiction into books had begun. Said Miss Gale, in
1919: “The first editor to whom these Friendship Village stories were
submitted declined them with the word that his acquaintance with small
towns was wide but that he had never seen any such people as these....
I am still not sure that he was not right.”
She was the author of ten published books before she produced anything
constituting a lien upon general attention. But then, with an effect
of extreme suddenness to the world outside of Portage, there came from
her pen the 402-page novel, _Birth_. Its length is a point of interest
in view of the brevity of _Miss Lulu Bett_ and _Faint Perfume_, both
of which are so decidedly under the average novel in length. And yet
_Birth_ exhibits the same conciseness of phrase, the same avoidance of
unnecessary words so noticeable in the two later books. It is the story
of a poor little man, Marshall Pitt, who comes to an insignificant
Western town as a pickle salesman and remains there as a paperhanger,
a husband and a father. The book’s comments on life have been aptly
described as “piercing”--it is a fine needlework of satire--but
there are lovely lyrical moments and the tragic action is touched
with majesty. Altogether a great novel. Miss Gale considers it the
finest thing she has done and for once her judgment of her own work,
generally as untrustworthy as most authors’ or slightly more so, is
right.
Then came _Miss Lulu Bett_, read with the enthusiasm of discovery by
the publisher, who telegraphed his congratulations--a thing publishers
infrequently do! Except in England, where its merit was quickly
noted, _Birth_ had not sold at all well. Six magazine editors had
rejected _Miss Lulu Bett_ as a serial. Happily, all signs failed. The
crisply-told little novel of the household drudge and her fortunes went
into one edition after another; a play from the novel was sought and
Miss Gale fashioned it herself; the annual Pulitzer prize was awarded
to the play. Whether the concision of style practised so effectively in
_Birth_ was not carried a bit too far in _Miss Lulu Bett_ must always
remain a matter of opinion. The most interesting point, I think, is the
change of ending which the requirements of the theatre forced upon Miss
Gale. As she observed, an audience in a playhouse could not reasonably
be expected to swallow the spectacle of a woman marrying two men in the
space of three hours, even though the indicated lapse of time was much
longer than that; she therefore, to make the play, caused Miss Bett’s
first marriage to turn out to be valid after all. In this matter Miss
Gale was not guilty of “sweetening” her story, as has been charged. She
simply was up against a limitation as definite as that which restricts
the number of scenes possible in a play.
iii
And this year she has given us _Faint Perfume_, a study of a finely
sensitive feminine personality stifling in the atmosphere of a quite
usual sort of American family. Leda Perrin, forced to make her home
with the Crumbs, is brought into a fleeting contact with Barnaby
Powers, a writer with a temperament of the same response. They
meet, together face the defeat of their desire, and go separately
apart. At the close there is the briefest possible second meeting
and a hope is held out for their eventual happiness together. This
theme, of the utmost delicacy, is the occasion for a considerable
display of virtuosity by Miss Gale. By means of deft and distinct
individualisation of her characters--each Crumb, for instance, standing
out as a complete fiery particle--she orchestrates the melodic
fragment of Leda and Barnaby in a sort of free treatment (but with
careful working out), as a composer might do in setting a quartette
for strings. May this musical simile be helpful! The clipped style of
_Miss Lulu Bett_ is here carried a step further, until Miss Gale almost
seems to out-Sinclair Miss May Sinclair. The style has been called
precious, which is the technical word for what the ordinary person
calls “affected”; and, on the other hand, one able critic has declared
that it is not the style that is precious but Miss Gale’s material.
One thing is certain, the treatment is as far removed as possible from
the literalness of such a novel as _Main Street_, and this is natural
to expect when we remember that Miss Gale is, after all and perhaps
fundamentally, a poet. Her poems published in book form are to a great
extent inferior to her best poems, which, so far as I know, still
repose in some old files of the Smart Set magazine.
The point, however, is not the merit or demerit of _Faint Perfume_,
nor the relative values of Miss Gale’s three books here discussed. The
point is Zona Gale, her undeniable artistry, her literary maturity and
her manifest power ... and the importance of her work to come.
Books by Zona Gale
1906 _Romance Island_
1907 _The Loves of Pelleas and Ettarre_
1908 _Friendship Village_
1909 _Friendship Village Love Stories_
1911 _Mothers to Men_
1912 _Christmas_
1913 _When I Was a Little Girl_
1914 _Neighborhood Stories_
1915 _Heart’s Kindred_
1917 _A Daughter of Tomorrow_
1918 _Birth_
1919 _Peace in Friendship Village_
1920 _Miss Lulu Bett_
1920 _Neighbors_ (play)
1921 _Miss Lulu Bett_ (play)
1923 _Faint Perfume_
Sources on Zona Gale
_The Women Who Make Our Novels_ (second or third edition, 1919 or
1922). MOFFAT YARD & COMPANY.
The Literary Spotlight, XVIII: Zona Gale, in THE BOOKMAN for April,
1923. This article now forms a chapter in the book, _The Literary
Spotlight_, with an introduction by John Farrar.
_Zona Gale, An Artist in Fiction_, by WILSON FOLLETT. Booklet
published by D. Appleton & Company.
_15. For the Literary Investor_
i
As in the world of finance there are varieties of investment, so in
reading. A delicate parallel would be between individual authors and,
let us say, the mortgage field; whereas the reader who chooses books
included in undertakings like the Lambskin Library, the Murray Hill
Library or the Modern Student’s Library is like the man adventuring
among well-seasoned bonds. The individual author is the bolder
risk, less easily to be abandoned, lacking (usually) the element
of diversification; the certainty of interest from those carefully
selected Library volumes is somewhat greater and the investment in them
is more readily marketable in the discovery that your commitment is
shared with the other fellow, who also knows and has read them. Then
there is among books that type of investment for which men constantly
seek when trying to place their money--the unlisted and almost
unheard-of, lonely, isolated enterprise which one may, and probably
will, have all to himself....
What follows is a series of what, in the money world, would be called
“offerings.” These literary offerings are not necessarily in the least
related to each other, although here and there you may find features
in common. Each stands on the foundation of its own “attractiveness”
to you as an individual; but there is none which has not given a
good return to some group of readers, large or less large. Some are
well-seasoned; others, although new, show their intrinsic worth for
such time and attention as you may commit to them.
ii
J. C. Snaith, novelist. John Collis Snaith, born in 1876, in
Nottinghamshire of Yorkshire stock. Athletic in his youth, before
his health became impaired, playing cricket, football and hockey on
county teams. Always in the middle of a novel, either at Skegness or
in London, where he may with difficulty be tracked down at the Garrick
Club, hidden among W. J. Locke, W. B. Maxwell, A. E. W. Mason, Hugh
Walpole, Arnold Bennett, E. Temple Thurston, etc. His novels exhibit
constant variety. Richard Mansfield was always hoping for a play from
Snaith’s _Broke of Covenden_ so that he might act as Broke. _The
Sailor_, supposed to have been suggested by John Masefield’s career,
was a great popular success (1916) and is read and remembered widely
today. _The Coming_, an exquisite and powerful story in which the
reappearance of Jesus Christ in present-day England is suggested,
made an extraordinary impression. On the whole it is perhaps Snaith’s
own favourite. _The Undefeated_, a story of England in wartime, had
a large sale and gives promise of more permanence than any similar
book, including H. G. Wells’s _Mr. Britling_. A recent novel, _The
Van Roon_, is a lighter story written around the theft of a famous
painting. Snaith’s _Araminta_, which is being freshly brought out this
year, is a whimsical romance of a country girl who comes to London
and is sued for by two noblemen. Snaith says: “Each novel I write is
in the nature of an experiment. To me a good novel is a mental tonic,
exhilarating, educative, humanising.” He is both versatile and in the
quality of his work of unusual excellence.
W. B. Maxwell, novelist. English. A writer who has reached undeniable
greatness at times and who, when possessing the finest material, need
ask no odds of any living novelist. His most recent story, _The Day’s
Journey_, is a beautifully-conceived and beautifully-written story of
the friendship between two men enduring throughout their lives. The
differences in character, the obstacles arising in the course of that
friendship, the antagonisms and fallings-apart and the renewals of
these two old comrades are put on paper with a fidelity of observation,
a tenderness and an avoidance of sentimentality that would be difficult
to overpraise. Maxwell’s novels are of great variety; attention is
particularly called to _In Cotton Wool_, the story of a weakling. _Mrs.
Thompson_, _The Devil’s Garden_ and _Spinster of This Parish_ are also
highwater marks in his writing.
Hugh Walpole. Perhaps no living novelist has shown so uniform a quality
or so progressive an excellence. He resembles a stock which, starting
at a modest price and unfailingly paying dividends, has gone steadily
upward to par and is now quoted at a premium. His great success, _The
Cathedral_, is now followed by _Jeremy and Hamlet_, which, although
not a “sequel,” is a companion volume to _Jeremy_ (most popular of
all Walpole’s stories before the appearance of _The Cathedral_). As
_Jeremy_ dealt with the history of a little boy--most singularly
resembling the Hugh of Mr. Walpole’s own boyhood--so _Jeremy and
Hamlet_ presents the adventures of that boy accompanied by the only
proper companion for a small boy, a dog.
Rudyard Kipling. For a discussion of Kipling’s new work, _The Irish
Guards in the Great War_, see Chapter 8. The best exposition of
Kipling, the poet, will be found in Andre Chevrillon’s _Three Studies
in English Literature: Kipling, Galsworthy, Shakespeare_ (translated
by Florence Simmonds). Katharine Fullerton Gerould, in her _Modes and
Morals_, in the essay on “The Remarkable Rightness of Rudyard Kipling,”
offers a brilliant justification for Kipling as a prophetic and moral
influence in English affairs. The literary investor should not let
these aspects take his attention from the Kipling of _Plain Tales from
the Hills_, of _Kim_ and of such short stories as “The Brushwood Boy”
and “They.” A collection of rich, remarkably diversified, “gilt-edged”
securities possessing the widest possible market and an almost
universal currency.
Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish novelist, the only woman so far to receive the
Nobel Prize for Literature. The quality of her work is best conveyed
by the words of various critics. Edwin Björkman: “She has revived not
only the courage but the ability to feel and dream and aspire that
belonged to the scorned romanticists of the early nineteenth century.
But this ... she has achieved for us without surrender of that intimate
connection between poetry and real life which was established by the
naturalists in the latter half of the same century.” J. B. Kerfoot, in
Life: “The wise cannot find bottom nor the child get beyond its depth.”
Attempted comparisons with George Eliot fail because Selma Lagerlöf has
the fine Swedish folklore to enrich the roots of her work. “She is as
national,” says Walter Prichard Eaton, “as a song by Grieg or a play of
Tchekov. And like all deeply national art, it is therefore universal.”
Hugo Alfven, the Swedish composer: “Reading Selma Lagerlöf is like
sitting in the dusk of a Spanish cathedral.... Afterward, one does not
know whether what he has seen was dream or reality, but certainly he
has been on holy ground.” The best approach is possibly through _The
Story of Gösta Berling_. Her other great novels are _Jerusalem_, woven
from the actual experience of Swedish colonists in the Holy Land,
and _The Emperor of Portugallia_. Her _Nils_ stories for children
are mentioned in Chapter 9. Complete works are best procured in the
Northland Edition.
iii
A convenient size and a beautiful binding are more than desiderata.
Who, wishing Bram Stoker’s grim masterpiece, _Dracula_, would not now
prefer a new copy in the handy leather of the Lambskin Library? If
one is out to acquire a copy of W. Somerset Maugham’s _The Moon and
Sixpence_, will he not choose it in its plum-coloured leather and
gilt top of the Murray Hill Library? If I go forth to buy _Pride and
Prejudice_, I am as certain as anything to ask for it from the volumes
of the Modern Student’s Library, because this will give me William Dean
Howells’s introduction to the novel.
There is a further advantage of these collections in that they give
ready and inexpensive access to exceptional books that are otherwise
out of print. I might have excessive trouble, for example, to get
hold of _Dracula_ elsewhere. Yet the commonest advantage of such
sets is probably as a guide in reading. A publisher does not put a
book into his Lambskin Library, or his Murray Hill Library, or his
Modern Student’s Library unless the book is one of proved worth
and established permanence and continuing popularity. The Library,
therefore, offers a convenient and trustworthy solution to those who,
among books not freshly published, are unable to see the trees for the
forest. A word about these collections is in order.
The Lambskin Library at present comprises nearly fifty volumes,
chiefly fiction, although Lawrence F. Abbott’s _Impressions of
Theodore Roosevelt_, Helen Keller’s _The Story of My Life_, Booker
T. Washington’s _Up From Slavery_ and Franklin’s _Autobiography_ lay
a massive foundation for biographies. Conrad, Frank Norris, Selma
Lagerlöf, O. Henry, Dumas, Scott, Tarkington, Edna Ferber, Ellen
Glasgow, Zola and Rider Haggard are some of the authors represented.
Many of the books have interesting prefatory notes and among the
contributors of these are William Lyon Phelps, Christopher Morley,
William Allen White, John Macy and William Dean Howells.
The Modern Student’s Library is ultimately to include as many as
possible of the books one would wish to read in a comprehensive survey
of English and American literature. Both the general reader and the
student have been held in mind; the books represent a sane departure
from the heavily annotated texts of a few years ago. The books have
been edited, and introductions to them have been provided by such
authorities as William Dean Howells, Stuart P. Sherman, William Lyon
Phelps and Carl Van Doren. Bacon’s _Essays_, Boswell’s _Life of
Johnson_, Browning, Carlyle’s _Sartor Resartus_, Emerson’s _Essays_,
Hardy’s _The Return of the Native_, Hawthorne’s _The Scarlet Letter_,
Meredith, Ruskin, Scott, Stevenson, Thackeray, Thoreau and Whitman are
among those already included.
The Murray Hill Library, commencing with modern fiction, will probably
enlarge its scope to include some of the best modern non-fiction. Its
very handsome binding now covers twelve books, picked works by Arnold
Bennett, Somerset Maugham, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Irvin S. Cobb,
Walpole, G. A. Birmingham, John Buchan, Stephen McKenna, Swinnerton and
Richard Dehan.
Of an entirely different character but not less valuable are the very
large volumes of the Nature Library--those volumes by Neltje Blanchan,
Julia Ellen Rogers, Nina L. Marshall and others called (for the most
part) _The Butterfly Book_, _The Shell Book_, _The Tree Book_, and so
on. Fairly expensive books, these, but cheap at any price with their
many and wonderful colour plates and photographs from life. In their
outdoor field they are not to be surpassed.
iv
Books of a biographical character we have considered already (Chapter
8) but it ought to be emphasised that, for the investor in literature,
they hold a position quite as enviable and altogether desirable as
does the class of securities known as municipals for the investor of
moneys. Time will not match for us a book like Booker T. Washington’s
_Up From Slavery_, nor will literature furnish us with a more strangely
suggestive career than that related in Raymond Weaver’s _Herman
Melville: Mariner and Mystic_. It was C. Alphonso Smith’s _O. Henry
Biography_ that first gave the world the facts on which to base a true
understanding of that extraordinary writer. The tale of unwearied
courage in Edward Livingston Trudeau’s _Autobiography_ cannot lose
either its freshness nor its strength of inspiration. To read P. P.
Howe’s _Life of William Hazlitt_ and then to turn to his little book of
selections called _The Best of Hazlitt_ is to enter into a permanently
valuable share of the English literary inheritance. _The Letters of
Henry James_, selected and edited by Percy Lubbock, and James’s own
_Notes of a Son and Brother_; Sir Sidney Colvin’s _John Keats_ and
his _Memories and Notes of Persons and Places_; the _Letters of James
Huneker_ and Huneker’s autobiography, _Steeplejack_; and the _Letters
and Papers of John Addington Symonds_, edited by Horatio F. Brown, are
all of the class of books whose content is a permanent acquisition,
an actual “property” of which the reader, in legal language, becomes
seized and possessed.
One’s investment in an ample author should be allowed to ramify in
all directions natural to the lines of human interest. About Walt
Whitman, for example, there is by now a cluster of books which the
reader of _Leaves of Grass_ or of Whitman’s prose cannot afford,
in their entirety, to neglect. Whether he will want one or all, or
what ones he will want, will depend upon the relation he establishes
with Whitman himself. The best brief biography is _Walt Whitman: The
Man and His Work_, translated from the French of Leon Bazalgette by
Ellen FitzGerald. Personally I do not think one can feel himself
acquainted with Whitman unless he has read, or read in, the three
massive volumes of Horace Traubel’s _With Walt Whitman in Camden_.
_The Letters of Anne Gilchrist and Walt Whitman_, edited by Thomas B.
Harned, form an unusual and engrossing chapter in the lives of both.
Those keenly interested will explore further yet in the two volumes of
the _Uncollected Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman_, edited by Emory
Holloway, who is now at work on a long and comprehensive biography of
the poet.
The book with beautiful illustrations is a true investment, since now
such illustrations are seldom if ever wasted on a second-rate text. To
a great extent these illustrated books are ones appreciable by children
as well as by their elders--things like _Westward Ho!_ and _The Last
of the Mohicans_--and came up for our consideration in Chapter 9. But
there are certain classics, like the editions of _A Midsummer Night’s
Dream_ and Milton’s _Comus_ with pictures by Arthur Rackham, which are
adult throughout. One of the most splendid is the Vierge Edition of
_Don Quixote_, in four volumes, illustrated with 260 drawings by Daniel
Vierge and provided with an introduction by Royal Cortissoz. The same
work, illustrated by Jean de Bosschere, may be had in one large volume;
and other treasures of the sort are _The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam_ and
Shakespeare’s _The Tempest_, both illustrated by Edmund Dulac. I must
not omit the edition of Scott’s _Quentin Durward_, with illustrations
in color by the American artist, C. Bosseron Chambers.
When, in Chapter 2, we discussed books of essays, it was with the
thought of their beguiling qualities pretty much forward in our minds.
I hope I do not derogate the essay, a literary form raised to the
highest eminence by Bacon, Emerson, Lamb and so many others, when I say
that its widest and most useful office resembles the form of investment
known as short-term notes. Investors of money are constantly in receipt
of funds for which, at the moment, they have no suitable repository;
and investors in literature are frequently in the same fix. The man
with money buys high grade commercial paper with an early maturity and
watches for his long-term investment. The reader with time on his hands
may often most profitably do likewise. But in one respect he is the
more favoured person. If his brief-lived investment is well-chosen, the
chances are great that it will lead him to some author or some group of
books to which he can gladly commit his reading hours for a month or
several months or a year.
Such, among literary profit-producers, are books like Stuart P.
Sherman’s _The Genius of America_ and his _Americans_, the first
devoted to “studies in behalf of the younger generation” of such
subjects as Puritanism, shifting morals, popular education and American
critical writing; the second a series of presentations of individual
figures--Roosevelt, Emerson, Whitman, Carnegie, Paul Elmer More,
Franklin, and others. Either his _On_ or his fictional satire, _The
Mercy of Allah_, should lead the chance reader some ways further in
the conquest of Hilaire Belloc. Dr. Joseph Collins’s _The Doctor
Looks at Literature_ has, in a very few months, created and aborted
some thousands of readers of James Joyce, Fyodor Dostoievski, Marcel
Proust, D. H. Lawrence, May Sinclair, Rebecca West, Stella Benson,
Katherine Mansfield and the other contemporary writers whose pathology
it inquires into. Books about books have all the range from Jesse Lee
Bennett’s invaluable reader’s Baedeker, _What Books Can Do for Me_
(with priceless reading lists of every variety) to Maurice Francis
Egan’s delightful _Confessions of a Book-Lover_ and Henry van Dyke’s
_Companionable Books_. What will you try? John Corbin’s _The Return of
the Middle Class_ with its impulsion toward other social studies? J. H.
Gardiner’s _The Bible as English Literature_ or William Lyon Phelps’s
_Human Nature in the Bible_ with their lights upon ancient thinking and
racial character? Corbin’s book may lead you back to Edward Carpenter’s
_Civilization: Its Cause and Cure_. Gardiner and Phelps may send you
to Horace G. Hutchinson’s _The Greatest Story in the World_, which is
the story of mankind from the beginnings of history to the time of the
firm establishment of the Roman Empire. From that picturesque history
of the civilisations that succeeded each other in the Mediterranean
lands would you be led in the direction of Henry Fairfield Osborn’s
_Men of the Old Stone Age_ and Madison Grant’s _The Passing of the
Great Race_, or toward the recent books by Lothrop Stoddard, or into
the fascinations of Edwyn Bevan’s _Hellenism and Christianity_ and G.
Lowes Dickinson’s _The Greek View of Life_, I wonder? As one wishful of
your enjoyment and satisfaction, I hope you wonder, too.
Here, of all things, is _A History of Chinese Literature_, by Herbert
A. Giles, professor of Chinese in the University of Cambridge (you
didn’t know they had one, did you?). It begins with Confucius (born
B.C. 551) and is divided into eight parts according to dynasties. One
sees easily that while each age had its poets and writers, the drama
and the novel did not develop in China until the Mongol Dynasty (A.D.
1200) and the famous Ming Dynasty (A.D. 1368-1544). From all the
important writers Dr. Giles quotes at length in excellent translation;
he summarises plays and explains the curious technique of the Chinese
theatre. The book is rounded off with examples of Chinese wit and
humour.
Here is George H. McKnight’s _English Words and Their Background_, with
facts only recently recognised about the relation and differences of
American English and British English; with a good chapter on slang;
with new light on the changes word meanings have undergone, and why;
with stuff about personal names and place names.
The general reader has perhaps tried to find out about Dante, and
found, on the one hand, some work by the scholar and for the scholar,
on the other, books full of technical and controversial idiom. Behold,
here is Mary Bradford Whiting’s _Dante: The Man and the Poet_ with its
simple and memorable account of the student, lover and statesman, the
exile and wanderer, the poet and seer. Or he has wondered if it were
impossible for anyone to write about sex with beauty and sanity--and
then has had the miracle of getting hold of Havelock Ellis’s _Little
Essays of Love and Virtue_ wrought in his behalf. He has been the
victim all his life of such stuff as Freudians are made on, and some
benignant fate has put into his hands Basil King’s convincing account
of _The Conquest of Fear_. He has wearied over the Younger Generation
and been comforted as he read Brander Matthew’s _The Tocsin of Revolt_;
contemporary criticism--too contemporary--has set his teeth on edge
until he found a more ripened wisdom in the books of W. C. Brownell. A
sense of futility and a dark brown taste of boredom have resulted from
the perusal of the usual kind of book on How to Live; and the sparkling
and nutritious antidote has proved to be Arnold Bennett’s _How to
Make the Best of Life_. For that condition in which one cannot endure
concentration on a single topic for the duration of a book--what?
Perhaps either volume of Bennett’s _Things That Have Interested Me_, or
some such book as Basil Anderton’s _Sketches From a Library Window_,
in which one may read about a French gourmet, a sixteenth century
humanist, holiday joys in Northumberland, the art of the translator,
the adventures of an English seaman in the Napoleonic wars, or Sir
Thomas Browne.
v
“I never read fiction.”
The next time I meet him I shall not place in his hands a novel,
not even one of the great masterpieces among the novels. I shall
hand him _My Best Story_, to which thirty-one English authors have
contributed (though we may claim John Russell for America). Here in
a single book are such perfect tales as Stacy Aumonier’s “The Great
Unimpressionable,” one from Ernest Bramah’s _Kai Lung’s Golden Hours_,
Quiller-Couch’s “Statement of Gabriel Foot, Highwayman,” Galsworthy’s
“Courage,” Perceval Gibbon’s “The Connoisseur,” Cunninghame Graham’s
“The Lone Wolf,” Elinor Mordaunt’s “The Gold Fish,” John Russell’s “The
Price of a Head” and Rebecca West’s “In a City That Is Now Ploughed
Fields.” Arnold Bennett, G. K. Chesterton, W. W. Jacobs, May Sinclair,
H. G. Wells and Israel Zangwill are some of the others who furnish
stories for the collection. Such a book, by its variety as well as from
its superlative quality, ought to win him to fiction more readily than
any long tale, however distinguished.
He is rare, but you do sometimes meet him, that type of literary
investor who cannot trust himself to range over the whole field ...
like one whose fortune, however great, must needs be kept strictly in
savings bank accounts. I grant you that one needs to know his fiction,
both in itself and in relation to his possible profit. But I personally
would not for the world be one of those who have never heard of Charles
De Coster’s _Legend of Ulenspiegel_, that classic of the Lowland
countries which Hendrik Van Loon named recently as one of the ten books
he has enjoyed the most. I should not be willing to be ignorant of
“Elizabeth,” whose _Vera_ had such grim power and whose _The Enchanted
April_ made a good many enchanted Mays, Junes, Julys, Augusts and
other months for its readers. Of what avail to have read novels by
Kathleen Norris and to have missed _Certain People of Importance_,
I should like to know? Who thinks he has any acquaintance with the
work of Edna Ferber if he has omitted to read _The Girls_ or such
tales, in _Gigolo_, as “Old Man Minnick” and “Home Girl”? Yet there
are unfortunate persons who read _One Man in His Time_ and who will
read the stories in _The Shadowy Third_ and innocently suppose they
have “read” Ellen Glasgow, that competent and admirable novelist whose
earlier novels, like _The Deliverance_, have such surprising vitality
when you read or re-read them today.
Opportunities lost? Ah, but one of the grand advantages of the literary
investment over the money opportunity is right here: Your new and
worthwhile book and your old and seasoned book are, alike, always
offering.
_16. Naturalist vs. Novelist: Gene Stratton-Porter_
i
With Gene Stratton-Porter, the quality of enthusiasm is not strained,
it droppeth as torrential rains from the heaven of her state of mind.
Anyone acquainted with Mrs. Porter and regarding her with positive
affection is certain to be subject to the recurring notion that she
has, after all, confused heaven with earth. It is not that she finds
nothing on earth to contemn, but that she finds the same objects for
perpetual glorification. The rest of us live our wavering lives in a
flux of emotions, which we commonly mistake for accomplishments of
our intellects. We glorify this at one age, and that at another. Mrs.
Porter, from the beginning, has worshipped the same pantheon.
A pantheon it is, owing to her possibly inherited passion for the works
of nature. Her idea of art is as clear-cut as the ordinary mortal’s
notion of property. Perhaps clearer, since the ordinary mortal often
finds difficulty in distinguishing the forms of property, whether real,
personal, or mixed (as lawyers say). To Mrs. Porter, art is any human
effort that encourages, or even possibly forces, nature to grow. It is
art when you handle flowers with the deftness and astonishing results
achieved by Mrs. Porter’s mother; it is art when you write a story
that tends to stimulate or fortify the natural (i.e., usual) impulses
of the average man or woman to live and learn, to seek and engage in
interesting work, to mate, to beget or bear children. Any art that does
not tend directly toward these primary social and personal ends isn’t
art to her; she regards it with heavy suspicion.
Some years ago it was suggested to Mrs. Porter that she furnish
autobiographical material for a booklet which should satisfy the eager
requests of her readers for personal facts. Mrs. Porter assented. The
result was a booklet largely in her own words, and remarkable for an
accent that some would call boastful and others, refreshing. We may
defer for a few moments the details that Mrs. Porter set down, but the
question of her personal tone and temper is one to be considered at the
very outset. Is she merely naïve? Is she self-assertive, conceited,
boastful? What does she embody, and what is the secret--if it is a
secret--of the enormously wide appeal of her work? To attempt an answer
isn’t easy. But let us see....
ii
Gene Stratton-Porter is a self-made woman, with all the drawbacks that
self-manufacture entails. Certain definite advantages, too! It is not
meant that she owes nothing to her parentage, wifehood, motherhood--she
owes much to these, and her great indebtedness to her father and mother
she has herself proclaimed. And yet, in the rôle in which the world
views her, she owes nothing to anybody except herself. For although
the late Richard Watson Gilder gave her encouragement with her first
book, and although others encouraged her with the famous _Freckles_,
she would undoubtedly have gone on with no encouragement whatever and
would have become what she is today. Why? The explanation inheres
in that phrase, “self-made.” Self-made people, whatever they may
lack, are obviously people with a capacity which we don’t ordinarily
bother to distinguish except by the result they achieve with it. That
is, perhaps, typical of the mental laziness of the rest of us. But
if we ask ourselves what the capacity is, in terms other than the
easily-named result, the answer may be extremely surprising.
Who are the persons who are so happily independent of the
encouragement, the approval, the applause without a tiny measure of
which the rest of us couldn’t go on? They divide into the two great
classes of mankind, if we consider psychology and temperament. There
are the mystics--the saints, the martyrs, and some artists. There are
the non-mystics--many artists among them, to be sure. The mystical
mind isn’t the secret. The mental make-up of those who walk (who are
able to walk) by themselves, is. They have, either from birth or by
hard-wrung conquest, a kind of self-sufficiency more precious, for
living purposes, than fine gold. It may be the bright, unconscious
self-sufficiency of a Gene Stratton-Porter, or the admirable fortitude
of a Joseph Conrad or the diffident charm of a Booth Tarkington--the
manner is nothing; it is there. The mode of acquisition, except as it
bears on work and affects personality, whether birthright or painful
purchase, is nothing, either. The thing is there, like driven piles
or bedrock. He who lacks that foundation must take his chance of his
house, built on sands, being washed away.
With Mrs. Porter this invaluable element of personality has existed
from the time of her earliest childhood. Nor is the faculty in question
a superficial matter, like self-confidence. It was with a considerable
lack of self-confidence that Mrs. Porter began writing; but notice
that she began. How many others who had the self-confidence when
they started have had to acquire the self-sufficiency, the power of
self-sustention? How many have failed to do that? Self-confidence,
indeed, is the most perfect of traitors. But there is a reservoir in
the Self....
Like every other prize, this one has its penalty. What will carry one
to the top of a high rock will also, unimpeded, carry one over the
rock’s edge. The balance in egoism always trembles; when it comes to
rest, one dies. And here is Mrs. Porter, who had in her a capacity
that could have overcome mountains and that found only moderately
difficult hills in its path. She must have burst into a thousand pieces
if it hadn’t been that she was a naturalist first and a novelist
afterward, that she underwent the preoccupations of a wife and mother,
that she toiled in swamps and wrote books, kept other people alive
with her money as well as her courage and vitality, launched forth
on self-pinions as a poet, corresponded with innumerable readers,
did this and that and the other and then hit upon something else.
She was one of twelve children. “To this mother at forty-six and this
father at fifty, each at intellectual topnotch,” she was born, the
Minerva of mature and remarkable parents, a child who kept, in her own
words, “thinking things which she felt should be saved,” so that she
frequently tugged at her mother’s skirts and begged her to “set down”
what the child considered stories and poems--generally some big fact in
nature that thrilled the child, usually expressed in Biblical terms.
Whom have we here? An incarnation as extraordinary as the Florence
Nightingale whom Lytton Strachey put on paper? I think so.
iii
Mark Stratton, the father of Gene Stratton-Porter, described his
wife, at the time of their marriage, as a “ninety-pound bit of pink
porcelain, pink as a wild rose, plump as a partridge, having a big rope
of bright brown hair, never ill a day in her life, and bearing the
loveliest name ever given a woman--Mary. God fashioned her heart to be
gracious, her body to be the mother of children, and as her especial
gift of Grace, He put Flower Magic into her fingers.”
From tiny seeds found in rice and coffee, Mary (Shellenbarger) Stratton
started little vines and climbing plants. Rooted things she soaked in
water, rolled in fine sand, planted according to habit, and they almost
never failed to grow. When, intent on growing a tree or shrub from a
slip or cutting that appeared hopeless, she cut the slip diagonally,
inserted the lower end in a small potato and planted as if it were
rooted, she was nearly always successful. Being of Dutch extraction,
bulbs were her favourites--tulips, daffodils, star flowers, lilies,
dahlias, little bright hyacinths that she called “blue bells.” From
these she distilled perfume by putting clusters, at the time of perfect
bloom, in bowls lined with freshly made, unsalted butter, covering
them closely, and cutting the few drops of extract thus obtained with
alcohol. In Ohio a man gave her two tiny cedars of Lebanon which she
brought with her to the farm in Wabash County, Indiana, planting one
in her front yard and one in the small cemetery on the corner of her
husband’s land. It stands, thirty feet tall or over, two feet in
circumference, guarding her grave.
All twelve of her children lived to be eight; an attack of scarlet
fever joined with whooping cough was fatal to two of them a little
over that age. The house, “Hopewell Farm,” was an oblong box kept
speckless. The liberal table and appetising food were known by all
who travelled that way. She made the clothing for her brood. In the
house that she kept so faultlessly clean, at the table she heaped with
hearty dishes, Mark Stratton, conscious of his worthy British blood,
praised her “tidiness” and accepted responsibility for the mental and
spiritual welfare of his wife and children. It was understood that he
had been named for a Mark Stratton who lived in New York and married
a beauty, Anne Hutchinson. It was misunderstood that the first Mark
and his wife settled on Stratton Island, “afterward corrupted to
Staten.” From this point back for generations across the ocean, we
are told that Mrs. Porter’s father “followed his line to the family
of Strattons of which the Earl of Northbrooke is the present head
(1913). To his British traditions and the customs of his family, Mark
Stratton clung with rigid tenacity, never swerving from his course a
particle under the influence of environment or association.” Perhaps,
after all, he was British. “All his ideas were clear-cut; no man could
influence him against his better judgment. He believed in God, in
courtesy, in honour, and cleanliness, in beauty, and in education. He
used to say that he would rather see a child of his the author of a
book of which he could be proud than on the throne of England, which
was the strongest way he knew to express himself.” It is not too highly
imaginative, I am sure, to believe that Mr. Stratton also planted slips
and cuttings successfully; but they were slips of his own tenacious
mind and they were planted most successfully in the receptive mind of
his daughter, Gene.
We must note Mr. Stratton rather carefully. “His very first earnings
he spent for a book; when other men rested, he read”--toiling upward
in the night, in that time of Longfellowship, that has since been
abandoned for fifteen minutes a day, in this era of Eliotry. The
memory of Mr. Stratton enabled him to quote paragraphs at a time from
Hume, Macaulay, Gibbon, Prescott and Bancroft--he was perhaps fondest
of history--while as for the Bible, he could repeat it entire, his
daughter says, except for the genealogies, and give chapter and verse.
The genealogies were “a waste of grey matter to learn.” Mrs. Porter
confesses: “I was almost afraid to make these statements, although
there are many living who can corroborate them, until John Muir
published the story of his boyhood days, and in it I found the history
of such rearing as was my father’s, told of as the customary thing
among the children of Muir’s time.”
Sermons, lectures, talks on civic improvement and politics, delivered
without thought of personal fatigue or selfish inconvenience at the
end of journeys of many miles were Mark Stratton’s contribution to
the cause of Good. It seems unkind to examine such performances
dispassionately. “He worshipped beauty: beautiful faces, souls, hearts,
beautiful landscapes, trees, animals, flowers. He loved colour: rich,
bright colour and every variation down to the faintest shadings.” Mrs.
Porter keeps a cardinal silk handkerchief that he was carrying when
stricken with apoplexy at the age of seventy-eight. “Over inspired
Biblical passages, over great books, over sunlit landscapes, over
a white violet abloom in deep shade, over a heroic deed of man, I
have seen his brow light up, his eyes shine.” He used especially to
thrill his young daughter by the story of John Maynard, who piloted a
burning boat to safety while he slowly roasted at the wheel. That he
should tell it was natural, since the telling gave him opportunity to
reproduce, with many inflections, the captain’s cry of “John Maynard!”
and the answer, “Aye, aye, sir!” echoed until it sank to a mere gasp, a
whisper....
iv
Gene Stratton was only a few years old when her mother, who had once
nursed three of the children through typhoid fever, contracting it
herself, broke down. Mrs. Stratton lived for several years, suffering
continually, frequently tortured by pain. The youngest child was
therefore allowed to follow an impulse and escape the training given
her sisters. She followed her father and brothers outdoors, sleeping
on their coats in fence corners, awakening, sometimes, to find shy
creatures peering into her face. “I trotted from one object which
attracted me to another, singing a little song of made-up phrases about
everything I saw while I waded, catching fish, chasing butterflies over
clover fields, or following a bird with a hair in its beak; much of
the time I carried the inevitable baby for a woman-child, frequently
improvised from an ear of corn in the silk, wrapped in catalpa leaf
blankets.” She made special pets of birds. She had been taught that
they were useful and had “a gift of Grace in their beauty and music,
things to be rigidly protected. From this cue I evolved the idea
myself that I must be extremely careful, for had not my father tied
a ’kerchief over my mouth when he lifted me for a peep into the nest
of the humming-bird, and did he not walk softly and whisper when he
approached the spot? So I stepped lightly, made no noise, and watched
until I knew what a mother bird fed her young before I began dropping
bugs, worms, crumbs, and fruit into little red mouths that opened at my
tap on the nest quite as readily as at the touch of the feet of the
mother bird.”
All this life became a thing of memory just before the mother’s death.
Then they left the farm and went to town, to the city of Wabash, that
Mrs. Stratton might have constant medical attention. The ninety-pound
bit of pink porcelain, plump as a wild partridge, the little Dutch
woman who had borne twelve children and kept a spotless farmhouse and
heaped up good things on the long dinner table, lay with her head on
a pillow, a cinnamon pink or a trillium placed where its fragrance
would reach her with every breath she drew. She was dying. She had
helped Mark Stratton with the bush- and vine-covered fences that crept
around the acres they owned in a strip of gaudy colour; she shared
the achievement of that orchard, lying in a valley, with its square
of apple trees in the centre, so that at the time of blossoming it
appeared as if a great pink-bordered white blanket had been let down
on the earth. To her equally with her husband was due the presence on
shale, which they might have drained, of sheets of blue flag, marigold
and buttercups. All this was going out of her children’s life and
she was going out with it. The youngest child, in particular, had
been leading a harum-scarum existence; if she reported promptly three
times a day when the bell rang at meal times, with enough clothing to
constitute a decent covering, nothing more was asked of her until the
Sabbath. Mary Stratton was perhaps about to be released, to receive
the benefit of a freedom in which, if her hands were not busy, it was
not likely she would be happy or know what to do. Gene Stratton,
whose father permitted his youngest to idolise him, was to be taken
from outdoor freedom, her feet shod, her body restricted by the burden
of Sunday clothing, her active legs stilled to a shuffle beneath the
desk of a close schoolroom, and her mind set to droning over books.
Unfortunately she came to the ordeal with no purely feminine resources
of inattention, preoccupation or indifference. Her father had seen to
that. It was he who was responsible for the child that revelled in
_Paul and Virginia_, _Undine_, _Picciola_, _The Vicar of Wakefield_,
_Pilgrim’s Progress_--“exquisitely expressed and conceived stories”
that “may have done much in forming high conceptions of what really
constitutes literature, and in furthering the lofty ideals instilled by
my parents.” Mrs. Porter adds: “One of these stories formed the basis
of my first publicly recognised literary effort.” She was assigned
to write a class composition on “Mathematical Law.” She postponed,
rebelled, wrote a paper retelling the story of _Picciola_ and in fear
and defiance read it aloud in class. After one page the teacher halted
her while she summoned in the superintendent of city schools to hear
the sixteen foolscap pages from the beginning. “One instant the room
was in laughter, the next the boys bowed their heads, and the girls who
had forgotten their handkerchiefs cried in their aprons. Never again
was a subject forced upon me.” She was her father’s daughter, and her
father was Mark Stratton.
“My mother went out too soon to know, and my father never saw one of
my books; but he knew I was boiling and bubbling like a yeast jar in
July over some literary work, and if I timidly slipped to him with a
composition, or a faulty poem, he saw good in it, and made suggestions
for its betterment. When I wanted to express something in colour,
he went to an artist, sketched a design for an easel, personally
superintended the carpenter who built it, and provided tuition. On that
same easel I painted the water colours for _Moths of the Limberlost_,
and one of the most poignant regrets of my life is that he was not
there to see them, and to know that the easel which he built through
his faith in me was finally used in illustrating a book.
“If I thought it was music through which I could express myself, he
paid for lessons and detected hidden ability which should be developed.
Through the days of struggle he stood fast; firm in his belief in me.
He was half the battle. It was he who demanded a physical standard
that developed strength to endure the rigours of scientific field and
darkroom work, and the building of ten books in ten years, five of
which were on nature subjects, having my own illustrations, and five
novels, literally teeming with natural history, true to nature. It was
he who demanded of me from birth the finishing of any task I attempted
and who taught me to cultivate patience to watch and wait, even years,
if necessary, to find and secure the material I wanted. It was he who
daily lived before me the life of exactly such a man as I portrayed in
_The Harvester_, and who constantly used every atom of brain and body
power to help and to encourage all men to do the same.”
No further illumination should be needed on the most extraordinary
personal influence in Mrs. Porter’s life.
v
Gene Stratton was married in 1886, at the age of eighteen, to Charles
Darwin Porter, of Wabash, Indiana. Marriage, a home of her own, and
a daughter were successively brought to bear upon a nature already
powerful; none of them succeeded in eradicating the impress of Mark
Stratton. The new home was a cabin of fourteen rooms (at first),
standing on some fifteen acres near the Limberlost Swamp. The familiar
address runs: “Limberlost Cabin, Rome City, Indiana.” Red, white, pink,
blue, lavender and yellow flower-beds of an acre apiece were laid off
in the deep woods running down the shore of a lake; the cabin stands
in the middle of the yellow bed, a dwelling of large rooms and four
fireplaces, two of which Mrs. Porter built, to a large extent, herself.
One is of pudden stone, red and blue pebbles; another, in the living
room, is constructed of field boulders split to expose their quartz
crystals that sparkle under artificial light. The windows were built
with broad, deep casements especially to furnish feeding-tables for
birds. On the open, cement-floored porch may stand in winter wheat,
apples, cabbage and celery bunches. Chickadees, titmice, nuthatches,
sapsuckers, flickers, song sparrows, jays, cardinals and squirrels come
to the sills to eat the chopped wheat, ground corn and suet put out for
them.
But this is to mix past and the comparative present. It was not long
before Mrs. Porter’s daughter was old enough to go to school. “I knew
how to manage life to make it meet my needs, thanks to even the small
amount I had seen of my mother. I kept a cabin of fourteen rooms and
kept it immaculate. I made most of my daughter’s clothes, I kept a
conservatory in which there bloomed from three to six hundred bulbs
every winter, tended a house of canaries and linnets, and cooked and
washed dishes, besides, three times a day. In my spare time (mark
the word, there was time to spare else the books never would have
been written and the pictures made) I mastered photography ...” but
we need not go with her into the details of this one among many of
her personal triumphs. She was for two years editor of the camera
department of Recreation, for two years on the natural history staff
of Outing, for four years specialist in natural history photography
on the Photographic Times Annual Almanac. She had a dread of failure
and, at first, carried on her special work as secretly as possible.
“My husband owned a drug and book store that carried magazines, but
only a few people in our locality read these, none were interested
in nature photography or natural science; so what I was trying to
do was not realised even by my own family. I did not want to fail
before my man person and my daughter and our respective families.” She
was further afraid of ridicule in a community “where I was already
severely criticised on account of my ideas of housekeeping, dress and
social customs.” When she first attempted “nature studies sugar-coated
with fiction” she proceeded with the same furtiveness. “I who waded
morass, fought quicksands, crept, worked from ladders high in air, and
crossed water on improvised rafts without a tremor, slipped with many
misgivings into the postoffice and rented a box for myself, so that
if I met with failure my husband and the men in the bank”--Mr. Porter
was president of the Bank of Geneva--“need not know.” Through loss
of her address at the New York end, she waited unanswered until one
day, months later, when she went into “our store” on an errand and the
storekeeper said: “I read your story in the Metropolitan last night. It
was great! Did you ever write any fiction before?” Mrs. Porter relates:
“My head whirled, but I had learned to keep my own counsels, so I said
as lightly as I could, while my heart beat until I feared he could hear
it, ‘No. Just a simple little thing! Have you any spare copies? My
sister might want one.’”
The appearance of her first story led to an order for a second, to be
illustrated with her own photographs. She had a day, or less, to fill
the request for photographs, and kept a number of persons up all night
to pose for her. The genesis of _Freckles_, her second book, was the
discovery by lumbermen of a nest of the black vulture in the Limberlost
Swamp. Her husband, whose business had compelled him to allow her to
work alone but who was also a natural history enthusiast, insisted that
he must go with her. “A Limberlost trip at that time was not to be
joked about. The swamp had not been shorn, branded, and tamed. There
were most excellent reasons why I should not go there. Much of it was
impenetrable. Only a few trees had been taken out; oilmen were just
invading it. In its physical aspect it was a treacherous swamp and
quagmire filled with every plant, animal, and human danger known in the
worst of such locations in the Central States.
“A rod inside the swamp on a road leading to an oil well we mired
to the carriage hubs. I shielded my camera in my arms and before we
reached the well I thought the conveyance would be torn to pieces
and the horse stalled. At the well we started on foot, Mr. Porter in
kneeboots, I in waist-high waders. The time was late June; we forced
our way between steaming, fetid pools, through swarms of gnats, flies,
mosquitoes, poisonous insects, keeping a sharp watch for rattlesnakes.
We sank ankle deep at every step, and logs we thought solid broke under
us. Our progress was a steady succession of prying and pulling each
other to the surface. Our clothing was wringing wet, and the exposed
parts of our bodies lumpy with bites and stings. My husband found the
tree, cleared the opening to the great prostrate log, traversed its
unspeakable odours for nearly forty feet to its farthest recess, and
brought the baby and egg to the light in his leaf-lined hat.
“We could endure the location only by dipping napkins in deodorant and
binding them over our mouths and nostrils. Every third day for almost
three months we made this trip, until Little Chicken was able to take
wing.”
The idea of _Freckles_ came one day when they were leaving the swamp.
A big feather with a shaft over twenty inches long came spinning and
swirling earthward, and fell in Mrs. Porter’s path. It was an eagle’s
feather, but although she instantly looked aloft, Mrs. Porter’s
well-trained eyes could not catch sight of the bird. She has always
regretted that to her story the title _Freckles_ was given; her wish
was for “The Falling Feather”--that tangible thing drifting down out of
Nowhere, just as the boy came in the story of her fashioning.
The insertion of marginal drawings of nature subjects in _Freckles_
made a distinct impression get abroad that it was simply a nature book,
with the result that three long years were required for the novel to
attain its enormous popularity. Published in 1904, the book had sold,
ten years later, 670,733 copies in the regular edition.
vi
Mrs. Porter as an author is now fairly before us and may be considered
profitably before we take a look at her newest novel, _The White Flag_.
So familiar a phenomenon calls for incisive comment. She writes her
stories “exactly as they take shape in my mind” and the excisions
are sometimes--as in the case of _Her Father’s Daughter_, which yet
remained overlong--quite heavy. The edited and published fiction is of
itself remarkable for an unrestraint, a vigorous emphasis, a masculine
zeal, with which there is generally combined freshness of feeling
and a transparent sincerity. It is this sincerity, proceeding as it
so often does from a total unconsciousness of what lies behind it,
that the popular instinct detects at once in the pages of a work of
fiction. It has, of course, nothing whatever to do with literary art,
it is never shamed or enriched by the processes of introspection, and
in this it conforms to the wilful egoism fundamental with the Northern
races in a new country and exploitable environment. The student of
psychology may be interested, for more reasons than the inheritance
of Holland ancestry, to compare the late Theodore Roosevelt and Gene
Stratton-Porter in personalities and characters. Each has swayed the
millions; each, beyond all possible question, has influenced human
lives. Neither was oppressed by the enormous responsibility attached to
such a rôle. I would not say that the one had more education than has
the other, but their educations were different.
“To spend time writing a book based wholly upon human passion and
its outworking I would not,” exclaims Mrs. Porter, to whom art is an
expression of flower-beds and children a-plenty, censored books and
human lives lived on sober and industrious models. And she compromised
on a book “into which I put all the nature work that came naturally
within its scope, and seasoned it with little bits of imagination and
straight copy from the lives of men and women I had known intimately,
folk who lived in a simple, common way with which I was familiar.”
In simple justice it should be pointed out that she insisted upon
alternating nature books and novels, although far more money could be
earned by writing only fiction.
Just as the child was taken from the fields, shoed and harnessed in
“Sunday clothes” and put into school, so the naturalist was torn,
though somewhat more gently and gradually, from her proper enjoyments
and placed in the trammels of book-length fiction. What wonder that she
revolted?--but the rebellion of _Picciola_, though ending in personal
triumph, was not the end of school; and the rebellion of the novelist,
though rewarded with a tremendous personal triumph, did not end her
ordeal of novel-writing. What people like Mrs. Porter never achieve
is a successful rebellion from, within, themselves. Something more
powerful than they quells their self-insurrections; they go on; money
seems worth while for what can be done with it to give happiness and
widen opportunity for others; the task is good--why? It is a task;
something that must be done very thoroughly. The father, Mark Stratton,
to whom his daughter was so observably devoted, gave her a set of
ideals that were to lift her up, like strong links of iron, and then to
turn into rigid chains. She who owes so much to him owes to him more
than she has ever suspected, a compulsion put upon her from within
herself, the final reward or fate of every worshipper.
She has tried to escape. She has written poetry. There was _The
Fire Bird_; and lately there has been _Euphorbia_, a long narrative
published serially to the astonishment of readers of Good Housekeeping.
The subject of _Euphorbia_ is interesting--a woman to whom marriage
brings non-fulfilment, whose husband tramples and uproots the
red-and-white wild flower she loves. When at length the man dies,
the mother has one fearful moment in which her child reaches toward
a bit of euphorbia with she knows not which intention. But he loves
it. Escape! It is not necessary to make as much of this as the
psychoanalyst would make of it, nor, perhaps, to miss the mark so
widely. “My life has been fortunate,” Mrs. Porter admits, “in one
glad way: I have lived mostly in the country and worked in the woods.
For every bad man and woman I have known I have met, lived with, and
am intimately acquainted with an overwhelming number of thoroughly
clean and decent people who still believe in God and cherish high
ideals, and it is _upon the lives of these that I base what I write_.”
There is a puzzling fierceness in the attacks she launches on those
who write otherwise; she is vulnerable somewhere in this connection
or she would show less heat and animosity. And, to some extent, her
active resentment is justified, for she has had a heavy experience
of misleading praise and some experience of hypocrisy. I remember an
occasion upon which she wrote to me, with scornful inflections, to lay
before me the evidence in the case of a certain well-known writer who
had enthusiastically praised her work, though “not for publication.” It
was a course which, like herself, I should join in condemning; but was
it so much of a matter? Did, could, the voice of a single one, count
for much where she had heard already the open voices of praise from so
many thousands? And if it was so, then why?
Who answers that will make possibly the largest single contribution
to the psychology of literature, for this identical question finally
arises in the case of writers great and small.
vii
Never, perhaps, has Mrs. Porter been more herself than in her latest
book, _The White Flag_; although _Her Father’s Daughter_, as originally
written, was overgrown. Both these books are autobiography--_Her
Father’s Daughter_ of the heart, _The White Flag_ of mind and memory.
If Mrs. Porter has but one story to tell, no one has succeeded in
telling it so often with such freshness of feeling or such repeated
success in the matter of readers. _The White Flag_ is the story of
Mahala Spellman, daughter and only child of Mahlon and Elizabeth
Spellman. The opening scenes are laid in the Indiana of the 1880s.
The village is called Ashwater. For what seems an excessive time our
attention is concentrated upon Elizabeth as a little girl and Junior
Moreland as a little boy. Nothing could be more typical of Mrs. Porter
than the attention she bestows upon her heroine in childhood--the exact
detail of Mahala’s dress, the recorded precision of her unfailingly
correct behaviour. If there is something unnatural about the child,
there is everything natural to a child in Mrs. Porter’s fiction.
In picturing the richest man in the village Mrs. Porter blackens
his villainy to a pitch where Mr. Moreland is neither more nor less
credible than some of the characters in, let us say, _Way Down East_.
Mahala, in ensuing chapters, refuses Junior Moreland in the face of the
fact that his father could save her father from ruin. Her father fails,
and, broken, dies. Her mother becomes an invalid. When finally Mahala
can truthfully say that all is lost except self-respect and courage,
a deadly blow is levelled at her self-respect. Some money is stolen.
Circumstantial evidence accuses Mahala, and Ashwater shuns her.
It will not be supposed that Mrs. Porter fails to raise up a champion
in her heroine’s hour of need. All along we have been in touch,
in close touch, with Jason. We knew him as a boy, apparently the
washerwoman’s son. We know him as a young man, springing to Mahala’s
relief. There is no real reason why, in such a situation and with two
such principal characters, Mrs. Porter should not work miracles. She
does.... Of course her point is that the virtue, goodness and courage
of Mahala and Jason earn their own ample rewards; and the thousands who
are reading _The White Flag_ will accept this as so.
Books by Gene Stratton-Porter
1903 _The Song of the Cardinal_
1904 _Freckles_
1907 _What I Have Done With Birds_ (republished, 1917,
as _Friends in Feathers_)
1908 _At the Foot of the Rainbow_
1909 _A Girl of the Limberlost_
1909 _Birds of the Bible_
1910 _Music of the Wild_
1911 _The Harvester_
1912 _Moths of the Limberlost_
1913 _Laddie_
1915 _Michael O’Halloran_
1916 _Morning Face_
1918 _A Daughter of the Land_
1920 _Homing With the Birds_
1921 _Her Father’s Daughter_
1922 _The Fire Bird_
1923 _White Flag_
_Euphorbia_ appeared as a serial in Good Housekeeping:
January, February, March numbers, 1923.
Sources on Gene Stratton-Porter
_Gene Stratton-Porter, A Little Story of Her Life and Work._ This
is the booklet, now out of print, published some ten years ago by
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY, based upon the long self-account written by
Mrs. Porter and prepared by Eugene F. Saxton.
“An American Bird-Woman.” Anonymous article in CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
(London and Edinburgh. New York: International News Company), Part 46,
October 1, 1914: page 636.
Private Information.
_17. Poetry and Plays_
i
If you look at the poets as they move in their procession before
your eyes, you will see that each is dressed after the manner of his
age--the Elizabethans in starched ruffs; the men of the Eighteenth
Century in knee-breeches; the men of today in Homburg hats. And if
you listen to their verses you will hear that each composes, too,
after the manner of his age. For there have been fashions in poetry
as there have been fashions in dress, and you can tell the period of
a poem not only by the name and date of the poet but by the style and
flavour of the poetry.” From this thought J. F. Roxburgh has written
“a beginner’s introduction to English poetry” with the charming title,
_The Poetic Procession_. His brief review of the poets from the
Elizabethans to the men now writing is felicitous enough. But although
I am sure his intention in the sentences quoted was not literal, the
image of present-day poets in Homburg hats is very disconcerting.
Don Marquis has probably worn one, thus inviting the visitation of
insurance agents. But I am sure some of his poems have been written
with the wind blowing through his hair. Such poems as “The Name,” in
his _Dreams and Dust_, for example, or those “Premonitions” in his
_Poems and Portraits_. It is as difficult to say, with Marquis, where
the humourist stops in his poetry and the thinker steps in as to mark
the same exit-entrance in the man’s prose. _Sonnets to a Red-Haired
Lady and Famous Love Affairs_ and a part of _Poems and Portraits_ are
supposed to belong to Marquis the jester; but, of the second-named
book, which part? “The man who has laughed lest he should weep, the
clown of the seven times broken heart” is Richard Le Gallienne’s apt
characterisation of Marquis. I am not sure that “The Tom Cat” in _Poems
and Portraits_ is a bit less “serious” than such a poem as “Inhibition”
in the same collection.
Behind the placid front of use
The baffled whims move to and fro;
We fear to let these genii go....
Sober-faced, we carry hidden within us something for which the poet has
found one of those rare things in the language, the perfect phrase; it
is
The golden nonsense of the heart.
Perhaps we also are like the Tom-cat and, on our occasions, “chant the
hate of a million years.”
He will lie on a rug to-morrow
And lick his silky fur,
And veil the brute in his yellow eyes
And play he’s tame, and purr.
But at midnight in the alley
He will crouch again and wail,
And beat the time for his demon’s song
With the swing of his demon’s tail.
I am as certain that Marquis admires and condones the Tom-cat as I am
that he has sought the troubling and elusive “Name” which has variously
seemed, as he tells us in his fine poem, to be Love, and Beauty, and
God.
The Boston Evening Transcript spoke not long ago of “the unhurried
ascent of John Hall Wheelock to the highest rank among contemporary
American poets.” The statement seems to me free from any exaggeration;
and it is encouraging to think that Mr. Wheelock is in a way to reach
the height more conspicuously than did Edwin Arlington Robinson, of
whom, until his unveiling a few years ago by fellow poets, the larger
public seems to have remained in a lamentable ignorance. Mr. Wheelock’s
_Dust and Light_ (1919) and his _The Black Panther_ (1922) have a
beauty and sentience best illustrated by quotation. Here are some lines
from “Earth,” in _Dust and Light_:
Deftly does the dust express
In mind her hidden loveliness,
And from her cool silence stream
The cricket’s cry and Dante’s dream;
For the earth that breeds the trees
Breeds cities too, and symphonies.
Equally her beauty flows
Into a saviour, or a rose--
Looks down in dream, and from above
Smiles at herself in Jesus’s love.
Christ’s love and Homer’s art
Are but the workings of her heart;
Through Leonardo’s hand she seeks
Herself, and through Beethoven speaks
In holy thunderings around
The awful message of the ground.
The thought is Emersonian, but with Emerson lyricism was a doubtful
and an inconstant capture. Here is “The Lion-House,” from _The Black
Panther_, a poem, I cannot but think, that any poet would be proud to
sign:
Always the heavy air,
The dreadful cage, the low
Murmur of voices, where
Some Force goes to and fro
In an immense despair!
As through a haunted brain--
With tireless footfalls
The Obsession moves again,
Trying the floor, the walls,
Forever, but in vain.
In vain, proud Force! A might
Shrewder than yours, did spin
Around your rage that bright
Prison of steel, wherein
You pace for my delight.
And O, my heart, what Doom
What warier Will has wrought
The cage, within whose room
Paces your burning thought,
For the delight of Whom?
The black and silver of cover and jacket on Elinor Wylie’s second book
of poems, _Black Armour_, were not so much to match the title as to
convey the colour impression of a number of readers who had studied
the book in manuscript. The poems, grouped under the names of the
parts of a suit of armour--Breastplate, Gauntlet, Helmet, Beaver Up,
Plumes--perhaps require study, not in the sense of textual analysis
(though they will repay that) but in the sense of returning to them
several times, so that their compressed emotion may fully expand
itself. I had almost said, explode itself. Indeed, it may sometimes
produce nothing short of an explosion of feeling in the sensitive
reader. I am thinking now of such works as “Now That Your Eyes Are
Shut” (which opens the section called Plumes). I have heard the poem
“Peregrine” called the best in the book, the dryly concise account of a
Liar and bragger,
He had no friend
Except a dagger
And a candle-end
and whose career, the narration of which includes a dozen feats of
rhyming, was summed up when
He spoke this sentence
With a princely air:
“The noose draws tighter;
This is the end;
I’m a good fighter,
But a bad friend:
I’ve played the traitor
Over and over;
I’m a good hater,
But a bad lover.”
But “Fable,” with its effects in twenty-four lines as powerful as
Coleridge’s in his _Ancient Mariner_, and “Lucifer Sings in Secret” are
to me finer than “Peregrine” because more individual. I mean that I
could imagine a later Browning writing “Peregrine,” but cannot imagine
anyone but Elinor Wylie writing “Lucifer.” Much stress has been laid
on Mrs. Wylie’s gift for bright, strange images in her poetry, and this
is no small item in her genius; but the steeled emotion, the unearthly
cry that is heard under the burnished and metallic surfaces, sometimes
in not instantly intelligible words, is her voice as a poet. In “Now
That Your Eyes Are Shut,” which I quote, there is one stanza that might
have been written by a poet of a long-past century--I leave you to name
him--but there are two stanzas, the most important, which I can imagine
no one but Elinor Wylie writing:
Now that your eyes are shut
Not even a dusty butterfly may brush them;
My flickering knife has cut
Life from sonorous lion throats to hush them.
If pigeons croon too loud
Or lambs bleat proudly, they must come to slaughter,
And I command each cloud
To be precise in spilling silent water.
Let light forbear those lids:
I have forbidden the feathery ash to smutch them;
The spider thread that thrids
The gray-plumed grass has not my leave to touch them.
My casual ghost may slip,
Issuing tiptoe, from the pure inhuman;
The tissues of my lip
Will bruise your eyelids, while I am a woman.
ii
The title poem in Amanda Hall’s book, _The Dancer in the Shrine_,
tempts to quotation, but there seems to me something unfair in
reprinting it complete and to cut lines from it is to mutilate both
what is taken and that which is left. There is a good deal of the life
of the countryside in the book; Miss Hall’s New England is that of
Thoreau but her lyrical gift is distinctly personal. A characteristic
mood and treatment is shown in “I’ll Build My House of Sticks and
Stones,” from which the following couplets are taken:
I’ll build my house of sticks and stones,
Of lollypops and herring bones,
None other than myself to please--
Of fine, fresh straw or green sage cheese;
I’ll build my house of this and that
To suit my pleasure and my cat--
I’ll clothe myself in cast-off rags,
In cobwebs or in barley bags,
The shabbier I am encased
The fruitier my joy will taste.
I’ll set my two lips to the air
And carol to the birds’ despair....
Some musing morning as I sing
Perhaps I’ll catch God listening,
In soft enchantment at His sill.
He’ll tell His angels to be still,
He’ll say to them in tones discreet
That there is singing in the street...
The pagan quality keeps its joyousness while transmuting it into
something reverent and beautiful in such lines as “The Dancer in the
Shrine.” The religious note, differently accented, may be found in
the work of Alice Meynell, whose complete verse is now available in
_The Poems of Alice Meynell_. Mrs. Meynell’s death has brought a sharp
emphasis upon the rare character of her poetic gift. Alfred Noyes says
she has left to the world a volume “containing only masterpieces,” but
I like better the words of J. L. Garvin: “Not one of her poems but
was the music of a thought as most of her essays were the fruit of
perception.” Let me not quote “The Shepherdess,” so widely known and so
self-expressive, but “Chimes” with its changing image and its “music of
a thought” sung to perfection:
Brief, on a flying night,
From the shaken tower,
A flock of bells take flight,
And go with the hour.
Like birds from the cote to the gales,
Abrupt--O hark!
A fleet of bells set sails,
And go to the dark.
Sudden the cold airs swing.
Alone, aloud,
A verse of bells takes wing
And flies with the cloud.
Mrs. Meynell was one of a group of contemporary Catholic poets of whom,
it may be, Aline Kilmer is the most widely known and read in America.
Of the others of that group I should like especially to mention two
whose new books of verse have just appeared--Sister M. Madeleva, a
nun in the congregation of the Holy Cross at Holy Rosary Academy,
California, and Wilfred Rowland Childe, who is English. Sister M.
Madeleva’s collection called _Knights Errant_ contains verse highly
spiritual in type, clear and strong in emotional expression, and
admirable for the manner in which the author has adhered to subjects
and thoughts strictly within the limits of her clearly defined
experience. Mysticism is natural to these Catholic singers, and will be
found strongly in Mr. Childe’s _The Gothic Rose_, a book of poems quite
Gothic in spirit, sometimes wistful, sometimes marked with melancholy
and obviously the outgrowth of a loving adoration. Although such poems
as “The Dirge for Westminster” and “The Virgin of Flanders” are the
body of _The Gothic Rose_, there is a range including an Oxford poem
(“Idylle Oxonienne”), one or two classical subjects, such as “Daphne,”
and the modern verse of “The Austrian River.”
Like Amanda Hall, Josephine Daskam Bacon is both novelist and poet,
but it is as a poet that Mrs. Bacon will arrest our attention for her
_Truth o’ Women_, which has been described as a _Spoon River Anthology_
for women. The book consists of a group of “Epitaphs for Women” in free
verse; this one being characteristic:
I was sorry to leave you,
Because I knew you needed me.
But are there no women who are sorry to die
Because they need their husbands?
I wanted, dying, to be one of them!
Forty of these “Epitaphs” are followed by a series of dramatic
monologues under the general title, “Truth o’ Women.” The monologues
are spoken by the mother of Joan of Arc, Lincoln’s mother, Dante’s
wife, Milton’s daughters, the wife of Judas, one of Bluebeard’s wives,
the mother of Mary and Martha and the wives of Columbus, Sir Isaac
Newton, Cadmus, Adam, Shakespeare, Socrates, Pilate and Julius Cæsar.
No, evidently realism in poetry is not through! Look, here is “an epic
of insignificance” called _The Life and Death of Mrs. Tidmuss_, by
Wilfrid Blair. Pursuing the Spoon River comparison for Mrs. Bacon’s
book, one is on the verge of calling Blair’s work a _Main Street_ of
England in verse. In subject matter it is more like John Masefield’s
_Widow in the Bye Street_, I should say. We start with Selina as the
young daughter of a greengrocer, see her as a slow and bashful girl
leading a drab existence and wooed finally by Tom Tidmuss, who is
interested in poultry-raising. He is a printer by trade. They plan to
marry and get a cottage. Then, for the first time, Selina lives:
She had a ring, and roses in her cheek.
A year’s wait reaps the reward of her wedding day.
She had no wedding bells. Her well-oiled sire
Led her in tribal veilings up the aisle
To where a curate, impatient for his hire,
Hovered, and Tom in his stiff Sunday style.
Things went through quick. It mattered not. She moved
In a mazed phantasmagoria all the while.
Thereafter births, deaths, a subdued drudgery, old age, the selling
of the house and furniture and the going to live with her daughter,
where she is not very happy. The poet concludes on a swift crescendo,
_maestoso_:
Death sets free: it is Life that holds in thrall ...
Blow up, O trumpets of eternity!
Shout, souls of God, from starry sea to sea!
Stars, clash your shining shields--a soul is free!
iii
Of George Santayana as a poet I have incidentally spoken in Chapter
9, quoting one of his superb sonnets, but I think I neglected to call
attention to the preface he has recently provided for his _Poems_. It
is an omission that must be repaired. I can scarcely give an idea of
the preface’s excellence as vigorous and beautiful prose, but aside
from Santayana’s explanation that the subject of these poems is “simply
my philosophy in the making,” it is just to quote this passage: “A
Muse--not exactly an English Muse--actually visited me in my isolation;
the same, or a ghost of the same, that visited Boethius or Alfred
de Musset or Leopardi. It was literally impossible for me then not
to re-echo her eloquence. When that compulsion ceased, I ceased to
write verses. My emotion--for there was genuine emotion--faded into a
sense that my lesson was learned and my troth plighted....” I cannot
resist quoting from the closing poem, the lines on Art that count as a
translation from Theophile Gautier but are actually so much more than
that:
All things are doubly fair
If patience fashion them
And care--
Verse, enamel, marble, gem....
--All things return to dust
Save beauties fashioned well.
The bust
Outlasts the citadel.
The gods, too, die, alas!
But deathless and more strong
Than brass
Remains the sovereign song.
How W. E. Henley would have loved this! (But perhaps he saw it, and
was not silent). Henley, whose _Poems_ in my copy are the nineteenth
edition--and my copy is far from new. Henley and Francis Thompson and
Kipling go on; few of us need any urge or even any reminder to re-read
them; their poetry gains its fresh recruits with every season of the
young men, and old men have been known to resume their youth over the
pages....
Youth! That is the cargo that sails on those perilous seas forlorn we
looked upon from John Keats’s casements opening on the foam. What a
frank title for a first book of verse is Robert Roe’s _Here You Have
Me!_ The title poem and a few others in the Whitmanesque tradition are
followed by a group of poems derived from experiences as a sailor,
verses that break free of any tradition known to me; and by poems
ripened out of an intimate contact with the Arizona desert. I have
liked some of these greatly, just as I like, for another reason,
Vachel Lindsay’s _Going-to-the-Sun_, which is suitably fantastic. Some
way must be devised for everyone to hear Lindsay recite or chant his
verses, since in no other way can the reader possibly get more than
half their effect. I think if all could hear him in a half dozen,
the awakened instinct and quickened imagination in most of us would
accomplish the rest. We should then be able merely to read him and feel
the elixir.
In a later chapter of this book devoted to Christopher Morley there is
mention of his poem, “Parson’s Pleasure,” which gives title to his new
and by all odds best collection of verse. The remarkable change and
growth in Morley as a prose writer has been attended by chemistries
in the poet, and I expect the large popularity gained by his poems in
_Chimneysmoke_ will accrue without delay to the poems in _Parson’s
Pleasure_. But are you familiar with the poetry of Franklin P. Adams?
I only partly mean the F. P. A. of the daily breakfast table and
occasional short lyric or bit of versification heading a newspaper
column. I mean the author of _Tobogganing on Parnassus_, and _Weights
and Measures_, and _Overset_, and _So There!_ Light, satiric verse,
most of it; but how finished and perfect in its form, how penetrating
in its arrowy indirection! Whether he is penning the address of the
passionate advertiser to his love or doing for Horace what Edward
Fitzgerald did for a certain Persian singer, Mr. Adams is constantly
curing the evils of civilisation, freeing those “baffled whims” Don
Marquis tells about and generally making life more livable by making it
more singable.
iv
Among studies of contemporary poets we have had none so valuable, I
think, as Lloyd Morris’s _The Poetry of Edwin Arlington Robinson_.
The first and most important inspiration that came to Mr. Morris was
undoubtedly the divisions of his subject, so that he brings us to
the consideration of a difficult master under the headings natural
to the poet, his “Men,” his use of “History,” and “Legend,” his two
prose “Plays,” and as the crown, his “Ideas” or intellectual content.
It is hard to see how any reader of poetry can do without this
lucid discussion and exposition of one who may well be, and is by
competent critics adjudged to be, the greatest living American poet. A
biographical note, following the careful bibliography of Mr. Robinson’s
works by W. Van R. Whitall, rounds out the usefulness of the little
volume.
The popularity of anthologies of verse is now proverbial, and I
expect that there will be plenty of attention for the _Anthology of
American Verse_ which J. C. Squire, poet and editor of the London
Mercury, has completed. The work shows the advantages gained by the
onlooker’s standpoint, who can bring to bear a sense of perspective
better than our own. The selection also shows Mr. Squire’s fine taste
which, so far as I know, has no superior and very few equals among
those whose knowledge of poetry would qualify them to be anthologists
at all. Another collection of extreme importance but necessarily from
a different angle has been completed by Margery Gordon and Marie B.
King, and just published under the title _Verse of Our Day_. As
the compilers had distinctly in mind school use of this book in a
special edition, as well as the wide popular audience in an edition
from which certain textbook features would be omitted, their aim
was for inclusiveness and a highly representative quality above
all else--though a rigid selection was inevitable, too. The result
is a book presenting 347 poems, 225 by American poets and 122 by
British. Ninety-two of the Americans and 42 of the British poets are
modern--that is, they lie between Eugene Field and Amy Lowell on the
one hand, between W. E. Henley and Alfred Noyes and John Masefield on
the other. Biographies of the poets, reading lists and, in the school
edition, certain guides to study have been included. The popularity of
_Verse of Our Day_ ought to be sure and of some permanence.
Henry van Dyke, assisted by Hardin Craig and Asa Don Dickinson, has
edited _A Book of British and American Verse_ rather from a standpoint
like J. C. Squire’s. “This is not an attempt to make another historical
anthology of English verse,” Dr. van Dyke explains. “I have looked
only at the value and beauty of the poems themselves.” If some poets
were unrepresented, it was not to be helped. “Those that seemed the
best have been chosen out of many, not to illustrate a theory, but for
their own sake, because they are good to read.” And for those who loved
Roosevelt as well as for those who have the anthologist’s interest,
there is _Roosevelt as the Poets Saw Him_, edited by Charles Hanson
Towne and containing poems by Kipling, Edith Wharton, Richard Le
Gallienne, William Watson, Edgar Lee Masters, Owen Wister, John Hay,
Vachel Lindsay, Edwin Arlington Robinson and Robert Bridges.
v
Leaving aside all disputes on the score of the drama, one of the best
moments of our contemporary literature came a few years ago when it
was first known that J. M. Barrie had consented to the publication
of his plays. And then when the published plays began to come along,
the moment enlarged itself. Here was a man who was practically
inventing something, a curious but felicitous compound of novel and
drama, a mixture of narrative and dialogue, something that extended
far beyond the irrepressible wit and satire of G. Bernard Shaw’s
stage directions, priceless as those had been. There was a feeling,
with good reason, that by this step Barrie had done more to instate
himself with posterity than by anything heretofore. For about the plays
themselves, as plays, the controversy is already active; but about the
success of the plays as published I know of no dispute or objection.
_Dear Brutus_ is the eighth volume in a series which already included
_A Kiss for Cinderella_, _Alice Sit-by-the Fire_, _What Every Woman
Knows_, _Quality Street_, _The Admirable Crichton_ and two collections
of the shorter plays, _Half Hours_ (“Pantaloon,” “The Twelve-Pound
Look,” “Rosalind,” “The Will”) and _Echoes of the War_ (“The Old
Lady Shows Her Medals,” “The New Word,” “Barbara’s Wedding,” “A
Well-Remembered Voice”). There are good things to come yet, including
_Peter Pan_, and these are in preparation; but much of the best Barrie
and best-agreed-to Barrie is now ready to go on the bookshelf (where
it won’t stay put very well)--and the best of Barrie is good in any
company. For example, _The Admirable Crichton_, which even the most
critical have found strong words to praise. The printed version avoids
the fault of the 1918 stage revival in which, as has been said, Barrie
dulled or allowed some one else to dull the edge of his perfect satire.
For a short and appreciative yet discriminating account of Barrie the
playwright, one could not do better than read the chapter upon him in
John W. Cunliffe’s _English Literature During the Last Half Century_
(Macmillan: Revised Edition, 1923).
John Galsworthy, the subject of the first chapter of this book, will
not, of course, be overlooked by anyone concerned in knowing the best
plays of our time. His plays are to be had, complete at present, in
five volumes (_Plays: First Series_; _Plays: Second Series_, etc.) and
a supplementary volume, _Six Short Plays_. Or, with the exception of
the six short plays, each may be had separately. Probably a consensus
would select _Loyalties_, _Justice_, _Strife_, _The Silver Box_, _The
Pigeon_ and _The Skin Game_ as his most important and representative
dramas.
Arnold Bennett’s new play, _Don Juan de Marana_, represents one
fulfilment of a threefold ambition. Don Juan, together with the legend
of the Wandering Jew and the story of Tannhäuser, had attracted him
for years as great subjects for drama. A good deal of preliminary
work on the Wandering Jew theme was wasted by news that somebody
else had written a play on the theme and obtained a production. “I
put the Wandering Jew aside for ten years,” explains Bennett. “With
regard to Tannhäuser, I am still wondering how to cure Elizabeth of
her insipidity, and how to get into the heads of a twentieth century
audience the surely obvious fact that music is not an essential
ingredient of the tale.” Don Juan Tenorio proved impossible as the
basis of a play, but finally Bennett came upon the other, later version
of the Don Juan story. “And then I discovered what I wanted in a work
on my own shelves, the plays of Dumas _père_ in twenty-five volumes. I
ought to have divined that since Dumas wrote plays on everything, he
must have written a play on the Don Juan de Marana variation of the Don
Juan legend.”
At last all of W. Somerset Maugham’s plays are available for the
reader, some ten volumes that include not only _The Circle_, but _Lady
Frederick_, _The Explorer_, _Jack Straw_, etc. It should perhaps
be noted here that the play _Rain_ is not a Maugham play, but an
adaptation of Maugham’s tremendous short story, “Rain,” included in his
book of South Sea tales, _The Trembling of a Leaf_.
John Dos Passos in his _Rosinante to the Road Again_, in the chapter
on “Benavente’s Madrid,” has conveyed with clearness and much
picturesqueness the style and point, the character and perfection of
taste in a certain style (_lo castizo_) with which Jacinto Benavente’s
dramas abound. It is this that from their Spanish viewpoint makes them
of such distinction; but that would hardly account for their success
outside Spain. Larger qualities--a gentle and deadly satire, a nervous
vitality, wit--do that; and the visit of Señor Benavente to America
a few months ago did much to attract attention to his work. Twelve
of his plays, assembled in three volumes in the translations of John
Garrett Underhill, are now accessible to the English reader. Benavente
represents a more modern Spain than the Echegaray with whose _drame
passionel_ those who read plays are sufficiently familiar. He should
be read for his own sake and as a Continental dramatist much more
distinctly representative of something national, something Spanish in
sensibility, than are the outstanding playwrights of other European
lands--excepting Russia, no doubt. One can scarcely read Ibsen for
Norway, or Strindberg for a little corner of the world; Tchekov is
Russia but Andreiev is humanity. Jacinto Benavente, however, is Spain
without the sacrifice of those elements which are of importance to a
society in any country.
The impressive success of the Theatre Guild is known everywhere, and
the Theatre Guild Library is very welcome for its addition of several
of the finest of recent plays to the resources of the reading table.
The series has been auspiciously begun with publication of Karel
Capek’s _R. U. R._, Ernest Toller’s _The Mass-Men_, and Elmer L. Rice’s
_The Adding Machine_. A particularly good pick of recent successes will
be found in _Contemporary American Plays_, edited by Arthur H. Quinn
and containing Jesse Lynch Williams’s “Why Marry?” Eugene O’Neill’s
“The Emperor Jones,” Rachel Crothers’s “Nice People,” Gilbert Emery’s
“The Hero,” and George S. Kaufman’s and Marc Connelly’s “To the Ladies!”
Of recent books on the drama, Stark Young’s _The Flower in Drama:
Papers on the Theatre_, has attracted wide attention and much deserved
praise. Not much more than a year ago Mr. Young, previously a professor
of English, began to write his papers on plays, actors, and the theatre
in general in the New Republic. His articles and reviews attracted at
once the attention of discriminating people interested in the theatre;
their admiration was quickly developed by an attitude which showed
a comprehending sympathy for what the younger men were trying to do
and yet never lost sight of the drama as a developed art with certain
inviolable principles. Moreover, he wrote with wit, precision and
charm. There is no better reading of its sort, I think, than his “Dear
Mr. Chaplin,” his “Circus,” or his “Letter to Duse,” all contained in
this volume. Perhaps a note should explain the title, which is based on
a sentence: “If one aims only at the beautiful, the flower is sure to
appear”--a phrase drawn from Seami, 1363-1444, who, with his father,
stood at the head of the No of Japan.
_18. Lost Patterns_
Collestamore was showing me his library, but a summons to the telephone
had drawn him from the room and I was standing before the set of
shelves between the cases containing rarities and those which held
fine bindings, frankly puzzled. There were not many books ranged here
and I could not make out the distinction that grouped them together.
It might have been no distinction but mere accident in the case of
anyone less methodical than Collestamore. With him, no; some thought or
queer intention must underlie the choosing. Fiction and non-fiction,
new books and some old ones, some volumes of attractive format and
design and others whose homely plainness was possibly compensated by
the fact of their being first editions--it meant nothing. Alphabetical
arrangement by authors hadn’t been attempted and was, indeed, scarcely
worth while until the little assembly grew larger. Then he returned and
met my look of inquiry with:
“You’ve discovered my Lost Patterns.”
“Lost Patterns?”
“Oh,” he said, “there aren’t many of them, as yet. The fact is, I only
thought of it a week ago. It rained all afternoon, so I spent a couple
of hours amusing myself with them--with a beginning of them.”
“‘Lost’? But some of them are new enough.”
“It’s the only name I could think of that I rather liked,” was his
explanation. “A Lost Pattern--the idea I was trying to express--may
be either old or new. It has nothing to do with the edition or the
binding, but everything to do with the contents of a book. Novel or
essay or biography, the text ought to represent something we have
not had before or since and aren’t likely to have again; something
individual in the scheme or the style; something wholly personal in the
flavour--in short, unique, I suppose. What James Huneker would have
called a unicorn. By the way, _he_ is a Lost Pattern, probably.”
“Probably.” I was not unsympathetic to his idea. “You are anxious to
get together a collection for the collection’s sake, I take it.”
“No, for the reader’s sake. It wouldn’t have any value as a collection,
other than the curious, and I swear it could have no value for the
person of literary practices.” I glanced at him but could detect
nothing in his expression. I have always suspected Collestamore of
secret literary practices, concealed efforts to put his freakish self
into words. My idea is that he attempts essays and that so far he is
like a fellow fond of cigarettes and learning to roll his own. He went
on, more meditatively: “A fellow desiring to be a writer would waste
his time if he aped these people.” All the same, I thought, I will bet
that you----
“I began with a few new books,” he was saying. “New or comparatively
so. The thing that started me, I guess, was Elinor Wylie’s novel.” He
fingered his copy of _Jennifer Lorn_.
“I haven’t read it.”
“She has made a replica of the eighteenth century novel, a suitably
fantastic story about an English aristocrat and his bride who
journey to the India of the East India Company and meet with bizarre
adventures. It is what you would expect of a poet enamoured with the
life of that glittering period. I wonder that Max Beerbohm hasn’t done
it long before this. Or Aldous Huxley.”
“I see you have them both represented here.”
“Yes, the thought of them sprang from Mrs. Wylie’s book. I took down
Huxley’s _Crome Yellow_ and his _Mortal Coils_. From Max I wanted the
books of his caricatures--_Rossetti and His Circle_ and that other one
he calls _A Survey_. My collection of Lost Patterns was begun, then and
there. The idea of what would constitute a Lost Pattern was formed--I
don’t say it didn’t enlarge afterward nor that it won’t enlarge or
change shape again. But, essentially, I knew what I wanted.”
“Nobody knows what he wants,” I objected. “The thing is obviously
impossible. You mean you knew that you wanted to add more books to the
five you had assembled.”
“Any way you like.” Collestamore’s indifference was polite, but
profound. “I began looking over the other shelves. The next thing
I came upon was George Moore’s _Hail and Farewell_. We shall never
have a writer like George Moore, not even George Moore.” I thought to
myself: With that nuance, with a phrase like that, he is deliberately
imitating Beerbohm’s prose; I had better take no notice of it. His next
remark startled me.
“Literary style, distinction, in the enterprise I had embarked upon was
of no consequence whatever.” And seeing that this wasn’t brilliantly
intelligible, he continued:
“The thing was much deeper than that--the personal twist or wrinkle was
what I was after, the fly in the amber. Not a perfectly preserved fly
in the amber of a choice literary expression but a wriggling insect
caught on the tanglefoot of unaccustomed words would do as well.” He
was fast throwing grammar overboard in the effort to lighten ship
and bring his thoughts to port. “I have not, as yet, come upon an
illiterate author who deserves inclusion among my Lost Patterns, but I
shouldn’t hesitate to put him in.”
“I see.” After a pause: “Here you’ve got George Meredith. He’s very
nearly illiterate, don’t you think so? Sometimes literacy can go too
far, as in Meredith and in Henry James, whom you’ve put alongside.
Maurice Hewlett is another matter.”
“Well,” said Collestamore, “I stuck them in as a matter of course.
Anybody would naturally have thought of them in such a connection.
The things I really pride myself upon are my detections among these
single and mostly more recent books. You take F. Scott Fitzgerald’s
_This Side of Paradise_, or William McFee’s _Casuals of the Sea_, or
C. E. Montague’s very fetching _Fiery Particles_, or Ernest Bramah’s
_Kai Lung’s Golden Hours_, or Don Marquis’s _Hermione_, or Alfred
B. Stanford’s _The Ground Swell_”--he was half pulling them out and
letting them fall back, as he enumerated them--“and tell me if I have
not shown both enterprise and catholicity.”
I thought he had, but I also thought he should attempt some
justificatory remarks, and said so. His point in regard to _This
Side of Paradise_ was its vitality in spite of its having, as Edmund
Wilson, Jr., observed, almost every conceivable fault. “It had all
imaginable faults, but yet, in Wilson’s words, ‘it did not fail to
live,’” Collestamore argued. I nodded, and he went on. _Casuals of the
Sea_, it appeared, pleased him by a lack of anything self-conscious in
the writing. He much preferred it to the too purposeful artistry of
McFee’s _Command_. The singularity of those tales in _Fiery Particles_,
he thought, called for no special pleading in its behalf. _The Ground
Swell_ was a sea pattern unique in its simplicity; Don Marquis’s
heroine and her little group of serious thinkers were the apotheosis
of the Great Inane. As for _Kai Lung’s Golden Hours_, he was merely
echoing G. K. Chesterton, Belloc and a dozen others whose judgment was
respectable and might command my deference not given to his own.
“Oh, I defer,” I assured him. “You are the Lord High Executioner in
this series of literary beheadings. I consider that a reign of terror
has begun.”
It wasn’t beheadings, he said. He wasn’t going over the field of
daisies like the Syracusan tyrant and with his sceptre, cane, stick or
staff cropping off the heads of the taller blooms.
“Daisies? I thought it was a field of corn.”
As to that, he didn’t remember. It was no matter, anyway. He was not
demolishing, but singling out for eminence. No whistling cane, but----
“The sceptre gently touching one here, one there, knighting him,
commanding him to spring up----”
“You will observe,” in a tone of patient tolerance, “the surprising
variety one gets in the shortest possible space of time at this sort
of thing. Of course I thought of Jane Austen, and rather than put
in _Pride and Prejudice_ I chose _The Watsons_ as completed by Miss
Oulton. After all, _The Watsons_ is later work than either _Pride
and Prejudice_ or _Sense and Sensibility_ and the conjecture as to
why it was never finished gives it special interest. By that time I
was running over my books more or less as they stand on the shelves,
alphabetised by authors. The next thing, therefore, was Arnold Bennett,
and I chose _The Truth About an Author_. You know, it is the one book
of Bennett’s that could not, imaginably, have been written by anybody
else. H. C. Bunner was next. I really don’t know whether anyone living
besides myself and Franklin P. Adams now cares for Bunner; if not, so
much the better!”
“I see. The more lost the Lost Pattern, the more to be prized.”
“Why not? His _Stories_ and his _Short Sixes_ are as American as,
perhaps more so than, O. Henry.” He was quietly dogmatic.
“Is O. Henry here?” I looked. “Yes, to be sure. Also portions of
Kipling and, I judge, Frank R. Stockton practically complete. But these
were among the matter-of-courses. Let’s see: Shouldn’t you put in
Frank Norris? _The Pit_, I suppose. And there’s W. W. Jacobs.”
He looked so restive that I stopped. “It’s really no way to go at
the thing wholesale,” he protested. “I haven’t made up my mind as to
which one or two books of Stockton’s yet; he’s there in bulk only
temporarily. I suppose it had better be _Rudder Grange_.”
“Make it _Salthaven_ from W. W. Jacobs,” I urged. “Unless you strongly
prefer _At Sunwich Port_.”
“I do. Probably it’s just that I read it first. After Bunner I ran
against George W. Cable’s _The Grandissimes_. Then I laid hold of
Stephen Crane’s _The Red Badge of Courage_. Then John Dos Passos’s
_Rosinante to the Road Again_.”
“Thomas Beer has just finished a biography of Stephen Crane. Joseph
Conrad has written a preface for it,” I said, but Collestamore paid
no attention. He was across the room, picking something out, and came
back in a moment holding up Edmund Gosse’s _Three French Moralists_.
“Just thought of Gosse. This will do to hold the place for him until I
decide. Have you never read it? Then you don’t know Rochefoucauld or La
Bruyere as you should know them. And you’ve missed a singularly urbane
and exquisite example of English prose style.”
“You have both Compton Mackenzie’s _Carnival_ and his _Sinister Street_
in here. Make it _Carnival_. Let’s see: David Graham Phillips’s _Susan
Lennox: Her Fall and Rise_; John Ames Mitchell’s _Amos Judd_; and that
new illustrated edition of _David_ _Harum_. I guess I’d agree with
your choice of each of those.” His expression remained polite but I
could see it would make not the least difference whether I agreed or
not. “Did you see Rodolph Valentino in ‘The Young Rajah’?” I asked, to
tease him. He was good-natured about it. “I did. I have no objection to
Valentino, but I much prefer the story as told in _Amos Judd_.” He was
ruffling the pages of _David Harum_. “I like these text drawings, don’t
you?” I said I did, adding that _David Harum_ was the kind of book that
cried for illustration.
“About biography, or especially, autobiography,” he said suddenly.
“Should you say Booker T. Washington’s _Up From Slavery_, for one?
There’ll never be another of that pattern.” But I had a suggestion for
him there. “Anyway, you must include Bouck White’s _The Book of Daniel
Drew_.” He said at once, “Oh, yes!”--adding, “Autobiographical in form,
anyway. White always contended that he found an actual record left
by Uncle Dan’l Drew. Semi-fictional, if you like; but a grand piece
of satire. And now I rather think we’re wanted to sit down to lunch.
Er--how about a swallow of something first? Or is that among your lost
appetites?”
_19. Joseph C. Lincoln Discovers Cape Cod_
i
On 13 February, 1870, in the town of Brewster, Massachusetts, which
is on Cape Cod, there was born to Joseph Lincoln and Emily (Crosby)
Lincoln a son whom they named Joseph Crosby Lincoln. The child’s
father was a seaman, so had been his father’s father and his father’s
father’s father; and so were all his uncles. His mother’s people
followed the sea. For a mile in each direction from the plain little
house of the Lincolns every house contained a Cap’n. When the boy was
a year old, his father died of a fever in Charleston, South Carolina.
Emily Crosby Lincoln had made voyages with her husband, whose death
made it necessary to move up toward Boston. In summers, however, the
boy got back to the Cape with its sand dunes and cranberry bogs, its
chance to fish and swim. “He rode the old stage coach from Harwick to
Chatham; he knew the lightkeepers, the fishermen, the life savers,
and the cracker-box oracles in the village stores. The perfume of the
green salt meadows, the pungent pines and bayberries ... the fishing
boats, the dripping nets, ‘the mighty surge and thunder of the surf
along the shores’ were part of his very existence.” The description
is reminiscent of Walt Whitman’s account of his young manhood. “I
suppose if I had been born a few years earlier, I would have had my own
ship,” Joseph C. Lincoln says. But the day of steam had begun. He went
to school at Brewster and Chelsea. As he grew up, college was seen to
be out of the question. The youth and his mother went to Brooklyn and
he entered a broker’s office. This work he hated. “I have always felt
that they were fully as glad to get rid of me as I was to leave them.”
Wishing to draw, he fell under the guidance of Henry Sandham (“Hy”)
and went to Boston where, with another fellow, an office was opened
for commercial work. To make a picture sell better, Lincoln sometimes
wrote a verse or joke to go with it. Sometimes the verse or joke sold
when the drawing did not. It was the day of universal bicycling. The
League of American Wheelmen Bulletin had a circulation of over 125,000
and Sterling Elliott, its editor, offered Lincoln a job as associate
editor. His verses were thus brought to the attention of a considerable
public. He married in 1897 Florence E. Sargent, of Chelsea,
Massachusetts, and he was writing verse, mostly in the vernacular
of Cape Cod, for a number of publications. In 1899 the passion for
bicycling began to wane and Lincoln definitely moved from Boston to New
York to try to make a living as a writer on his own. He had written
a first short story, a Cape Cod narrative, and sold it to Saturday
Evening Post. That magazine, Harper’s Weekly, The Youth’s Companion
and Puck were taking his verse, which was sometimes in a swinging
metre and sometimes humour tinctured with philosophy. In 1902 Albert
Brandt, of Trenton, New Jersey, published Lincoln’s _Cape Cod Ballads_,
in a yellow-backed volume with illustrations by E. W. Kemble. It was
Lincoln’s first book. Now he was writing short stories in earnest and
with some success and he began a novel which could only be written by
labouring at it on a corner of the dining room table from midnight on
Saturdays through Sunday mornings until the manuscript was completed.
It was the story of three old sea captains who, despairing of their
joint efforts at housekeeping, advertised for a wife. Published in 1904
as _Cap’n Eri_, this affair settled two large doubts in Lincoln’s mind;
first, that he could sustain the interest of readers through a long
story; second, that he could make a living by writing, and by writing
books.
[Illustration: JOSEPH C. LINCOLN]
ii
Many have been the editions of _Cap’n Eri_ since its appearance,
nineteen years ago. The outline of those nineteen years in Joseph C.
Lincoln’s life is only pleasantly eventful. A friendship with Sewell
Ford led him to become a resident of Hackensack, New Jersey. There he
has built a house of “Colonial” lines, the sight of which is not good
for less successful writers. A very handsome summer home stands on a
terrace at Chatham, Cape Cod. In 1912 the Lincolns lived for a while
in England and travelled to some extent on the Continent, visiting
Switzerland. Frequently Mr. Lincoln has gone to one or another part of
the United States, even unto California, to deliver, before crowded
houses, his lecture on “Cape Cod Folks” or to give readings from his
own books. And every year since 1904 has seen the publication of one,
sometimes two, Lincoln novels.
In Hackensack Mr. Lincoln attends the Unitarian Church--he is a member
of its Board of Trustees--and he was at one time a member of the
Hackensack Board of Education. He used to belong to the Salmagundi Club
in New York but resigned because he used the club and its privileges
so little. He still belongs to The Players in New York; but in any
ordinary sense of the word he is not a clubman. The family usually goes
to Cape Cod in a motor car and while there Mr. Lincoln fishes and swims
and sails all he can. In Hackensack golf is his principal diversion and
he tries to play daily, “although there are times, particularly in my
brand of golf, when there seems to be more hard work and moral strain
than amusement, by a good deal.” The man is a red-cheeked, rotund and
comfortable man, with a bright eye and a catching smile and a great
fund of stories such as the following:
“An old salt of my acquaintance spent a recent winter in Florida and
found in the fishing of the region a fascinating but pretty strenuous
pastime. As a skipper of the old school he scorned modern devices for
fishing, such as reels. In fact he went out to fish tarpons in good
Cape Cod fashion with merely a fishing line and his own bare hands. He
hooked a tarpon and for a couple of hours there was waged a terrific
battle between the fish and the stubborn old Cape Codder, whose hands
were torn and blistered. Proudly he exhibited his 79-pound catch to
the natives. ‘Not much of a haul,’ was their comment. ‘Why, a little
woman, no size at all, just brought in a tarpon that tipped the scales
at 100 pounds.’ Would he like to see a real fish? ‘Thunder, no!’ roared
the Cap’n. ‘Show me the woman!’”
iii
Hamlin Garland, the author of some accounts of American life which have
not omitted the sombre, the discouraging, the bitter scenes and places,
has written:
“Joseph Lincoln is not only a novelist of wide reputation, he is a
public benefactor. His success has in it something heartening and
corrective. In the midst of work which appeals to the base and cynical
in human life (American city life) his clean, wholesome, humorous
stories of Cape Cod sea captains and their neighbours give evidence of
the fact that there is a huge public for decent and homely fiction,
just as the success of his play, ‘_Shavings_,’ is evidence that there
is a paying audience for a decent and homely drama. His books can be
read aloud in the family circle with joy to all the members of it--I
know, for I have myself read eight or ten of them to my wife and
daughters. They make no pretense of being profound, or new, or ‘smart.’
They are filled with the characters and the humour which are native
to the Cape. Lincoln knows these Cape towns and their inhabitants
as Irving Bacheller knows his men of the North Woods, for he was
raised among them and lives in their neighbourhood several months of
each year. He looks like one of them, like an old skipper, hearty,
unassuming and kindly. The task which he has set himself is one which
calls for a keen sense of character, democracy of sentiment and a fancy
which never--or very seldom--loses its hold on the solid ground of
experience. His plots are sometimes negligible, but his characters,
even when they seem a bit repetitious, are a joy. His prosperity is
well earned.”
This undoubtedly expresses a general sentiment, although it does not
express it so vividly as a sentence that appeared in the Los Angeles
Express:
“One enjoys a Joe Lincoln novel as one does a long, cool,
thirst-quenching drink on a hot day.”
However, before examining the novels themselves, it is proper to
put down here some things that Mr. Lincoln has said, at one time or
another, showing his attitude toward them. Of course his attitude
toward other kinds of fiction is a part of his general attitude, and so:
“I read all sorts of books and at all times. I don’t know that I can
name any particular author who may be called my favourite. I am very
fond of Stevenson, for instance--but then, so I am of Kipling, except
his more recent stories, which have a bit too much British Empire in
them to please me,--of Mark Twain, of W. J. Locke, and many others. I
think I like a story for the story’s sake. I like to like my characters
or dislike them in the old-fashioned way. It is for this reason perhaps
that the work of such writers as Arnold Bennett, William De Morgan,
Joseph Conrad, and others, of the realistic school, so-called, does
not appeal to me as much as--well, as Mr. Locke’s work, for instance.
I realise,--no one can help realising--the fine literary craftsmanship
in a book like _Lord Jim_. It is a wonderful piece of character mosaic,
and yet in reading it I am always conscious of the literary work. I
say to myself, ‘This is marvellous; see how the writer is picking his
hero to pieces, thought by thought, motive by motive.’ And being so
conscious of the writer, I do not lose myself in the story. This is not
offered as a criticism; certainly I should not presume to criticise Mr.
Bennett or Mr. Conrad. It is more of a confession of something lacking
on my part. I enjoy reading _Lord Jim_, or _The Old Wives’ Tale_, but I
do not return to them again and again as I do to _The Beloved Vagabond_
or _The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne_. Perhaps this is, as some of my
realistically inclined friends tell me, a childish love for romance on
my part. Well, perhaps it is. If it is, I can’t help it; as I said,
this statement is not offered as an excuse, but a confession.
“This sort of thing shows in my own stories. It would be very hard for
me to write a long story which should end dismally. It is only too
true that stories in real life frequently end that way, but I don’t
like my yarns to do so. So it is fair to presume that in whatever
books I may hereafter write, the hero and the heroine will be united,
virtue rewarded and vice punished, as has happened in those for which
I am already responsible. Perhaps this same weakness for a story, a
cheerful story, makes me care little for the so-called problem novel.
It doesn’t mean that I am not fond of novels dealing with certain
kinds of problems. Winston Churchill’s _The Inside of the Cup_ I liked
immensely; but the sex problem, the divorce question, and all that sort
of thing does not appeal to me. A morbid lot of disagreeable people,
married or otherwise, moping and quarrelling through a long story seem
to me scarcely worth while. To a specialist in nervous diseases such a
study might be interesting, but I really doubt if the average healthy
man or woman finds it so. Certainly we should not care to associate
with such people were they living near us. We should get away from them
if we could.
“Perhaps I _could_ write a story with gloomy situations and an unhappy
ending, but I wouldn’t like to try it. I would much rather try to make
people cheerful and keep myself cheerful at the same time. There’s
enough sorrow in this world without finding it in books.”
So he spoke ten years ago; so, with possibly the change of an
illustration or two, would he speak today. From nine in the morning
until noon or one o’clock he disappears into his workshop, frequently
a place known only to himself, and either writes (with a soft, stubby
pencil, on large sheets of yellow paper) or thinks about characters and
the very attenuated skeleton which, for Mr. Lincoln, constitutes the
“plot.”
“I know there are people who can turn out a short story in two or
three hours and it will be good enough to sell, but I cannot help
feeling that it would have been much better if the writer had devoted
more time to it. In my case, doing work that is satisfactory to me
in any degree means that I must fairly sweat it out, if I may use the
expression.” There usually comes a time when he gets “a letter about
once a week asking how the thing is coming along. That has been a
frequent experience, especially when there are a lot of characters in
my story, and I’m having more or less trouble with them. The story
keeps stretching itself out. I think I may have to adopt Mark Twain’s
method, and begin throwing my people down the well.” There is a genial
artifice about nearly all his tales. Some years ago an interviewer
for the Boston Globe touched on the subject of “specialty” writing,
which was a natural topic, as all of Mr. Lincoln’s fiction is a highly
specialised affair, not only in its general localisation on Cape Cod
but in its characterisation and homely wit and humour. The author said:
“A man writes what he knows. If he tries anything else it must
fall--show hollow. And I find that it is necessary to write to your
audience--that one must consider that a large number of his readers are
to be women, and he must write things that will appeal to the women of
today.”
“You don’t mean that you would consider the women to the point of
writing stuff that would be saleable, and refrain from writing stuff
which appealed to you, but might not be saleable?”
“Well,” said Mr. Lincoln, slowly, “I haven’t any ‘message’ that I know
of. I’m not much of a high-brow. I have standards, though. And if I
am to do the thing I want to do, I must get my book printed. But I’ve
never been satisfied--although I did like _The Postmaster_ pretty
well.”
This was ten years ago, and Mr. Lincoln has gone on, unchanging. He
has the most enviable record of any living American writer. No book of
his has been a failure. Some have done better than others, but with
no serious qualification of the statement it can be said that each
book has added to his audience, so that he has for some years been an
unfailing best seller. Perhaps there has been a noticeable increase
in his popularity with and since _The Portygee_ (1919), which was
published serially and then surprised the publishers by beating Lincoln
records as a book. Or the gain may be traceable to the preceding book,
“_Shavings_,” and its successful dramatisation. But in his sustained,
unbroken and increasing popularity as a fictionist Mr. Lincoln has no
competitor. There are others whose individual books have sold more
heavily, whose total sales may be larger, but they have had lapses, and
their popularity has either been impaired or lost. Even as I write the
process known in the trade as “slipping” is observable, here and there,
in the case of one of the most popular American authors, a person with
a long record of immediate successes, one of whose work the American
soldier, in 1917-18, could not apparently get enough. Time does this
thing, but apparently it cannot touch, except to enhance, the passion
for the work of this native of Cape Cod, who clips his words a little
and sometimes says “hev” and “hed” for “have” and “had”--about whom
there is even a suspicion of the Down East nasal twanging as he talks.
A wholly lovable personality. He once wrote:
“Bless the children. They are the most convenient excuses in creation.
Probably, if it were not for them, you wouldn’t get to the zoological
gardens or the aquarium or the fairy play oftener than once a year or
so. And as for the circus--but that’s an old story.”
iv
We have not finished, though, with the man’s own account of his
relation to his work.
“You can’t use actual people. People aren’t as dramatic in actual
life as you want them to be. Of course, you may hear a phrase, or a
story--you may talk with a person and get an impression and build up
your character from those things. But using an actual person wouldn’t
work. Besides, it would be rather mean.
“In writing of a Cape Cod town or village, although I purposely
refrain from describing it as any one town in particular, I have tried
conscientiously to give the characteristics of Cape Cod towns I am
acquainted with. The promontories and inlets and hills and marshes in
‘my’ Cape Cod may not be found where I have located them, but I have
tried very hard to make them like those which are on the real Cape. And
so with the Cape Codders in my stories. I have never knowingly drawn
the exact, recognisable portrait of an individual. I have of course,
received hundreds of letters from readers who inform me, in strict
confidence, that they know the original of ‘Cap’n ----’ and recognised
him at once. Nevertheless they are wrong. I have endeavoured always
to be true to type, and in writing of the old deep-sea captain, the
coasting skipper, the longshoreman or the people of the Cape villages,
I have done my best to portray each as I have seen and known specimens
of his or her kind. And in attempting to transcribe the habit of
language I have made it a rule never to use an expression or idiom I
have not heard used by a native of the old colony.”
The differentiation of the various types of seaman has been carefully
made by Mr. Lincoln, and is perhaps valuable to a full appreciation of
his fiction.
“The type of sea captain who figures in my stories has not necessarily
an accurately corresponding type in my acquaintance. Going back to
the Cape after having lived in New York and Boston, I was able to get
varying angles on the lives of the men and women I had known in my
childhood. The old sea captains that I remembered best as a child were
of more than one character, classified according to their work. One
was the dignified old man who had travelled to some far-away corner of
the earth and returned prosperous, to spend the rest of his days as
an autocrat among his own people. He had met strange peoples, he had
been trusted with a ship, and, as in the days I write of there were
no instantaneous means of talking across the oceans, he was shrewd at
bargaining and, being one of the owners of the ship, he lost no chance
to bring home a cargo that would bring rich returns. In other words,
he was a shrewd trader as well as a sailing master. The same dignified
bearing that he used in his trade followed him on land, and, though
jovial in manner, he was developed in dignity and character.
“The other type of captain was more popular with the youngsters. He may
have been as shrewd, and possibly made as much money, but he was filled
with a greater sense of humour, and took life as a pastime. Men of this
description would gather round the stove and tell wonderful stories,
though all sea captains talk shop when they get together.
“Then too there were what are termed the ‘long-shore captains.’ These
were mostly engaged in fishing, or in trading with coast towns and
cities. They were necessarily more limited in their views, for they
spent more time ashore, often working a good-sized garden, fishing when
the spirit moved, and running a schooner to New York or Boston if the
chance came.
“Of all the sea-captains, however, those that I knew best were those
who were actually sailing in the 1870’s and 1880’s, and who were
largely engaged in carrying oranges and lemons from Mediterranean
ports. These men were really the last of our sailing captains. I have
one friend in particular who was in the fruit trade, and his stories
of how they crowded sail and took every risk to bring in their cargoes
are many and thrilling. Fruit, of course, is highly perishable, and
while it might be a valuable cargo one day, a week later it would be
worthless; therefore the sea races and adventures.”
In an article, “Some Samples of Yankee Shrewdness,” appearing in the
American Magazine, Mr. Lincoln has told stories of Cape Cod captains he
has known. Acuity of observation, caution joined to a quality of going
in head-first if one goes in at all, and a singularly dry humour are a
large part of the “shrewdness,” as Lincoln makes it out. In the course
of the article he offers this admittedly serious statement:
“In all my forty-odd years of experience with Yankees I do not remember
ever having met one who habitually whittled. I have, of course, known
some who whittled occasionally, when they were making a ‘bow ’n’ arrer’
or a boat for one of the children. But I never knew one who whittled
when he was making a trade.” _Sic transit_ the “Yankee” of one species
of “fiction” and drama. But it is time to look at Mr. Lincoln’s own
fiction; then, perhaps, we may revert for a closing glance at the
puzzle of Yankee shrewdness.
v
The newest Lincoln novel (1923) is _Doctor Nye of North Ostable_--Mr.
Lincoln has something of a gift in titles for his special kind of
book. There is a comfortable assurance in knowing that one is going to
read about Dr. Nye, or a place called Fair Harbour, or an individual
named Keziah Coffin, or the sure-to-be-amusing process of _Extricating
Obadiah_. That last has a music of the syllables; it is solitary in
this respect among Lincoln titles which are also easily affected by
climatic changes, so that _Galusha the Magnificent_ had to be altered
in England to _The Magnificent Mr. Bangs_. But to return to our
fishing--
Ephraim Nye, M.D., a “sympathetic” hero, self-sacrificing, a man with
a deal of humour, has a black cloud over his past, as all North Ostable
knows. The story opens with his return to that Cape Cod village. All
that day Marietta Lamb (“Mary’s Lamb”) had been scrubbing away at a
great rate in the old Dillingham house, so long untenanted, and Henry
Ward Beecher Payson, in full working regalia of overalls and wooden leg
(for “best” and Sundays he had a cork leg) was busy in the yard. Miss
Althea Bemis, who lived across the road and missed nothing that went on
among her neighbours, asked innumerable questions, learning nothing.
Judge Copeland, Cyrenus Stone and Cap’n Mark Bearse, “natives,” and
“the three most influential men in North Ostable” appeared on the
scene. The Judge and Stone were bitter political enemies, always flying
at each other’s throats. Stone, who owned the empty house, admitted to
Cap’n Mark Bearse that the place was being made ready for someone whose
coming would be a great surprise.
Then, at nightfall, Doctor Eph arrived in a ramshackle gig.
People sat up late that night in North Ostable. In the home of Shubal
Bash discussion ran high as Shubal and his wife, Angelina, tried to
tell deaf old Aunt Lidy the story of Ephraim Nye. After studying
medicine, the young Ephraim had married Judge Copeland’s sister,
Fanny, and had returned to his native town to practise. Fanny was
fond of clothes and jewels and the Doctor worked hard to give them
to her. Respected and liked, everyone turned against him when it
was discovered that $7,200 of the $10,000 in the fund for the new
meeting-house, of which he was treasurer, had been stolen. The bank
had exhibited a check for $7,200 signed “Ephraim Nye, Treasurer,” and
the Doctor admitted the check to be his. His wife was very ill at the
time. After her death, which occurred shortly, Ephraim Nye was tried
and sentenced to five years in State’s prison. Later the money began to
come back in instalments until it was all paid up. Always the sums were
sent through Doctor Nye’s lawyer.
The two enemies, Cyrenus Stone and Judge Copeland, have, respectively,
a son and a daughter; and Tom Stone and Faith Copeland are young lovers.
The stage is now set for Mr. Lincoln’s story. And immediately, in a
backward glance, one gets the rapid impression that the plot consists
entirely of typhoid fever. Such an impression, however, is quite
unjust. _Doctor Nye_ is one of the more carefully articulated (or more
carefully complicated) Lincoln novels. In addition to the revelation
forming the climax of the story and putting Ephraim Nye in a heroic
light, there is a fully-constituted early love affair for the Doctor,
brought back and actively developed; there is the pair of young lovers,
Tom and Faith; there is the prolonged duel between Judge Copeland
and the Doctor; there is a considerable variety of minor incidents
essential to the movement of the tale and to its final outworking.
All this, mind you, aside from the real end sought by most readers of
Mr. Lincoln’s work--the exposition of “characters” and the continuous
oscillation into humour.
It is the humour, then, that most deserves our scrutiny; for many of
the Lincoln novels, practically plotless beside such a tale as _Doctor
Nye_, have only the assets of their “characters” and humour to sustain
a popular interest which they have not failed to feed. If there is any
question about this, a glance at the technical “descriptions” of half a
dozen of the books ought to settle the matter. Here, in a sentence, is
what some of them simmer down to:
_Partners of the Tide._ Cap’n Ezra Titcomb and young Bradley Nickerson
go into the wrecking business and meet with a series of surprising
adventures and difficulties.
_Cy Whittaker’s Place._ Old Cy Whittaker, bachelor, adopted a little
girl. He and an old crony form a “Board of Strategy” for her upbringing.
_Keziah Coffin._ Keziah Coffin, typical Cape Cod old maid, proves the
good angel of the minister in his courtship. Incidentally, she turns
out not to be incurably an old maid.
_The Postmaster._ Cap’n Zeb Snow is discontented with inactivity after
retiring from the sea. As postmaster he finds all the activity he wants.
_Thankful’s Inheritance._ Thankful Barnes and her helper Emily lose
their boarders when the house proves to be “ha’nted,” but they gain a
Cape Cod sea captain and also a handsome young lawyer--for life.
“_Shavings._” The quaint, unbusinesslike windmill-maker has no success
in posing as a bank robber, but his loyalty and shrewdness bring
happiness to all his friends.
_The Portygee._ The temperament and “calf love” of the son of a
Spanish opera singer make difficulties with his Yankee grandfather.
vi
No plots, only complications; but there must be admitted to be, within
somewhat narrow bounds, a considerable display of “characters.”
Although even here certain stock figures are (probably necessarily)
much employed--the gossiping old maid, Mis’ Somebody-or-Other; the
village comedian, like Henry Ward Beecher Payson, who periodically
lapses from good behaviour and goes on sprees. One of the most
interesting of Lincoln’s portrayals is Albert in _The Portygee_, a
young fellow half Spanish, half New Englander, with poetic and artistic
impulses. “Set there in the small hamlet, chafing at the restraints
and humdrumness of the place, Albert makes a delicious contrast to
the native population,” says Hildegarde Hawthorne. “We understand the
passionate, temperamental boy as well as his old Grandfather, with
his fury against all that sort of ‘foolishness,’ because their author
understands them.” I cannot go so far as Hildegarde Hawthorne in praise
of the variety or depth of Mr. Lincoln’s characters, while cheerfully
granting, as I do, their frequent colour and whimsical charm. Often and
inevitably, I suppose, in the work of one who has written two dozen
books the “characters” are not _character_, but a selected idiosyncrasy
or two. Often and inevitably in the case of one who is not the
inexhaustible and fecund creator, like Dickens.
But there is the humour....
Now we have come to it. In the first place, Mr. Lincoln shows the
quick faculty evidenced from the outset by Mary Roberts Rinehart
of getting the humour on every page. Mrs. Rinehart has not always
practised with that intention, but Mr. Lincoln has never neglected the
rapid shift of the reader’s mood. To insure it, he does not hesitate
to sacrifice something of his more important scenes, making them if
necessary less dramatic. The common-sensicality running through his
stories is a solvent to drama and a feeder to the spirit of fun; if it
makes it impossible for his story ever to leave the ground, it also
kills to a large extent the language, or lingo, of sentimentality
so-called, that terrible jargon in which so much popular fiction is
sugared and preserved. Mr. Lincoln pickles his stories in this salty
common-sensibleness, rather--a breath of Cape Cod air and a dip in the
ocean brine. All his “atmosphere” is as matter of fact as a dip in the
ocean, and the temperature is much more unvarying and satisfactory
... unless you may find it tepid. He is a funmaker, resorting without
hesitation to such crude and cheerful devices as the spree in which
Henry Ward Beecher Payson breaks his “Sunday best,” or cork, leg. And
yet fun warms the heart. We laugh inanely, and afterward we have the
feeling of having laughed inanely, a sense of a slight immoderacy or
excess, of a mild dissipation which perhaps has not really done us any
good (though the harm be passing and inconsiderable); but when the
moment comes we are ready to laugh again.
vii
A final note on that debateable Yankee shrewdness, then....
Can we not find its fruitful exercise in Mr. Lincoln’s own case? I
think we can. Here was a man of around thirty whose observation was
keen, whose caution was used to direct him in a proper self-committal,
whose own personal sense of humour was of a sufficient dryness to keep
him from the easy trails of self-deception. Just as his friend, Captain
Lorenzo Baker, of Wellfleet, Massachusetts, was able to discern in the
casual remarks of a West Indian the commercial possibilities of the
yellow banana, so Joseph C. Lincoln could perceive from a token or two
the personal possibilities of Cape Cod as he could put it on paper. And
acuteness, or, as the Yankee says, ‘cuteness, having done its work,
that other trait of Yankee shrewdness, the caution which restrains and
then goes in headlong, was brought into play. Mr. Lincoln committed
himself wholeheartedly to his fictional enterprise. He put all his
money, or rather, the energy which was his equivalent for money, on
the bob-tailed nag--in a little sloop which was his own boat rather
than in somebody else’s two-masted schooner. The rest was plain sailing
and persistence that could have been fatally spoiled if that inner
dryness of wit and clearness of perception had ever failed him. But he
never forgot that it was his own little sloop, the sailing of which
must be kept within the manœuvres she could execute. He has never, for
example, tried to write the great American novel which, consciously
or unconsciously, has brought up into the wind, all sails shaking and
way lost, the craft of more than one of his fellow sailors. A Yankee
and shrewd, earning many rewards, including that of a very widespread
affection.
Books by Joseph C. Lincoln
1902 _Cape Cod Ballads_
1904 _Cap’n Eri_
1905 _Partners of the Tide_
1906 _Mr. Pratt_
1907 _The “Old Home House”_
1908 _Cy Whittaker’s Place_
1909 _Our Village_
1909 _Keziah Coffin_
1910 _The Depot Master_
1911 _Cap’n Warren’s Wards_
1911 _The Woman-Haters_
1912 _The Postmaster_
1912 _The Rise of Roscoe Paine_
1913 _Mr. Pratt’s Patients_
1914 _Cap’n Dan’s Daughter_
1914 _Kent Knowles: Quahaug_
1915 _Thankful’s Inheritance_
1916 _Mary-’Gusta_
1917 _Extricating Obadiah_
1918 “_Shavings_”
1919 _The Portygee_
1921 _Galusha the Magnificent_
1922 _Fair Harbor_
1923 _Doctor Nye of North Ostable_
All fiction, except _Cape Cod Ballads_ (verse) and _Our Village_
(sketches of life and people on the Cape).
Sources on Joseph C. Lincoln
_Joseph Crosby Lincoln._ Booklet published by D. APPLETON & COMPANY,
1921.
_Joseph C. Lincoln’s America_, by Hildegarde Hawthorne. Booklet. D.
APPLETON & COMPANY, 1921.
_Some Samples of Yankee Shrewdness_, by Joseph C. Lincoln. Article in
AMERICAN MAGAZINE, July, 1919.
_My Types: An Interview with Joseph C. Lincoln_, by Charles Francis
Reed, THE FORUM MAGAZINE, February, 1919.
_Cape Cod’s Genial Chronicler_: An Appreciation by Hamlin Garland.
PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY, 17 April, 1920.
_The Men Who Make Our Novels_, by George Gordon. MOFFAT, YARD &
COMPANY, 1919.
_Joseph Crosby Lincoln_, by Adam C. Haeselbarth. BOOK NEWS MONTHLY,
1913.
_20. Edith Wharton and the Time Spirit_
i
At just past sixty Edith Wharton’s is still a name for the literary
conjuror in search of an impressive effect. She has lived a long
time--in the literary sense--and comparisons are not easy; she has
outlived, as a writer, most comparisons, including the one which
would probably have been fatal to anyone else, the comparison with
Henry James. She has outlived, in the physical sense, Henry James
himself; there are no more of his frequent letters to “Dear Edith.” It
is among the subtler tributes to Mrs. Wharton, the person, that the
intellectual relation between her and the man who was once called her
“Master” is now seen in a light which considerably enhances the dignity
of the woman who was once called “Pupil.” For who, after reading the
correspondence of Henry James, published since his death, believes any
longer that Mrs. Wharton ever owed anything to that man’s patronage
so nicely tinctured with snobbery? Victor Hugo permitted himself to
be surrounded by those who worshipped him as a god, but Hugo posed,
godlike; whereas Henry James----
Mrs. Atherton is several years older than Edith Wharton, both as person
and author; Mary Johnston, born eight years later, is of almost
exactly the same literary age; but the first is a superb journalist and
a born storyteller and the second is a mystic and a historian. Mrs.
Wharton’s journalism in fiction is pretty well confined to _The House
of Mirth_ and _The Fruit of the Tree_; she invites comparison with Mary
Johnston only in that ambitious novel of mediæval Italy, _The Valley
of Decision_. In the two books on which Mrs. Wharton’s fame definitely
rests at the present, _Ethan Frome_ and _The Age of Innocence_, she
achieves a success and an individuality only the more interesting
because it finds so strikingly different expressions.
In fact, on the evidence of the two stories, it would be superficially
impossible to assert that the “sterile” tragedy of New England
hillsides was from the same hand that wrote the minutely detailed
story of New York society in the 1870s. Considered for their meaning
and origin, _Ethan Frome_ and _The Age of Innocence_ are both seen to
be tales of frustration, both tales of the America that Mrs. Wharton
quitted some fifteen years ago but can’t get out of her system, and
both stories in which the background is responsible for the actors
themselves as well as the play.
ii
[Illustration: EDITH WHARTON]
Edith Newbold Jones was born in New York, 24 January, 1862, the
daughter of Frederic Jones who had married Lucretia Stevens
Rhinelander. One grandparent was a Stevens, another a Schermerhorn.
A great deal of her childhood was spent in Europe--there was one
stretch of five years in which the family didn’t return to America--and
education proceeded wholly with the aid of tutors and governesses.
The child learned French, German and Italian. Such summers as the
family devoted to America were lived in a house at Newport, on the
bay, halfway out towards Fort Adams. When Miss Jones was twenty-three
she became the wife of Edward Wharton, of Boston. They lived in New
York and Newport and later at Lenox in the summer, frequent visits to
Europe continuing. Miss Jones and Mrs. Wharton were equally interested
in writing and read extensively Goethe, Balzac, Thackeray, Dickens,
Flaubert, George Eliot, Meredith and--Henry James? That last one
had begun as author while Miss Jones was still in her teens. Twenty
years were to pass before she started to overtake him. Mrs. Wharton
was thirty-seven in the year when her first book was published, _The
Greater Inclination_, containing, according to Katharine Fullerton
Gerould, “two of the best stories she ever wrote” (“The Pelican” and
“Souls Belated”).
Six years later came _The House of Mirth_, “the tragedy of the woman
who is a little too weak to do without money and what it buys, or
to earn it for herself, and a little too good to sell herself.” The
story of Lily Bart had to a high degree that provocative quality
which can generally be relied upon to make a novel a best-seller;
and a best-seller it became. Soon afterward, with a feeling in which
satisfaction, distaste, caution and physical preferences were obscurely
blended, Mrs. Wharton settled in France--winter home in Provence,
summer home near Paris. In 1914 she opened a workroom for skilled
woman workers thrown out of employment by the miscalculations of
Napoleon III. a generation earlier. She also opened restaurants where
French and Belgian refugees were fed at less than cost, and lodgings
where they might sleep. Mrs. Wharton took full charge of over 600
Belgian children who had been withdrawn from orphanages near Furnes and
Poperinghe and established them, with the nuns who had the children’s
care, in four colonies, where the girls were taught fine sewing and
lace-making, in anticipation of a day when fine sewing and lace-making
would again be demanded. For these services the French Government, in
1915, conferred on the American novelist the cross of the Legion of
Honour. During the war Mrs. Wharton wrote little. _Fighting France_
records her visits to the French fronts; she contributed to _The Book
of the Homeless_; in 1918 was published her long short story of an
American boy in the war, under the title, _The Marne_; in 1920, _In
Morocco_ gave an account of a visit to that country which she made
with General Lyautey, by invitation of the French Government. _French
Ways and Their Meaning_ appeared in 1919. The total roll of Mrs.
Wharton’s non-fiction is considerable and includes _Italian Villas and
Their Gardens_ (1904), _Italian Backgrounds_ (1905), _A Motor-Flight
Through France_ (1908), _Artemis to Actæon and Other Verse_ (1909),
_The Decoration of Houses_, as well as the books just mentioned. No
article on Mrs. Wharton would be complete unless mention was made of
her passion for gardening and her art in developing beautiful gardens,
both at her home in Hyères and at St. Brice, near Paris.
iii
We have had it all carefully explained for us by Mrs. Gerould how much
more desirable it is that Mrs. Wharton should give us--as she has
generally given us--studies of sophisticated people. Speaking of _Ethan
Frome_, and, in fact, merely mentioning that masterpiece, for which,
it would appear, she is without admiration, Mrs. Gerould says of Mrs.
Wharton:
“She did not abandon her civilised and sophisticated folk, for any
length of time, to deal with rustics. Let us hope that she never will
abandon them. There is vital truth in the Shakesperean dictum that
‘the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.’ To put it
roughly”--as a rustic, no doubt, might put it--“the people who have
leisure to experience their own emotions, and the education to show
them how the emotions fit into the traditions of the race, are more
interesting in themselves than the people whose emotions are bound to
be on a more nearly animal plane. It is less interesting, morally,
to the average man to know how the sub-average man conducts himself
than to know how the super-average man conducts himself. It does not
in the least matter to the average intelligent citizen--except as
it may touch his social conscience--how the characters in certain
modern novels behave, because those characters are not the real fruit
of civilisation. They are, at best, its sorry by-products. They do
not help him out in his own problems; they do not stand to him for
vicarious experience. Whereas it is of interest to a civilised man
to know how other civilised beings, in situations his own or other,
behave; even if they behave badly. Theirs are dramas that he can feel,
theirs is conduct that he is competent to judge; they respond, or fail
to respond, to an admitted code of moral taste. No creature was beyond
the range of Shakespeare’s sympathetic understanding; but when he
wished to probe the human heart most deeply, he usually chose the heart
of a king. The insensitive and the subnormal served him chiefly for
comedy.
“So that a positive purpose is served by the competent novelist’s
choosing to deal with the more fortunate classes. Inhibitions have more
chance; and inhibitions are as necessary to real drama as are passions.
There is also--naturally--more opportunity for satire; and satiric
comment is inveterate in Mrs. Wharton’s work. If the person who has
had every chance is not fine, then he is relatively uglier than the
person who has had no chance at all. She does not spare her aristocrats
who had an opportunity for moral fineness and neglected it. The baser
emotions are more shocking in a world where there is less excuse for
them. And since it is real life with which Mrs. Wharton is dealing, the
baser emotions frequently appear.”
These words were written after, not before, the publication of Mrs.
Wharton’s novel, _The Glimpses of the Moon_ (1922).
At sixty, one either prepares to die or one faces life anew. In the
latter event one knows, if one chances to be a writer, the heavenly
and earthly certitudes ... and the escape from platitudes is final.
Thus, for example, it is given to understand that a reputation will at
least last for the remainder of a lifetime but that markets change.
And, after all, as Mrs. Wharton once remarked, cleanliness and comfort
are the two most expensive things on earth--comfort implying whatever
degree of luxury is essential to a state of mind in which one can
do work to purchase continued comfort. At sixty, though one may now
and again bounce it high in the air, the real and right concern is
to keep the ball a-rolling.... Let people think what they like and
say what they like (and the follies of attack and fence are always
equal), the unerring perception is directed toward the next thing that
is to be written. One may exercise a choice from the very limited
amount of material one has or can acquire; at sixty, it is too late to
acquire much additional. Of course, a finely cultivated imagination
in early years might come to the rescue with a second blooming; but
suppose one’s imagination has always moved in the best society? No, it
doesn’t do, it most decidedly doesn’t do to speculate any longer about
anything; let others pretend what they like, there is a positive relief
in the knowledge that one writes what one can when one has to--and be
it good, bad, indifferent or astonishing the aim was an honest aim and
the result achieved was, at least, intelligent.
iv
And what could place Mrs. Wharton in a clearer, finer light than
just this situation of fact? What could be more in keeping with the
two traditions that have bound her life?--the tradition of an older
New York and the literary tradition of France, both strict and both
congenial, both so severe as by their very classicism to give the
greatest possible scope to personality. The New York of the Age
of Innocence into which she was born, the literary Europe of the
nineteenth century to which she so early attached herself--these were
the ideal forcing-beds of a personality such as hers. You come upon
her expressing in vigorous words her delighted enthusiasm for the
first novel of William Gerhardi: “You not only make your people live,
but move and grow--and that’s the very devil to achieve. Do, for all
our sakes, keep it up!” There is no flabbiness about her. She is past
the pitfall of fanaticism and safe beyond the quagmire of adulation.
She does not need to practise the conventional literary dishonesties
which close like traps upon novelists whose fame is on the make and who
still have much to lose. She can say frankly: “There are moments--to
me at least--in the greatest of Russian novels, and just as I feel the
directing pressure of the novelist most strongly on my shoulder, when
somehow I stumble, the path fades to a trail, the trail to a sand-heap,
and hopelessly I perceive that the clue is gone, and that I no longer
know which way the master is seeking to propel me, because his people
are behaving as I never knew people to behave.” What heresy! Here we
all are kneeling on the ground, touching foreheads and breathing the
overpowering incense burnt before the shrine of Dostoievsky, and a
voice is distinctly heard to remark that the literary deity is perhaps
not as luminous as he should be! How many would dare such a remark, or,
if they ventured it, would command from any of us the bravery of timid,
relieved assents? Not many; scarcely a one.
She has not always been so free; who, indeed, is born to freedom?
Saint Paul said he was, but a price had been paid formerly; it always
is. Henry James, tormented to the end of his days by the fact that
his books really didn’t sell, wasn’t able to pay the price. Thomas
Hardy paid it at the cost of silence as a novelist after the reception
accorded to _Jude the Obscure_. O. Henry, confronted with the heavy
total, shivered and shuddered. Every man has his price, indeed, in
quite another sense from what that saying was coined to convey; it is a
price he must manage if he is to have the truth for himself or tell it
about others.
Mrs. Wharton’s greatest good fortune has probably consisted, after all,
in her realisation of this. Did she learn it in France, that country
where truth lies at the bottom of a well ... and is not drawn up but
used as a mirror? You can see the perception through nearly all of
Mrs. Wharton’s work. In her long novel of eighteenth century Italy,
_The Valley of Decision_, she is painting away with grand strokes on
a magnificent canvas; she wants to find out if she really is suited
to the execution of fictions like the _Romola_ of that George Eliot
she once read so attentively. Well, no; the result satisfies her that
she isn’t. So then she goes on with those short stories in the writing
of which she is so proficient, and, a few years later, produces _The
House of Mirth_. The result is instructive; one might almost say it was
destructive. Mrs. Wharton definitely learned that here was a kind of
thing she could successfully do, in terms of money and popularity. But
in other terms?
This was a question less easily answered. Two years after _The House
of Mirth_ came _The Fruit of the Tree_, with its highly interesting
“problem” as to whether it can ever be right for a physician or nurse
to accelerate and ease the death of a doomed patient. This has been
called, by the Folletts, Mrs. Wharton’s “one lapse into artistic
disintegration.” But Mrs. Wharton was not thinking of art, but of life.
It had sharply come over her that the pursuit of art in one or another
form of preciosity would land her where she didn’t wish to be landed.
She might be, as was charged, the woman who of all women wrote most
like a man; but she didn’t desire to write like some men. If she could
have been Gustave Flaubert, perhaps ... but she saw no use in being
George Moore or--Henry James? The whole contemporary French school
left her unaffected; she read them, but experienced no wish to write
like them; and in the midst of a freshly-running sea of Continental
literature she became more than ever aware of her absolute and
inescapable Americanism. In a way, it was a tragedy. To think that one
could grow up in Europe, be, as it were, a part of Europe, definitely
adopt Europe, and yet not to Europe belong! After steadily eyeing this
situation for a while she reacted without either tears or temperament;
and her reaction took the form of a short novel which is among the most
perfect pieces of workmanship in English, the story of _Ethan Frome_.
The “hard shapeliness” of that tale was the hard shapeliness of a
full self-recognition, the so-called “sterility” was the result of an
individual adjustment to the deepest personal need of her remarkable
nature. What she would once have so wanted to give, she now knew she
never could give to the world, and her awakened consciousness strove
for the fit expression of this discovery in terms of an art of which
she knew something. _Ethan Frome_, whatever else it may be (and it is
many things, some strange and all beautiful) is the Magnificat of a
woman in the hour of profoundest personal disappointment. Such works of
fiction are especially rare, but, given the genuinely capable writer,
given the one hour of a lifetime, the masterpiece is quite possible,
yes, almost certain.
Ah! She had written it at last ... and she could afford to let it stand
there to her credit while, with calmness and admirable fortitude she
returned to the region of _The House of Mirth_ and _The Fruit of the
Tree_ to add a study of divorce and parasitic marriage called _The
Custom of the Country_. The resumption of the general warfare which has
been the custom of Europe during odd generations for several centuries
didn’t interfere with _Summer_ (1917), wherein Mrs. Wharton tried to
combine her established “material” with some of the qualities of _Ethan
Frome_--an experiment only moderately a success. When she came later
to write _The Age of Innocence_ she was, to all appearances, in the
happy position of desiring only to do a definite and modest thing,
a first-rate story of very marketable quality, and then achieving
something distinctly beyond that.
v
Mrs. Wharton’s new novel, _A Son at the Front_, is primarily a study
of character and a portrayal of the relation between a father and his
son. The father is Campton, a lame painter of some distinction living
in Paris. His son, George, has just finished his education and the
father is counting on a trip to Italy for the chance, at last, to get
acquainted with the boy. Campton’s wife, Julia, after divorcing him,
married a rich American named Brandt. The two also live in Paris and
George has for some years been supported by the Brandts, spending part
of his time with them. With this position when the novel opens, end
of July, 1914, war intervenes, taking George from them because of his
French birth. Campton and Brandt, drawn together by a common interest,
pull what wires they can to secure a clerical appointment for George.
The intensity of the war and initial reverses bring Campton to regret
that George should have been willing to remain behind the lines. But
word comes that the son is lying wounded in hospital; he has all the
time been at the front but has concealed the fact in writing home.
Brought back to Paris, an effort is made to keep him there, a shallow
little married woman of George’s acquaintance lending what help she
can; the huge compulsion of the war is too great, however, and on his
return to the front George is again wounded, this time fatally. He
lives to hear that America is at last in the conflict and to know that
Campton and the rest have an undivided aim while the war lasts. When
George dies, the others, feeling they have lost everything except the
hope of victory, bend themselves to help toward that with such courage
as they have left.
The record of wartime Paris, the shift of ideals and the gradual
sacrifice of all lesser purposes, the resolution of smaller loyalties
in a larger, the intimacy of personal emotions--these, of course, are
the true substance of Mrs. Wharton’s story.
vi
You may comprehend her, in discourse with that familiar of hers, the
Time Spirit, in a dialogue running somewhat as follows:
TIME SPIRIT: So, then, you’ve settled it with yourself? You haven’t too
many regrets, I hope?
MRS. WHARTON: Oh, no, thank you. You can’t know what a sense of
freedom, of satisfaction both outer and inner, it gives! You see, I
always had, for ever so long, a few illusions--about myself and my own
work, I mean.
TIME SPIRIT (_dryly_): Most writers do. But now that you are rid of
them all, you aren’t finding it impossible to go on?
MRS. WHARTON: I find it far more possible to go on. I go on with ease
and a lightness of heart. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t write now,
that I mightn’t wake up and find myself to have written, except the
kind of thing I once was determined to write. That sounds cloudy, no
doubt; but what I mean is very simple: I discovered that, contrary to
the old saying, it is life that is long and art that’s fleeting.
TIME SPIRIT: Yes?
MRS. WHARTON: Exactly. We live a long time, and we write for a time not
so long but pretty long, too. If in those years of writing we achieve
art once or twice, we are among the rare, fortunate ones.
TIME SPIRIT: And the rest of the time?
MRS. WHARTON: The rest of the time we must be industrious, but it is so
much better if we are clear in our own minds about it.
TIME SPIRIT: But, you know, you are really an artist!
MRS. WHARTON: _Retro me, Sathanas!_ I beg your pardon, though; you
couldn’t tempt me. I know what I know. There are things I have had,
and have, to do without; but I don’t live with them; I live with what
I have. Of course, all kinds of aims, and quite possibly some forms
of achievement will be conferred upon me by those who practise the
craft of fiction under the guise of criticism. But I am clearly not
responsible for what they say, and it may not be used against me. I am
only responsible for what I myself say--and that is: Nothing.
TIME SPIRIT: So you refuse to answer? On the usual ground, of course;
it might tend to incriminate or degrade you?
MRS. WHARTON: I refuse to answer on the ground that it might
incriminate and degrade others who write about me like this: “_The
House of Mirth_, _Ethan Frome_--these are orchestral in their richly
subtle clashing of overtones, a sort of infra-discordance which is
among the rare improbable finenesses accessible to the artist, on
condition of his readiness to take infinite pains for infinitesimal
effects.”
TIME SPIRIT: Madame, permit me to deal lightly with you.
MRS. WHARTON: _Merci, monsieur._ But I think we have concluded our
bargain, haven’t we? _Au ’voir._
Books by Edith Wharton
1899 _The Greater Inclination_
1900 _The Touchstone_
1901 _Crucial Instances_
1902 _The Valley of Decision_
1903 _Sanctuary_
1904 _The Descent of Man, and Other Stories_
1904 _Italian Villas and Their Gardens_
1905 _Italian Backgrounds_
1905 _The House of Mirth_
1907 _Madame de Treymes_
1907 _The Fruit of the Tree_
1908 _The Hermit and the Wild Woman_
1908 _A Motor-Flight Through France_
1909 _Artemis to Actæon and Other Verse_
1910 _Tales of Men and Ghosts_
1911 _Ethan Frome_
1912 _The Reef_
1913 _The Custom of the Country_
1915 _The Book of the Homeless_
1915 _Fighting France_
_The Decoration of Houses_
_The Joy of Living_
1917 _Xingu and Other Stories_
1917 _Summer_
1918 _The Marne_
1919 _French Ways and Their Meaning_
1919 _In Morocco_
1920 _The Age of Innocence_
1922 _The Glimpses of the Moon_
1923 _A Son at the Front_
Sources on Edith Wharton
_Contemporary American Novelists, 1900-1920_, by Carl Van Doren. THE
MACMILLAN COMPANY, 1922.
_Some Modern Novelists_, by Helen Thomas Follett and Wilson Follett.
HENRY HOLT & COMPANY, 1918. The chapter deals with Mrs. Wharton’s work
up to and including _Summer_. Her novel, _The Valley of Decision_, is
singled out for especial emphasis.
_Edith Wharton, A Critical Study_, by Katharine Fullerton Gerould.
Booklet published by D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 1922. A spirited
exposition of what are conceived to be Mrs. Wharton’s special
qualities by a woman whose interest lies particularly in Mrs.
Wharton’s material.
_21. The Unclassified Case of Christopher Morley_
i
To know Christopher Morley is to be interested, amused, enthusiastic,
sceptical or even secretly puzzled; but to have him for a friend is to
learn the meaning of friendliness in a degree that is very exceptional.
And few escape being his friends, though this is less true than
formerly. There was, indeed, once a time when the friendship of Morley
was among the two or three serious responsibilities of an individual’s
life--like marriage, or filial duty or a conscience in regard to one’s
chosen craft. Practically every day, sometimes twice in a day, the
evidence of Morley’s friendliness would appear in a brief letter or
hastily-penned note about this or that or the other thing under the sun.
An image arose of an ever-active, a sleepless mind; of an emotional
nature more unresting than the Atlantic and quantitatively as great.
This awful abstraction slowly faded out into a visual image of a
“burly” man with a smiling face and a lighted pipe, and that, in turn,
gave place to the fear lest so much confidence in the human race should
prove fatally misplaced.... Somewhat, it has; but what we didn’t
foresee was that the change, coming about gradually, would operate as
a gradual salvation of (1) his friends from Morley, (2) Morley from his
friends, (3) Morley’s work from Friend Morley.
Yet this beneficial and important transformation has been accomplished
in the most salutary manner, with a result that may accrue with
permanence and advantage to American literature.
ii
[Illustration: Christopher Morley]
As lately as 1920 one estimating American talents could observe of
Morley: “His gift is purely journalistic, isn’t it?” and receive the
answer from Morley’s friend: “Purely”--an answer conceived in entire
truthfulness. Both the asker and the answerer were pretty certain to
regard the assumed fact as a great pity. But as to the fact!--why, what
further evidence was needed to establish it? Morley had been writing
for several years, had averaged several books a year of prose and
verse, and nowhere gave the least sign of doing work of a different
character. What, then, was the character of his work in those years?
He began at Oxford with a book of verse; from a more actual standpoint
his beginnings had been made with _Parnassus on Wheels_, published
in 1917. This really capital conceit had engendered a sequel, _The
Haunted Bookshop_, published two years later. There were certain books
of essays--_Shandygaff_, _Mince Pie_, _Pipefuls_--pleasant, partly
serious, sometimes sentimental and showing a deplorable fondness for
the pun. There were books of verse--_Songs for a_ _Little House_,
_The Rocking Horse_, _Hide and Seek_. _Travels in Philadelphia_, the
short story, _Kathleen_, and an unfortunate collaboration called _In
the Sweet Dry and Dry_ completed the roll. It is no reflection upon
these volumes to say that they gave the impression of a talent strictly
journalistic; the best journalism is more than ephemeral and most of
the titles enumerated are still actively in demand. The quality we
call “journalism” is not an affair of perishability but something
very difficult to define, something in the approach, something in the
treatment rather than in the choice of subjects. In the last analysis
it is probable that the effort to define it would end with hands flung
out hopelessly before the mystery of a personal temperament.
The facts were these: Morley had been educated at Haverford College
and Oxford; he had then come to Garden City to work for the publishing
house which, principally, has published his prose, and his first
enterprises as an author were precociously instructed by an “inside”
acquaintance with what James Branch Cabell would call the auctorial
career. The influence upon his own work of this very special knowledge
is not easy to estimate. He saw, as only one in a publishing house
sees, the facts of authorship after the author’s child is born. For
example: the immense effect upon the fortunes of a writer’s book, or
books, of the attitude toward them of the bookseller. And that attitude
is quite rightly fixed by what the bookseller (1) knows he can sell,
or, less frequently (2), by what he thinks he can sell.
Morley saw that books are sold through bookstores. Looking a little
further, he discerned that books which are not in bookstores are, with
certain class exceptions, very rarely sold. He learned, as everyone in
a publishing house learns, that three-quarters of the books that are
sold to retail purchasers are bought because retail purchasers have had
these books thrust directly under their noses. He suffered, no doubt,
the customary amazement on discovering the vast number of people who
(1) either enter the bookstore with no particular book in mind, or (2),
on being unable to obtain the book in mind, readily take something
else. It was brought to his keen attention that, as Frank Swinnerton
reiterates in his admirable brochure on “Authors and Advertising,”
direct advertising, as in newspapers and magazines (the commonest
mediums) does not sell books. Being a young man of alert perceptions,
it cannot have been lost upon him that book reviews do not, with any
reliability, sell books, either. What does sell books is talk--in some
instances--but the hard rock foundation of book sales is a favourable
attitude on the part of “the trade.”
To know the people in the bookstore, to have and to cultivate and
to deserve their good will (for, in the long run, you must deserve
it), and thus to insure the sale of your book to the bookseller
and to enlist his energy and enterprise in re-selling it to his
customers--this is the “favourable attitude” just mentioned. Few
authors succeed in establishing it; fewer succeed in maintaining it.
Mr. Morley has done both, with the result that in five years from the
time of his _Parnassus on Wheels_ he has been able to publish a highly
imaginative, refined and polished satire and see it become, in its
field, a pronounced best seller.
iii
One would about as soon expect to see a fantasy by Lord Dunsany a
best seller as witness the sale, in tens of thousands, of Morley’s
_Where the Blue Begins_--if one were making one’s estimate solely
on the work itself. _Where the Blue Begins_ is the story of the dog
Gissing’s search for God--a search conducted in various places and
circumstances parallel to human life of the present day by an animal
discreetly analogued to the human animal. Such a piece of writing
has ordinarily no hope except from unusual and very favourable (or
acutely controversial) critical attention; and the hope from that
quarter is relatively small. By “hope,” of course, is meant a hope of
a considerable sale. _Where the Blue Begins_ belongs to that class
of literature which is written because it has lain in the author’s
heart to write it, regardless of its fate after it lies on paper. In
the case of Mr. Morley, the work has received merited praise; but it
would be naïve to suppose that this notice and commendation sold the
book; and the book trade might even justifiably be indignant at such
a supposition. Did not they, the booksellers, buy _Where the Blue
Begins_ because it was Morley’s new book? And did not they and their
clerks “push” the book for the same reason? The Ayes have it, to both
questions, and unanimously.
On the other hand, the sceptical soul who argues that Chris Morley
wrote _Parnassus on Wheels_, in the first place, because it was a
story about a bookseller calculated to “get him in right” with the
trade--that man does not know Morley and shows that he does not know
him. It is possible to detect in the character of Morley’s work, in
the circumstance of its publication and in the accessories provided
for that publication evidences of a singularly intelligent literary
campaign; it is possible to detect them and believe them to be such;
but it is not possible to over-estimate the part played by Morley’s own
naïveté, affectionate nature and formerly unchecked and indiscriminate
enthusiasm.
Such an attitude is always open to misconstruction. But it takes real
intelligence to go beneath the surface; and among Morley’s friends were
many who could do that. These perceived his genuineness without being
in the least able to predict the outcome of his generosity. Ours is
a world thus and thus and so and so. The ultimate effect upon Morley
himself of a disposition which he would unquestionably see suffer
and change was the problem. It would be very easy for him to come a
tremendous cropper of any one of several sorts; and then should we have
a soured, an embittered young man? Prophecy was worthless.
Meanwhile, with the auspicious beginning of _Parnassus on Wheels_, the
young man went gaily on. His first book of verse (barring the Oxford
experiment) was published in the same year under the valuable title,
_Songs for a Little House_; and at once the small beginnings of a
Morley vogue were faintly perceptible. The suspicion that such a title
harboured a spirit committed to the sentimental attitude toward life
was confirmed within a year by the publication of a book of essays,
_Shandygaff_, named after a reputed or actual beverage and got up with
a deliberately quaint title page. One was left in no doubt that Morley
liked Stevenson, was affectionately fond of Robert Cortes Holliday, and
worshipped the genius of Don Marquis. The seeds of literary jealousy
were sown, to be harvested several years later in accusations of
log-rolling[2] that were levelled at others a-plenty besides Morley.
Here, however, it should be explained that Morley had come from Oxford
to go to work, at the age of twenty-three, at Garden City; that while
learning the publishing business he had married Miss Helen Booth
Fairchild, a New York girl whom he had met in England. If, therefore,
he modestly undertook to become the American poet of domesticity with
his songs for households “of two or more,” the guilt should by no means
be made personal to him, but may justly be laid at the door of the race.
[2] The term is borrowed from the Congress of the United States, where
it has long been employed, quite unofficially, to describe an exchange
of favors among Congressmen, some voting for another’s bill in exchange
for his favorable vote upon their pet measures. As here used, it refers
to the alleged praise of one writer by another in tacit exchange for
similar praise back; the public being expected to take both encomiums
at face value and without any discounting for personal friendship, etc.
Whether the public has ever quite done so is possibly to be doubted;
but, at any rate, in the winter of 1921-22, New York and some other
literary circles were so openly under suspicion of log-rolling that
the suspects were not able to ignore the charges openly made. The
boldest method of counter-attack adopted was that of Heywood Broun,
who ridiculed the accusation, not quite successfully from every
standpoint. There was, however, an immediate and noticeable diminution
of enthusiasm among some of the younger writers for each other’s
work, publicly expressed. Morley himself, discussing the matter of
log-rolling, explained that the accusers had the cart before the horse;
that commonly one liked another man’s work and praised it, and in
consequence thereof came into a personal acquaintance. This is without
doubt frequently the true situation.
The year following _Shandygaff_ witnessed the appearance of another
book of verse, _The Rocking Horse_; the sequel to _Parnassus on
Wheels_, entitled _The Haunted Bookshop_; and a book done in
collaboration with Bart Haley. Called _In the Sweet Dry and Dry_, this
is quite exceptional among Morley books, and not too common among any
books, for its badness. An extravaganza on the subject of prohibition,
the plot may be said to have resided mainly in incessant and outrageous
puns, at that time a pronounced Morley weakness. But again it is
necessary to point out a detail which, taken in one light, and, as I
think, the proper light, reflects great personal credit on Mr. Morley;
he has never disowned the bad book. He could not do so openly, of
course--copies probably exist--but he has not done so tacitly, as
he might have without question or comment. I have in mind a little
booklet on Christopher Morley published in 1922 and concluding with a
bibliography. There it stands: “_In the Sweet Dry and Dry_, Boni and
Liveright, 1919. (In collaboration with Bart Haley, out of print.)” The
book, no doubt. George Moore and Henry James, not to mention other men
of literary genius, have had occasion to be ashamed of their work and
to drop it quietly from the roll. I like Mr. Morley for not doing so.
iv
Christopher Darlington Morley was born at Haverford, Pennsylvania,
5 May, 1890, of parents both English by birth but long Americans
by residence. Dr. Frank Morley, an English Quaker of Woodbridge,
Suffolk--the home of Edward Fitzgerald--was graduated at Cambridge
and came to Haverford in 1887 as professor of mathematics. His wife
was Lilian Janet Bird, of Hayward’s Heath, in Sussex, a woman of some
musical and poetical gifts, the daughter of a man at one time with the
London publishing house of Chapman and Hall. CDM frequently praises
her cooking, which blended as an influence on his boyhood with the
Haverford campus, where cricket is played. In 1900 Professor Morley
went to Baltimore and Johns Hopkins. His son entered Haverford in 1906,
was graduated in 1910 and, in the same year, was chosen as Rhodes
Scholar representing Maryland. The three years at Oxford were spent
at New College. In the title-poem of a new book of verse, _Parson’s
Pleasure_--the name of the old bathing pool on the Cherwell at
Oxford--occur the lines:
Two breeding-places I have known
Where germinal my heart was sown;
Two places from which I inherit
The present business of my spirit:
Haverford, Oxford, quietly
May make a poet out of me.
The confused exigencies of his native land, however, were, more
immediately, to make something else out of him. Repairing to
Garden City, he interviewed Mr. F. N. Doubleday, otherwise FND
(“Effendi”) on the matter of a job. Mr. Doubleday has preserved
the record of that interview in an amusing account which fully
displays the youth, eagerness, enthusiasm and amiable audacity of the
twenty-three-year-old. The noted Effendi, whose philosophy of life
is not without its Oriental suggestions and whose sense of humour
is at such times gently active, was feeling “a little weighted down
that morning with the difficulties of the job which the President of
Doubleday, Page & Company takes as a daily routine,” and therefore
finally told Morley “to go to work at all his manifold plans and
literary philanderings, reserving the right to restrain his commitments
if necessary.”
It was Morley who discovered William McFee. English sheets of that
long and very fine novel, _Casuals of the Sea_, had been submitted
to the firm for consideration and possible purchase. Ultimately
it became necessary to set up type for the novel in America. “We
were accustomed,” Mr. Doubleday explains, “to hold what we called a
‘book-meeting,’ when each member of the staff gave his suggestion about
authors and books. For months when it came Christopher’s turn to speak
he always began, ‘Now, about McFee--we don’t appreciate what a comer he
is’ and so on for five minutes without taking a breath until finally
it became the joke of the meeting that nothing could be done until
Morley’s McFee speech had been made. Our jibes influenced him not at
all. His only reply to our efforts in humour was to bring on a look of
great seriousness and the eternal phrase, ‘Now, about McFee.’”
In leaving Garden City after a stay of nearly four years to become, in
his own phrase, one of the “little group of wilful men who edit the
Ladies’ Home Journal,” CDM departed from the well-established tradition
under which so many men in the book publishing business have fallen. It
is some kind of a tribute to Doubleday, Page & Company that the house
has been the training-place of a considerable number of the heads in
other publishing houses. In Philadelphia a term on the Ladies’ Home
Journal was followed by work as a columnist on the Evening Public
Ledger, the direct preliminary to Morley’s column on the editorial
page of the New York Evening Post, with which he has been since 1920.
The book, _Travels in Philadelphia_; the personal acquaintance of A.
Edward Newton, author of _The Amenities of Book Collecting and Kindred
Affections_; and a deepened interest in Walt Whitman, are some of
the concomitants of the Philadelphia period. Also, I think, Morley’s
gradual disillusionment began then. The collection of essays called
_Mince Pie_ was published late in 1919 and there were still to appear,
in 1920, certain overflowings of the Morley of the first period--the
story of an Oxford undergraduate prank, called _Kathleen_; a book of
verse, _Hide and Seek_; and more essays in _Pipefuls_. But that was
to be about all. Something very definite had happened to the young
man who was so friendly with everybody, who was forever talking about
William McFee, who wrote forty-leven letters and notes a day, who had
made a cult of quaintness and who liked to be called Kit and to have
the resemblance of his name to that of Christopher Marlowe’s stretched
into a fanciful resemblance of personalities and writing. Some lone
reviewer, speaking harshly; or some slight wound received in the house
of one of his friends; or the shifts and vicissitudes of commercial
enterprise--dissatisfaction with what he had already done, a thirtieth
birthday, a wish to do something he had yet to do--together or singly
may have been the agents of the change. Only the change itself matters.
And what was that? It was not that Chris became less friendly, or
autographed fewer dozens of copies of a new book of his, or loved
the Elizabethans less or the work of Theodore Dreiser more. But a
retractation took place, an alteration of ideas went on ... aided, it
may be, by the uniformity with which American magazine editors rejected
a short story called “Referred to the Author,” one of the contents of
Morley’s book _Tales from a Rolltop Desk_--a story which Morley himself
thinks marks the definite line between his old work and new.
v
Those who care for the poet of “households of two or more” will find
him most readily now in the volume called _Chimneysmoke_ (1921), which
is a representative selection from the earlier books of verse, _Songs
for a Little House_, _The Rocking Horse_, and _Hide and Seek_. Vincent
O’Sullivan has said that the Morley here represented belongs with
“the English intimists, Herrick, George Herbert, Cowper, Crabbe.”
Writing an introduction for the English edition of _Chimneysmoke_, E.
V. Lucas remarked: “Domesticity has had many celebrants, but I cannot
remember any one work in which such a number of the expressions of
Everyman, in his capacity as householder, husband and father, have
been touched upon, and touched upon so happily and with such deep and
simple sincerity. The poet of ‘The Angel in the House’ was, I suppose,
a predecessor; but Coventry Patmore was a mystic and a rhapsodist,
whereas Mr. Morley keeps on a more normal plane and puts in verse,
thoughts and feelings and excitements that most of us have known but
have lacked the skill or will to epigrammatise. If we are to look in
literature for a kindred spirit to Mr. Morley’s we find it rather in
the author of ‘The Cotter’s Saturday Night.’”
Morley’s new book of essays, _The Powder of Sympathy_, shows the man
changed and changing. It would be impossible to detect any loss of
humour or cheerfulness in such papers as those on Sir Kenelm Digby or
the Morley automobile, Dame Quickly (to be succeeded some day by the
more impressive Dean Swift). But the satire in “The Story of Ginger
Cubes” is not less complete or sharp for being throughout good-natured;
and in his piece on “The Unknown Citizen” Morley seems to me to strike
a single magnificent chord in which satire and humour are simply notes
underlain by the deep bass of pathos and truth. The new book of poems,
_Parson’s Pleasure_, shows that where there was so much _Chimneysmoke_
a fire burns also. This book has an inspiring and inspiriting essay
for preface--one far too quotable; I must resist it. Instead, let me
give the first sonnet in the “Memoranda for a Sonnet Sequence”:
The herb Lunaria, old books aver,
If gathered thus and so, in moony patches,
Has property of mystic opener
When laid upon the fastest locks and latches.
In this respect, the moonplant duly matches
The magic of the poets, who bestir
Their art to loosen spirit’s careful catches
And split our secret bolts like gossamer.
To sprinkle moonseed on the tight-locked soul
Bidding it open, or stand soft ajar--
To sprinkle moonseed, gathered thus and so,
This is the poet’s honourable rôle.
Like some old Tudor captain bound afar
I hear him crying _Inward! Inward Ho!_
Books by Christopher Morley
1912 _The Eighth Sin._ Oxford: B. H. BLACKWELL. Out of print
1917 _Parnassus on Wheels_
1917 _Songs for a Little House_
1918 _Shandygaff_
1919 _The Rocking Horse_
1919 _The Haunted Bookshop_
1919 _In the Sweet Dry and Dry._ Written in collaboration with
Bart Haley. Out of print
1919 _Mince Pie_
1920 _Travels in Philadelphia._ DAVID MCKAY COMPANY
1920 _Kathleen_
1920 _Hide and Seek_
1920 _Pipefuls_
1921 _Tales from a Rolltop Desk_
1921 _Plum Pudding_
1921 _Chimneysmoke_
1921 _Modern Essays_ (an anthology, selected and with an introduction
and biographical notes by Christopher Morley). HARCOURT,
BRACE & COMPANY
1922 _Thursday Evening_ (a one-act play). STEWART & KIDD COMPANY
1922 _Translations from the Chinese_
1922 _Where the Blue Begins_
1922 _Rehearsal_ (a one-act play), included in _A Treasury of Plays
for Women_, edited by Frank Shay. LITTLE, BROWN & COMPANY
1923 _The Powder of Sympathy_
1923 _Pandora Lifts the Lid_ (with DON MARQUIS)
1923 _Parson’s Pleasure_
Sources on Christopher Morley
_Christopher Morley: A Biographical Sketch._ Booklet published by
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO., 1922.
Private Information.
_22. The Prophecies of Lothrop Stoddard_
i
Prophecy is a very old business. It has become our habit to think of
ourselves as a people without prophets; and yet there was never a time
when mankind had more seers or more interesting ones. What is H. G.
Wells but a prophesier, and from whom do we receive counsel if not from
Mr. Chesterton? Mr. Shaw is our Job’s comforter, and George Horace
Lorimer, on the editorial page of Saturday Evening Post, calls us to
repentance. A few years ago I had the adventure of reading Madison
Grant’s _The Passing of the Great Race_, an impassioned proclamation of
the merits of the blond Nordic race, and a lamentation over its decay.
At that time such a book was in the nature of a revelation whether you
gave faith to its assertions and proofs or scoffed at them. The thing
that struck me was the impossibility (as it seemed to me) of any reader
remaining unmoved; I thought him bound to be carried to a high pitch
of enthusiastic affirmation or else roused to fierce resentment and
furious denial. And so, in the event, I believe it mainly turned out.
At that time, although he was the author of several books, I had not
heard of Lothrop Stoddard, unless as a special writer and correspondent
for magazines. It was not until April, 1920, that _The Rising Tide of
Color Against White World-Supremacy_ was published. Even so, attention
is not readily attracted to a book of this type. Many who have since
read it with excitement knew nothing of the volume until, in a speech
at Birmingham, Alabama, on 26 October, 1921, President Harding said:
“Whoever will take the time to read and ponder Mr. Lothrop Stoddard’s
book on _The Rising Tide of Color_ ... must realise that our race
problem here in the United States is only a phase of a race issue that
the whole world confronts.” The late Lord Northcliffe, returning from a
trip around the world, declared: “Two far-seeing books, _The New World
of Islam_ and _The Rising Tide of Color_, should be in the library
of every one who wants to know something about the world of 1950.”
Several months before he died, Northcliffe spoke again to a newspaper
correspondent: “Have you read _The Rising Tide of Color_? Then I want
you to read it. I want every white man to read it.”
ii
_The New World of Islam_ followed _The Rising Tide of Color_ from Mr.
Stoddard’s pen, or more probably, as authors work nowadays, from his
typewriter. It brings out with detail and vividness a situation which
Hilaire Belloc made vivid also in his American lectures in the spring
of 1923, when he remarked that, after all, we must remember it was
only two hundred years since the armies of Mohammed stood outside the
walls of Vienna. But Mr. Belloc in a lecture had no time for details;
he stressed the remarkable spiritual unity (something beyond merely
religious unity) of Islam, tending to match the condition of Europe in
those centuries when it was possible to lead Crusade after Crusade. Mr.
Stoddard, however, is a master of detail. His book on the Mohammedan
world is compact of facts and figures, and concludes with one of the
most significant maps the world allows to be drawn today. For it is not
a day of satisfactory map-making; too much is changing; but the great
patches of green on the chart at the close of _The New World of Islam_
do not change. The day is never past when some dark-skinned Mahdi,
like that false one in Lytton Strachey’s portrait of “Chinese” Gordon,
may sit his horse “letting the scene grow under his eyes,” watching
the assembly of turbulent but vast and unanimous armies, looking down
upon the thousands of upturned, fanatical faces, in a scene “dark and
violent and beautiful” ... and of enormous import to the peoples of the
earth.
His study of the coloured races and their gradual predominance and
his account of Islam seem to me to be but preparatory, however, to
Mr. Stoddard’s book on _The Revolt Against Civilization_. This has
already passed through many editions, like the two preceding volumes.
“The reason why _The Revolt Against Civilization_ has attracted such
an extraordinary amount of attention is not far to seek,” comments the
Saturday Evening Post. “It is, so far as we know, the first successful
attempt to present a scientific explanation of the worldwide epidemic
of unrest that broke out during the Great War and still rages in both
hemispheres.” The book is a considered and noteworthily documented
argument against the Underman--to be conceived of as the opposite of
Nietzsche’s Superman. It was Macaulay who remarked that if civilization
is again overthrown it will not be by the barbarian from without but
by the barbarian within--and Mr. Stoddard’s case is, quite simply,
that we have in our civilisation an immense mass of inferior men, of
Undermen, who will drag us down and whom we cannot lift up. Nor is he
among those who advocate terrorism. He would grant and secure to those
whom he regards as the foes of civilisation a wider freedom of thought
and speech than would many who share his view of the actual situation.
And as a prophet is not allowed any longer to prophesy unless he is
prepared with a programme--must not cry, “Woe! Woe!” unless he does so
constructively--Mr. Stoddard closes his book with two chapters in which
he disregards with something like a surgeon’s magnificence and coolness
the rooted prejudices and inherited opinions of ordinary men and women.
This, he says very clearly and with precision, is the path out; and he
suggests that we go to no further compromise than may be absolutely
inevitable in our mixed circumstances. Nothing is more admirable in
this American prophet than his daring unless it is the level admixture
of his common sense.
iii
Who is Lothrop Stoddard? In the first place, his name is Theodore
Lothrop Stoddard. He is the son of John Lawson Stoddard, and both
father and son were born in Brookline, Massachusetts, where at 1768
Beacon Street, the son now has his residence. The senior Stoddard
travelled widely and was known as the promoter of the Stoddard lectures
in the larger American cities for over twenty years. His travel
lectures fill fifteen volumes. Mr. Stoddard retired from the platform
in 1897 and lives in the Italian Tyrol. The son, born in 1883, was
graduated from Harvard in 1905. He is unmarried. The interests that lie
back of his volumes are reflected in his membership in the American
Historical Association, the American Political Science Association, the
American Sociological Society, the Academy of Political Science, the
National Institute of Social Sciences, the American Genetic Association
and the Galton Society. But let Mr. Stoddard speak for himself:
“I have always been interested in world affairs. I spent a good deal
of my early life in Europe and as an undergraduate at Harvard most of
my work was along those lines, that is, history, politics, sociology,
and so forth. The four men who stimulated me most were Professors A. C.
Coolidge, T. N. Carver, Toy, and R. M. Johnston. At that time, however,
I was intending to make the law my profession and I took the law course
and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar at the beginning of 1908.
The immediate occasion for my undertaking my present profession was a
trip to Europe which I took at that time. This trip was an extensive
journey through western and central Europe, occupying most of the year
1908; it was in the nature of a ‘grand tour’ before settling down to
the practice of law. But when I was in Europe during that year (the
year of the second great political crisis preceding the European War) I
became convinced of what I had already suspected, that a cataclysm was
inevitable in Europe within a relatively short time. I further realised
that in any such cataclysmic struggle the United States would either
be directly involved or would at least be drawn out of its isolation
into the stream of world affairs. The idea shaped itself strongly in
my mind to fit myself to become an expert on world affairs. I believe
that such experts were at that time very few in number in America.
However, I realised that if America should be situated as I felt she
would be after a European disaster, such experts would be greatly
needed. To me such a career implied extensive preparation and special
training. In my opinion the expert on world affairs must have a high
degree of technical knowledge such as cannot result from the knowledge
gained by travel, ordinary reading or experience, however accurate that
knowledge may be. Especially is a thorough historical background a
prime necessity.
“Accordingly I proceeded to acquire the technical knowledge and
training which I judged necessary by entering the Harvard Graduate
School where I spent four and a half years, from the autumn of 1909 to
January, 1914, gaining incidentally my A.M. and Ph.D. degrees. I was
ready then actively to practise my new profession. Nevertheless for the
first two or three years I did much more research work on contemporary
world affairs and future tendencies than actual writing. I planned out
a long schedule of writing; and _The Rising Tide of Color_ is the first
large item in that schedule.”
Books by Lothrop Stoddard
1914 _The French Revolution in San Domingo_
1917 _Present-Day Europe--Its National States of Mind_
1918 _The Stakes of the War_
1919 Harper’s Pictorial Library of the World War (Volume 6,
_The World at War_)
1920 _The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy_
1921 _The New World of Islam_
1923 _The Revolt Against Civilization_
Sources on Lothrop Stoddard
_Who’s Who in America_, Volume 12, 1922-23.
Private Information.
INDEX
_Abbé Pierre_, by William Jay Hudson, 203
Abbott, Lawrence F., _Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt_, 260
_Across Mongolian Plains_, by Roy Chapman Andrews, 46
Adams, Elbridge L., _Joseph Conrad: The Man_, 90
Adams, Franklin P., 52, 305, 318;
_Overset_, 305;
_So There_, 305;
_Tobogganing on Parnassus_, 305;
_Weights and Measures_, 305
_Adding Machine, The_, by Elmer L. Rice, 311
_Addresses in America, 1919_, by John Galsworthy, 31
_Admirable Crichton, The_, by J. M. Barrie, 308
_Adolescence_, by G. Stanley Hall, 147
_Adrift on the Amazon_, by Leo E. Miller, 173
_Adventures in Contentment_, by Ray Stannard Baker, 38
_Adventures in Friendship_, by Ray Stannard Baker, 39
_Adventures in My Garden_, by Louise Beebe Wilder, 210
_Adventures in the Old Woman’s Shoe_, by Maud Radford Warren
and Eve Davenport, 170
_Adventures of a Freshman, The_, by Jesse Lynch Williams, 173
_Adventures of Bobby Orde, The_, by Stewart Edward White, 173
_Adventuring_, by Tristram Tupper, 61, 62
_Advertising for the Retailer_, by Lloyd Dallac Herrold, 211
_Age of Innocence, The_, by Edith Wharton, 97, 346, 358, 362
Akeley, Carl, _Men and Animals: An Autobiography_, 48
_Alaska, Our Northern Wonderland_, by Frank Carpenter, 41
Aldin, Cecil, _Old Inns_, 50
Ali, Syed Ameer, _The Spirit of Islam_, 207
_Alice Adams_, by Booth Tarkington, 218, 230, 237
_Alice Sit-by-the-Fire_, by J. M. Barrie, 308
_All in a Lifetime_, by Henry Morgenthau, 153
_Almayer’s Folly_, by Joseph Conrad, 77, 79, 87
_Almost Perfect State, The_, by Don Marquis, 58
_Altar Steps, The_, by Compton Mackenzie, 199
Altsheler, Joseph, _Apache Gold_, 172;
_The Great Sioux Trail_, 172;
_The Guns of Bull Run_, 172;
_The Hunters of the Hills_, 172;
_The Last of the Chiefs_, 172;
_The Last Rebel_, 172;
_The Lost Hunters_, 172;
_The Quest of the Four_, 172;
_The Texas Star_, 172;
_The Young Trailers_, 172
_Amateur Inn, The_, by Albert Payson Terhune, 61
_Amateur Mechanic, The_, by A. Frederick Collins, 176
_Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story_, 150
_American Boy’s Handy Book, The_, by Dan Beard, 171
_American Girl’s Handy Book, The_, by Lina and Adelia B. Beard, 172
_Americanisation of Edward Bok, The_, by Edward W. Bok, 154
_Americans_, by Stuart P. Sherman, 265
_Amos Judd_, by John Ames Mitchell, 319
_An Ambassador’s Memoirs_, by Maurice Paleologue, 151
_An Outcast of the Islands_, by Joseph Conrad, 77, 79, 87
_And in the Tomb Were Found_, by Terence Gray, 45
_Andersen’s Fairy Tales_, 168, 169
Andersen, Hans, _The Mermaid_, 169;
_Thumbelisa_, 169
Andersen, _The Garden of Paradise_, 169
Anderton, Basil, _Sketches From a Library Window_, 268
Andrews, C. E., _Old Morocco and the Forbidden Atlas_, 48
Andrews, Roy Chapman, _Across Mongolian Plains_, 46;
_Camp and Trails in China_, 46
_Animal Personalities_, by Samuel A. Derieux, 48
_Another Sheaf_, by John Galsworthy, 31
_Annes, The_, by Marion Ames Taggart, 174
_Anthology of American Verse_, by J. C. Squire, 306
_Apache Gold_, by Joseph A. Altsheler, 172
Appleton, D., & Company, 213
_Arabian Nights, The_, 170
_Araminta_, by John Collins Snaith, 257
_Architecture of Robert and James Adam_, by Arthur T. Bolton, 209
_Around the World in Eighty Days_, by Jules Verne, 173
_Arrow of Gold, The_, by Joseph Conrad, 70, 86, 88
_Art of the Prima Donna, The_, by Frederick H. Martens, 209
_Artemis to Actæon_, by Edith Wharton, 350, 361
Arthur, Sir George, Ed. of _The Letters of Lord and
Lady Wolseley_, 152
Ashbee, _A Palestine Notebook_, 48
Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry, _The Genesis of the War_, 146
_At the Foot of the Rainbow_, by Gene Stratton-Porter, 291
_At Sunwich Port_, by W. W. Jacobs, 319
_Audacious Angles on China_, by Elsie McCormick, 46
Aumonier, Stacy, _Miss Bracegirdle and Others_, 215;
_The Great Unimpressionable_, 268
_Aunt Polly’s Story of Mankind_, by Donald Ogden Stewart, 245, 246
Austin, F. Britten, _On the Borderland_, 61
_Autobiography_, by Edward Livingston Trudeau, 262
_Autobiography_, by Franklin, 260
_Awakening_, by John Galsworthy, 23, 31
Bacon, Josephine Daskam, _Truth o’ Women_, 301
_Bad Little Owls, The_, by John Breck, 168
Baedeker, 39;
_Mediterranean_, 40;
_Northern Italy_, 40;
_Spain and Portugal_, 40;
_Switzerland_, 40
Baker, Ray Stannard, _The Boy’s Book of Inventions_, 166, 176;
_Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement_, 150
_Bannertail_, by Ernest Thompson Seton, 167
Barbour, Ralph Henry, _For the Good of the Team_, 164;
_Yardley Hall Stories_, 172
Barnes, J., _Commodore Bainbridge_, 175;
_Midshipman Farragut_, 175;
_The Hero of Erie_, 175;
_With the Flag in the Channel_, 175
Barnes, Parker T., _House Plants_, 210
Barrie, J. M., _A Kiss for Cinderella_, 308;
_Alice Sit-by-the-Fire_, 308;
_Dear Brutus_, 308;
_Echoes of the War_, 308;
_Half Hours_, 308;
_Peter Pan_, 309;
_Quality Street_, 308;
_The Admirable Crichton_, 309;
_What Every Woman Knows_, 308
Barron, Leonard, _Lawns_, 210
Barry Florence V., _A Century of Children’s Books_, 177
Bazalgette, Leon, _Walt Whitman_, 263
Beard, Adelia B., _The American Girl’s Handy Book_, 172
Beard, Dan, _Boat Building and Boating_, 171;
_Shelter, Shacks and Shanties_, 171;
_The American Boy’s Handy Book_, 171;
_The Black Wolf Pack_, 173;
_The Field and Forest Handy Book_, 171;
_The Jack of All Trades_, 171;
_The Outdoor Handy Book_, 171
Beard, Lina, _The American Girl’s Handy Book_, 172
_Beasley’s Christmas Party_, by Booth Tarkington, 237
_Beautiful Lady, The_, by Booth Tarkington, 237
_Beauty and the Jacobin_, by Booth Tarkington, 227, 237
Beerbohm, Max, _A Survey_, 315;
_Rossetti and His Circle_, 315
_Behind the Screen_, by Samuel Goldwyn, 149
_Belgium_, by Brand Whitlock, 150, 200
Belloc, Hilaire, 317, 381, 382;
_On_, 44, 265;
_The Mercy of Allah_, 265
_Beloved Vagabond, The_, by W. J. Locke, 329
Benavente, Jacinto, 311;
John Garrett Underhill, translator, 311
Bennett, Arnold, 229, 256;
_Clayhanger_, 128;
_Don Juan de Marana_, 309;
_How to Make the Best of Life_, 267;
_Riceyman Steps_, 200;
_The Best Story_, 268;
_The Old Wives’ Tale_, 116, 128, 200, 329;
_The Truth About An Author_, 318;
_Things That Have Interested Me_, 267
Bennett, Ida D., _The Flower Garden_, 210
Bennett, Jesse Lee, _What Books Can Do for Me_, 265
Benson, E. F., _Colin_, 215;
_David Blaize_, 174;
_David Blaize and the Blue Door_, 174;
_Spook Stories_, 61
Berg, Bengt, _The Motherless_, 215
_Best of Hazlitt, The_, by P. P. Howe, 262
_Best Story, The_, 268
Bevan, Edwyn, _Hellenism and Christianity_, 266
_Beyond_, by John Galsworthy, 31
_Bible as English Literature, The_, by J. H. Gardiner, 265
_Big Game, The_, by Lawrence Perry, 173
_Bird Life_, by Frank M. Chapman, 176
_Bird Study Book, The_, by Gilbert T. Pearson, 176
_Birds of the Bible_, by Gene Stratton-Porter, 291
_Birds Worth Knowing_, by Neltje Blanchan, 176
_Birth_, by Zona Gale, 250, 251, 253
Bisch, Dr. Louis E., _The Conquest of Self_, 198;
_Your Inner Self_, 198
Bishop, Joseph Bucklin, ed. _Theodore Roosevelt’s Letters to His
Children_, 175
_Bit o’ Love, A_, by John Galsworthy, 31
_Black Armour_, by Elinor Wylie, 296
_Black Arrow, The_, by Robert Louis Stevenson, 169
_Black Gang, The_, by H. C. McNeile, 61
_Black Panther, The_, by John Hall Wheelock, 295
_Black Phantom, The_, by Leo E. Miller, 173
_Black Rock_, by Ralph Connor, 182, 183, 187
_Black Wolf Pack, The_, by Dan Beard, 173
Blair, Wilfred, _The Life and Death of Mrs. Tidmus_, 302
Blanchan, Neltje, _Birds Worth Knowing_, 176;
_Flowers Worth Knowing_, 176
_Boat Building and Boating_, by Dan Beard, 171
Bok, Edward W., 148;
_A Man From Maine_, 154;
_The Americanisation of Edward Bok_, 154
Bolton, Arthur T., _The Architecture of Robert and James Adam_, 209
_Bonnie Prince Fetlar_, by Marshall Saunders, 167
_Book of British and American Verse, A_, 307;
_of Building and Interior Decorating, The_, by
Reginald T. Townsend, 209;
_of Daniel Drew, The_, by Bouck White, 320;
_of Electricity, The_, by A. Frederick Collins, 176;
_of Magic, The_, by A. Frederick Collins, 176;
_of Stars, The_, by A. Frederick Collins, 176;
_of the Homeless, The_, by Edith Wharton, 350, 362;
_of the Microscope, The_, by A. Frederick Collins, 176;
_of Wireless Telegraph and Telephone_, by A. Frederick Collins, 176;
_of Woodcraft, The_, by Ernest Thompson Seton, 171
_Booth Tarkington_, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 221, 238
_Bouncing Bet_, by Joslyn Gray, 174
_Boy Scout, The_, by Richard Harding Davis, 173
_Boy Scouts’ Book of Campfire Stories_, ed. by
Franklin K. Mathiews, 171
_Boy Scouts’ Hike Book_, by Edward Cave, 171
_Boy Scouts’ Year Book, 1923_, 164, 171
Boyd, Thomas, _Through the Wheat_, 204
Boyd, Woodward, _The Love Legend_, 215
_Boy’s Book of Hunting and Fishing, The_, by Warren H. Miller, 171
_Boy’s Book of Inventions, The_, by Ray Stannard Baker, 166, 176
_Boy’s Camp Book, The_, by Edward Cave, 171
_Boy’s King Arthur, The_, by Sidney Lanier, 169
_Boys of Saint Timothy’s_, by Arthur Stanwood Pier, 173
_Boy’s Second Book of Inventions, The_, by Ray Stannard Baker, 166,
176
Bradley, Mary Hastings, _On the Gorilla Trail_, 48
Brady, Cyrus Townsend, _In the Wasp’s Nest_, 175;
_On the Old Kearsage_, 175
Bramah, Ernest, _Kai Lung’s Golden Hours_, 268, 316, 317
Breasted, James Henry, _A History of Egypt_, 45
Breck, John, _Mostly About Nibble the Bunny_, 168;
_Nibble Rabbit Makes More Friends_, 168;
_Tad Coon’s Great Adventure_, 168;
_Tad Coon’s Tricks_, 168;
_The Bad Little Owls_, 168;
_The Jay Bird Who Went Tame_, 168;
_The Sins of Silvertip the Fox_, 168;
_The Wavy Tailed Warrior_, 168
_Broke of Covenden_, by John Collins Snaith, 256
_Broken Barriers_, by Meredith Nicholson, 205, 215
Brooks, Noah, _First Across the Continent_, 175
_Broome Street Straws_, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 238
Brown, Horatio F., ed. _Letters and Papers of John Addington Symonds_,
262
Brown, William, _Suggestion and Mental Analysis_, 208
Browne, Susanna Shanklin, _The Plain Sailing Cook Book_, 210
Browning, Oscar, _Memories of Later Years_, 152
Browning, Robert, _Paracelsus_, 140;
_Pauline_, 140;
_Sordello_, 140
_Brushwood Boy, The_, by Rudyard Kipling, 258
Buchan, John, _Greenmantle_, 60;
_Huntingtower_, 60;
_Midwinter_, 60, 199
_Buff: A Collie_, by Albert Payson Terhune, 167
_Building the American Nation_, by Nicholas Murray Butler, 207
Bullen, Frank T., _The Cruise of the Cachalot_, 172
Bunner, H. C., _Short Sixes_, 318;
_Stories_, 318
Burnett, Frances Hodgson, _Little Lord Fauntleroy_, 170
_Burning Spear, The_, by John Galsworthy, 32
Burroughs, John, _My Boyhood_, 153
_Business Letter, The_, by Carl A. Naether, 211
_Business of Writing, The_, by Robert Cortes Holliday and
Alexander Van Rensselaer, 212
Butler, Nicholas Murray, _Building the American Nation_, 207
_Butler’s Story, The_, by Arthur Train, 101
_Butterflies Worth Knowing_, by Clarence M. Weed, 176
_Butterfly_, by Kathleen Norris, 215
_Butterfly Book, The_, 261
_By Advice of Counsel_, by Arthur Train, 101
Byron, May, _The Little Black Bear_, 168;
_The Little Brown Rooster_, 168;
_The Little Tan Terrier_, 168;
_The Little Yellow Duckling_, 168
_C. K. S._, by Clement K. Shorter, 155
_C. Q._, by Arthur Train, 101
Cable, George W., _The Grandissimes_, 319
_Cadet of the Black Star Line, A_, by Ralph D. Paine, 173
_Cairo to Kisumu_, by Frank Carpenter, 41
Caldwell, Otis W., _Science Re-Making the World_, 194, 195
_Calling of Dan Matthews, The_, by Harold Bell Wright, 119, 138
_Cameo Kirby_, by Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson, 237
_Camp and Trails in China_, by Roy Chapman Andrews, and
Yvette Borup Andrews, 46
Camp, Walter, _A Pocket Bridge Book_, 210
_Camping Out_, by Warren H. Miller, 171
_Campus Days_, by Ralph D. Paine, 173
_Canoeing, Sailing and Motorboating_, by Warren H. Miller, 171
_Cape Cod Ballads_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 325, 343
Capek, Karel, _R. U. R._, 311
_Cap’n Dan’s Daughter_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 344
_Cap’n Eri_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 325, 343
_Cap’n Warrens Wards_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 344
_Captain Pluck_, by Isla May Mullins, 174
_Captain Sylvia_, by Marion Ames Taggart, 174
_Captains Courageous_, by Rudyard Kipling, 166
_Captures_, by John Galsworthy, 29, 32
_Carnival_, by Compton Mackenzie, 319
Carpenter, Edward, _Civilization_, 265
Carpenter, Frank G., 40, 41;
_Alaska, Our Northern Wonderland_, 41;
_Cairo to Kisumu_, 41;
_France to Scandinavia_, 41;
_From Tangier to Tripoli_, 41;
_Java and the East Indies_, 41;
_The Holy Land and Syria_, 41;
_The Tail of the Hemisphere_, 41;
_Carpenter’s World Travels_, 40
_Carter and Other People_, by Don Marquis, 58
_Casuals of the Sea_, by William McFee, 316, 317, 374
_Cathedral, The_, by Hugh Walpole, 258
_Catherine de Medici_, by Paul van Dyke, 151
_Cattle Ranch to College_, by Russell Doubleday, 174
Caulfield, Vivian, _Ski-ing Turns_, 210
Cave, Edward, _Boy Scout’s Hike Book_, 171;
_The Boy’s Camp Book_, 171
_Century of Children’s Books, A_, by Florence V. Barry, 177
_Certain People of Importance_, by Kathleen Norris, 269
_Challenge_, by V. Sackville-West, 110, 111, 112, 113, 116, 118
Chambers, C. Bosserton, ill. _Quentin Durward_, 264
Chambers, Robert W., _Eris_, 215
_Champdoce Mystery, The_, by Emile Gaboriau, 52
_Champion of the Foothills, A_, by Lewis E. Theiss, 174
_Chance_, by Joseph Conrad, 79, 80, 84, 88
_Change of Air, A_, by Katharine Fullerton Gerould, 37
Chapman, Frank M., _Bird Life_, 176;
_Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America_, 176;
_Our Winter Birds_, 176;
_What Bird Is That?_, 176
_Character and Opinion in the United States_, by George Santayana, 194
_Cherry_, by Booth Tarkington, 222, 236
Cherry-Garrard, Apsley, _The Worst Journey in the World_, 48
Chesterton, G. K., 317, 380;
_The New Jerusalem_, 48
Chevrillon, Andre, _Three Studies in English Literature_, 258
Childe, Wilfred Rowland, _The Gothic Rose_, 300
_Children of the Sea, The_, by Joseph Conrad, 87
_Child’s Book of England, The_, by Sidney Dark, 175
_Child’s Book of France, The_, by Sidney Dark, 175
_Child’s Garden of Verse, A_, by Robert Louis Stevenson, 170
_Chimneysmoke_, by Christopher Morley, 305, 377, 379
_Christ or Mars_, by Will Irwin, 207
_Christmas_, by Zona Gale, 253
Church, A. Hamilton, _The Making of an Executive_, 211
Churchill, Winston, 145;
_The World Crisis_, 145
_Circle, The_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 310
_Civilization: Its Cause and Cure_, by Edward Carpenter, 265
_Clans of the Scottish Highlands, The_, by George Eyre-Todd, 49
_Clarence_, by Booth Tarkington, 232, 237
Clark, Norman, _How to Box_, 211
_Clayhanger_, by Arnold Bennett, 128
Cleveland, Frederick A., _Funds and Their Uses_, 211
Clifford, Sir Hugh, _A Prince of Malaya_, 47;
_The Further Side of Silence_, 47
Cloman, Sidney A., _Myself and a Few Moros_, 47
Cobb, Irvin, _A Laugh a Day Keeps the Doctor Away_, 63;
_Snake Doctor and Other Stories_, 205
_Colin_, by E. F. Benson, 215
_College Years_, by Ralph D. Paine, 173
Collins, A. Frederick, _How to Fly_, 176;
_The Amateur Mechanic_, 176;
_The Book of Electricity_, 176;
_The Book of Magic_, 176;
_The Book of the Microscope_, 176;
_The Book of Stars_, 176;
_The Book of Wireless, Telegraph and Telephone_, 176;
_The Home Handy Book_, 176
Collins, Dr. Joseph, _The Doctor Looks at Literature_, 152, 265
_Colour in My Garden_, by Louise Beebe Wilder, 210
Colvin, Sir Sidney, _John Keats_, 262;
_Memories and Notes of Persons and Places_, 262
Comfort, Will Levington, _The Public Square_, 216
_Coming of the Peoples, The_, by Frances Rolt-Wheeler, 174
_Coming, The_, by John Collins Snaith, 256
_Command_, by William McFee, 317
_Commentary, A_, by John Galsworthy, 30
_Commodore Bainbridge_, by J. Barnes, 175
_Community Newspaper, The_, by Emerson P. Harris and Florence Harris,
212
_Companionable Books_, by Henry van Dyke, 265
_Comus_, by Milton, 264
_Confessions of a Book Lover_, by Maurice Francis Egan, 265
_Confessions of Artemus Quibble_, by Arthur Train, 101
Connelly, Marc, 246;
and George S. Kaufman, _To the Ladies_, 312
Connor, Ralph, _Beyond the Marshes_, 187;
_Black Rock_, 182, 183, 187;
_Breaking the Record_, 187;
_Corporal Cameron_, 183, 188;
_Glengarry School Days_, 187;
_Gwen_, 187;
_Ould Michael_, 187;
_The Angel and the Star_, 187;
_The Dawn by Galilee_, 187;
_The Doctor of Crow’s Nest_, 187;
_The Foreigner_, 183, 187;
_The Gaspards of Pine Croft_, 186, 187, 188;
_The Life of Dr. James Robertson_, 187;
_The Major_, 186, 188;
_The Man From Glengarry_, 183, 187;
_The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail_, 183, 184, 188;
_The Pilot of Swan Creek_, 187;
_The Prospector_, 187;
_The Recall of Love_, 187;
_The Sky Pilot_, 183, 187;
_The Sky Pilot in No Man’s Land_, 186, 188;
_To Him That Hath_, 186, 188
_Conquest of Canaan, The_, by Booth Tarkington, 217, 227, 228, 237
_Conquest of Fear, The_, by Basil King, 267
_Conquest of Self, The_, by Dr. Louis E. Bisch, 198
_Conquistador_, by Katharine Fullerton Gerould, 36, 37, 215
Conrad, Jessie, _A Handbook of Cookery for a Small House_, 210
Conrad, Joseph, 21, 47, 272;
_A Middle Class Family_, 33;
_A Narrative_, 88;
_A Personal Record_, 68, 69, 71, 73, 80;
_A Set of Six_, 88;
_Almayer’s Folly_, 77, 79, 87;
_An Outcast of the Islands_, 77, 79, 87;
_Chance_, 79, 80, 84, 88;
_Falk_, 68, 88;
_Heart of Darkness_, 68, 81, 88;
_Lord Jim_, 64, 79, 84, 88, 329;
_Nostromo_, 21, 64, 67, 73, 79, 84, 88, 111, 113, 114, 115, 116;
_Notes on Life and Letters_, 89;
_Romance_, 88;
see Doubleday, Page and Company, 214;
_Some Reminiscences_, 88;
_The Arrow of Gold_, 70, 86, 88;
_The Children of the Sea_, 87;
_The End of the Tether_, 88;
_The Inheritors_, 88;
_The Mirror of the Sea_, 69, 80, 86, 88;
_The Nigger of Narcissus_, 71, 78, 79, 80, 87;
_The Rescue_, 17, 72, 79, 84, 88;
_The Rover_, 85, 86, 88;
_The Secret Agent_, 79, 84, 88, 231;
_The Secret Sharer_, 84;
_The Shadow Line_, 88;
_’Twixt Land and Sea_, 88;
_Typhoon_, 84, 88;
_Under Western Eyes_, 79, 84, 88;
_Victory_, 56, 64, 70, 74, 82, 84, 88;
_Within the Tides_, 88;
_Youth_, 64, 70, 88
_Construction of the Small House_, by H. Vandervoort Walsh, 209
_Contemporary American Plays_, edited by Arthur H. Quinn, 311
_Control of Wages, The_, 208
_Co-operative Marketing_, by Herman Steen, 212
_Coquette_, by Frank Swinnerton, 202
Corbin, John, _The Return of the Middle Class_, 265
_Corduroy_, by Ruth Comfort Mitchell, 216
Cornish, Vaughan, _A Geography of the Great Capitals_, 49
_Corporal Cameron_, by Ralph Connor, 183, 188
_Cotton and the Cotton Market_, by W. Hustace Hubbard, 212
Cotton, Edward H., _The Ideals of Theodore Roosevelt_, 207
_Country Cousin, The_, by Booth Tarkington and Julian Street, 237
_Country House, The_, by John Galsworthy, 29
_Courts, Criminals and the Camorra_, by Arthur Train, 101
Craig, Hardin, Henry van Dyke and Asa Don Dickinson, Ed.
_A Book of British and American Verse_, 307
Crane, Stephen, biography of, by Thomas Beer, 319;
_The Red Badge of Courage_, 319
_Creative Chemistry_, by Louis Pasteur, 195
_Creative Selling_, by Charles Henry Mackintosh, 211
_Crome Yellow_, by Aldous Huxley, 315
_Cross-Sections_, by Julian Street, 215
Crothers, Rachel, _Nice People_, 312
Crowther, Samuel, _My Life and Work_, 153;
_John H. Patterson_, 154
_Crucial Instances_, by Edith Wharton, 361
_Cruise of the Cachalot, The_, by Frank T. Bullen, 172
_Cruise of the Dream Ship, The_, by Ralph Stock, 174
_Cruise of the Jasper B., The_, by Don Marquis, 58
Cubberly, Hazel J, and Helen Frost, _Field Soccer and Hockey
for Women_, 210
Cummins, S. Lyle, _Plays for Children_, 177
_Cures_, by Dr. James J. Walsh, 196, 197
Curle, Richard, _Joseph Conrad: A Study_, 70
_Custom of the Country, The_, by Edith Wharton, 357, 362
_Cy Whittaker’s Place_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 339, 343
Damrosch, Walter, _My Musical Life_, 154
_Damsel in Distress, A_, by P. G. Wodehouse, 59
_Dancer in the Shrine, The_, by Amanda Hall, 298, 299
_Daniel Boone_, by Stewart Edward White, 175
_Dante_, by Mary Bradford Whiting, 267
_Dark Flower, The_, by John Galsworthy, 13, 31
Dark, Sidney, _The Child’s Book of England_, 175;
_The Child’s Book of France_, 175;
_The Life of William Schwenk Gilbert_, 155
_Daughter of the Land, A_, by Gene Stratton-Porter, 292
_Daughter of Tomorrow, A_, by Zona Gale, 253
_Daughters of the Little Grey House, The_, by Marion Ames Taggart, 174
Davenport, Eve, and Maude Radford Warren, _Adventures in the Old
Woman's Shoe_, 170;
_Tales Told by the Gander_, 170
_David Blaize_, by E. F. Benson, 174
_David Blaize and the Blue Door_, by E. F. Benson, 174
_David Harum_, 319, 320
Davis, Richard Harding, _Real Soldiers of Fortune_, 175;
_The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys_, 173;
_With Both Armies in South Africa_, 175
_Day Dreamer, The_, by Jesse Lynch Williams, 173
_Day’s Journey, The_, by W. B. Maxwell, 257
Dayton, Katherine, _Loose Leaves_, 63
de Bosschere, Jean, ill. _The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha_,
170, 264
De Coster, Charles, _Legend of Ulenspiegel_, 269
_De Senectute_, by Frederic Harrison, 36
_Dear Brutus_, by J. M. Barrie, 308
_Decatur and Somers_, by Molly Elliot Seawell, 175
_Decoration of Houses, The_, by Edith Wharton, 350, 362
Defoe, Daniel, _Robinson Crusoe_, 170
_Deliverance, The_, by Ellen Glasgow, 269
Depew, Chauncey M., _My Memories of Eighty Years_, 154
_Depot Master, The_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 343
Derieux, Samuel A., _Animal Personalities_, 48
_Descent of Man and Other Stories, The_, by Edith Wharton, 361
Desmond Shaw, _The Drama of Sinn Fein_, 151
_Devil’s Garden, The_, by W. B. Maxwell, 257
_Dickensian Inns and Taverns_, by B. W. Matz, 50
Dickinson, Asa Don, Henry van Dyke, Hardin Craig, Ed. _A Book of
British and American Verse_, 307
Dickinson, G. Lowes, _The Greek View of Life_, 208, 266
_Dinner Club, The_, by H. C. McNeile, 61
Dixon, Roland B., _The Racial History of Man_, 196
Djemal Pasha, _Memories of a Turkish Statesman_, 150
_Doctor Looks at Literature, The_, by Dr. Joseph Collins, 152, 265
_Doctor Nye of North Ostable_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 336, 337, 338,
344
Dodge, Louis, _The Sandman’s Forest_, 170;
_The Sandman’s Mountain_, 170
Dodge, Mary Mapes, _Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates_, 170
_Dominant Sex, The_, by Mathilde and Mathias Vaerting, 208
_Don Juan de Marana_, by Arnold Bennett, 309
_Don Strong, American_, by William Heyliger, 172
_Don Strong of the Wolf Patrol_, by William Heyliger, 172
_Don Strong, Patrol Leader_, by William Heyliger, 172
_Doomdorf Mystery, The_, by M. Davisson Post, 54
Doran, George H. Company, 214
Dos Passos, John, _Rosinante to the Road Again_, 310, 319;
_Streets of Night_, 200;
_Three Soldiers_, 204
Doubleday, Frank N., 78, 374
Doubleday, Page & Company, 214
Doubleday, Russell, _A Gunner Aboard the “Yankee,”_ 174;
_Cattle Ranch to College_, 174;
_Stories of Inventors_, 176
_Dracula_, by Bram Stoker, 259, 260
_Dragon in Shallow Waters, The_, by V. Sackville-West, 110, 118
_Drama of Sinn Fein, The_, by Shaw Desmond, 151
_Dreams and Dust_, by Don Marquis, 59, 293
_Dreams of an Astronomer_, by Camille Flammarion, 190, 191
_Drums of Jeopardy, The_, by Harold MacGrath, 62
Dulac, Edmund, 161;
ill. of _Stories from the Arabian Nights_, 171;
_Stories from Hans Andersen_, 170;
_The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam_, 264;
_The Sleeping Beauty_, 171;
_The Tempest_, 264
_Dust and Light_, by John Hall Wheelock, 295
_Earlham_, by Percy Lubbock, 156
_Earthquake, The_, by Arthur Train, 101
_East of the Sun and West of the Moon_, 170
_Echoes of the War_, by J. M. Barrie, 308
_Ecuador_, by C. Reginald Enock, 49
_Editorials of Henry Watterson_, Ed. by Arthur Krock, 154
Egan, Maurice Francis, _Confessions of a Book-Lover_, 265
Eggleston, Margaret W., _Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens_,
174
_Egyptian Art_, by G. Maspero, 45
_Egypt Old and New_, by Percy B. Martin, 45
Ellis, Havelock, _Little Essays of Love and Virtue_, 267
_Elsie Marley_, by Joslyn Gray, 174
_Embassies I Have Known_, by Walburga, Lady Paget, 155
Emery, Gilbert, _The Hero_, 312
_Emperor of Portugallia, The_, by Selma Lagerlöf, 259
_Enchanted April, The_, 269
Enders, Elizabeth Crump, _Swinging Lanterns_, 46
_English Words and Their Background_, by George H. McKnight, 266
Enock, C. Reginald, _Ecuador_, 49;
_Mexico_, 49;
_Peru_, 49;
_Republics of Central and South America_, 49;
_Spanish America_, 49
_Eris_, by Robert W. Chambers, 215
Ertz, Susan, _Madame Claire_, 216
Ervine, St. John, 17, 18, 24, 27, 32
_Essays at Large_, by J. C. Squire, 44
_Ethan Frome_, by Edith Wharton, 346, 351, 357, 361
_Everybody’s Business_, by Floyd Parsons, 213
_Explorer, The_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 310
_Extricating Obadiah_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 326, 344
_Eyes of the World, The_, by Harold Bell Wright, 119, 130, 138
Eyre-Todd, George, _The Clans of the Scottish Highlands_, 49
_Fables_, by Aesop, 171
_Faint Perfume_, by Zona Gale, 250, 252, 253
_Fair Harbor_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 344
_Fairies and Chimneys_, by Rose Fyleman, 158
_Fairy Book, A_, illustrated by Arthur Rackham, 171
_Fairy Flute, The_, by Rose Fyleman, 158
_Fairy Green, The_, by Rose Fyleman, 158
_Fairy Ring, The_, by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora A. Smith, 169
_Fairy Tales_, by Grimm Brothers, 168
_Falk_, by Joseph Conrad, 68
_Family at Gilje, The_, by Jonas Lie, 201, 202
_Family Man, A_, by John Galsworthy, 32
_Farington Diary, The_, 140, 141
Farrar, John, 153;
_The Magic Sea Shell and Other Plays for Children_, 176
_Fascinating Stranger, The_, by Booth Tarkington, 237
Fausset, Hugh I’Anson, _Tennyson: A Modern Portrait_, 155
Fay, Charles Norman, _Too Much Government_, 213
Federer, C. A., ill. of _Adventures in the Old Woman’s Shoe_, 170;
_In the Days Before Columbus_, 174;
_Tales Told by the Gander_, 170;
_The Coming of the Peoples_, 174;
_The Quest of the Western World_, 174
Ferber, Edna, _Gigolo_, 269;
_The Girls_, 269
_Field and Forest Handy Book, The_, by Dan Beard, 171
Field, Eugene, _Poems of Childhood_, 170
_Field of Philosophy, The_, by Joseph A. Leighton, 208
_Field Soccer and Hockey for Women_, by Helen Frost and
Hazel J. Cubberly, 210
_Fiery Particles_, by C. E. Montague, 316, 317
_Fighters Young Americans Want to Know_, by Everett T. Tomlinson, 175
_Fighting France_, by Edith Wharton, 350, 362
_Fire Bird, The_, by Gene Stratton-Porter, 288, 292
_Fires of Ambition_, by George Gibbs, 216
_Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens_, by Margaret W. Eggleston,
174
_First Across the Continent_, by Noah Brooks, 175
_First Days of Knowledge, The_, by Frederick Arnold Kummer, 159
_First Days of Man, The_, by Frederick Arnold Kummer, 159
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, _This Side of Paradise_, 316, 317
_Five Tales_, by John Galsworthy, 23, 31
Flammarion, Camille, _Dreams of an Astronomer_, 190, 191
Fleury, Comte, _Memoirs of Empress Eugenie_, 151
Flexner, Abraham, _A Modern College and a Modern School_, 212
_Flirt, The_, by Booth Tarkington, 228, 229, 230, 231, 237
_Flower Garden, The_, by Ida D. Bennett, 210
_Flower in Drama: Papers on the Theatre, The_, by Stark Young, 312
_Flowers Worth Knowing_, by Neltje Blanchan, 176
Foote, John Taintor, _The Song of the Dragon_, 216
_For the Game’s Sake_, by Lawrence Perry, 173
_For the Good of the Team_, by Ralph Henry Barbour, 164
Forbes, Rosita, _The Secrets of the Sahara: Kufara_, 49
Ford, Henry, _My Life and Work_, 153
_Foreigner, The_, by Ralph Connor, 183, 187
_Forsyte Saga, The_, by John Galsworthy, 17, 21, 23, 24, 96, 97
_Forward Pass_, by Ralph Henry Barbour, 172
_Foundations, The_, by John Galsworthy, 31
_Four of a Kind_, by J. P. Marquand, 215
_Four Stragglers, The_, by Frank L. Packard, 60
_Fourteen Years a Sailor_, by John Kenlon, 153, 165
_France to Scandinavia_, by Frank Carpenter, 41
Franken, Richard B., and George Burton Hotchkiss, _The Leadership of
Advertised Brands_, 211
Franklin, _Autobiography_, 260
_Fraternity_, by John Galsworthy, 29, 30
_Freckles_, by Gene Stratton-Porter, 272, 284, 286, 291
_Freelands, The_, by John Galsworthy, 31, 32
_French Revolution in San Domingo, The_, by Lothrop Stoddard, 386
_French Ways and Their Meaning_, by Edith Wharton, 350, 362
_Friday to Monday_, by William Garrett, 60
_Friendly Road, The_, by David Grayson, 39
_Friends in Feathers_, by Gene Stratton-Porter, 291
_Friendship Village Love Stories_, by Zona Gale, 253
_From Immigrant to Inventor_, by Michael Idvorsky Pupin, 148
_From McKinley to Harding_, by H. H. Kohlsaat, 154
_From Tangier to Tripoli_, by Frank Carpenter, 41
_From the Earth to the Moon_, by Jules Verne, 173
Frost, Helen, and Hazel J. Cubberly, _Field Soccer and Hockey for
Women_, 210
_Fruit of the Tree, The_, by Edith Wharton, 346, 356, 357, 361
_Fugitive, The_, by John Galsworthy, 31
_Fugitive Freshman, The_, by Ralph D. Paine, 173
_Fullback, The_, by Lawrence Perry, 173
_Fun Book_, by Edna Geister, 176
_Funds and Their Uses_, by Frederick A. Cleveland, 211
_Further Adventures of Lad_, by Albert Payson Terhune, 167
_Further Adventures of Nils, The_, by Selma Lagerlöf, 160
_Further Side of Silence, The_, by Sir Hugh Clifford, 47
Fyleman, Rose, _Fairies and Chimneys_, 158;
_Fairy Book_, 158;
_Fairy Flute, The_, 158;
_The Fairy Green_, 158;
_The Rainbow Cat_, 158, 168
Gaboriau, Emile, _Baron Trigault’s Vengeance_, 52;
_File No. 113_, 52;
_Monsieur Lecoq_, 52;
_Other People’s Money_, 52;
_The Champdoce Mystery_, 52;
_The Clique of Gold_, 52;
_The Count’s Millions_, 51, 52;
_The Mystery of Orcival_, 52;
_The Widow Lerouge_, 52;
_Within an Inch of His Life_, 52
Gale, Zona, _A Daughter of Tomorrow_, 253;
_Christmas_, 253;
_Faint Perfume_, 250, 252, 253;
_Friendship Village_, 253;
_Friendship Village Love Stories_, 253;
_Heart’s Kindred_, 253;
_Miss Lulu Bett_, 250, 251, 252, 253;
_Mothers to Men_, 253;
_Neighborhood Stories_, 253;
_Neighbors_, 253;
_Peace in Friendship Village_, 253;
_Romance Island_, 253;
_The American Dawn_, 248;
_The Loves of Pelleas and Ettarre_, 253;
_When I Was a Little Girl_, 253
Galsworthy, John, 231, _A Bit o’ Love_, 31;
_A Commentary_, 30;
_A Family Man_, 32;
_A Man of Devon and Other Stories_, 21;
_A Motley_, 30;
_A Sheaf_, 28, 31;
_Addresses in America, 1919_, 31;
_Another Sheaf_, 31;
_Awakening_, 23, 31;
_Beyond_, 31;
_Captures_, 29, 32;
_Courage_, 268;
_Five Tales_, 23, 31;
_Fraternity_, 29, 30;
_In Chancery_, 23, 31;
_Indian Summer of a Forsyte_, 23;
_Jocelyn_, 21;
_Joy_, 30;
_Justice_, 30, 309;
_Loyalties_, 13, 16, 17, 18, 309;
_Memories_, 28, 31;
_Moods, Songs and Doggerels_, 31;
_Plays: First Series_, 30, 309;
_Plays: Second Series_, 309;
_Plays, Fifth Series_, 32;
_Saints Progress_, 18, 31;
_Six Short Plays_, 31, 309;
_Strife_, 30, 309;
_Tatterdemalion_, 31;
_The Burning Spear_, 32;
_The Country House_, 29;
_The Dark Flower_, 31;
_The Eldest Son_, 31;
_The Forsyte Saga_, 17, 21, 31, 96, 97;
_The Foundations_, 31;
_The Freelands_, 31, 32;
_The Fugitive_, 31;
_The Inn of Tranquillity_, 30;
_The Island Pharisees_, 21, 30;
_The Little Dream_, 30;
_The Little Man and Other Satires_, 31;
_The Man of Property_, 13, 30;
_The Mob_, 31;
_The Patrician_, 29, 30;
_The Pigeon_, 31, 309;
_The Prefaces to the Manaton Edition_, 32;
_The Silver Box_, 30, 309;
_The Skin Game_, 31, 309;
_To Let_, 23;
_Villa Rubein_, 21, 30;
_Windows_, 32;
_Galusha the Magnificent_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 326, 344
_Game Animals and the Lives They Live_, by Ernest Thompson Seton, 47
_Garden of Paradise, The_, by Andersen, 169
_Gardening in California_, by Sydney Mitchell, 210
_Gardening Under Glass_, by F. F. Rockwell, 210
Gardiner, A. G., _Sir William Harcourt_, 151
Gardiner, J. H., _The Bible as English Literature_, 265
Garnett, Louise Ayres, _Three to Make Ready_, 177
Garrett, William, _Friday to Monday_, 60
_Gaspards of Pine Croft, The_, by Ralph Connor, 186, 187, 188
_Gay Year, The_, by Dorothy Speare, 216
Geister, Edna, _Fun Book_, 176;
_It Is To Laugh_, 176;
_Let’s Play_, 176
_Gene Stratton-Porter_, by Eugene F. Saxton, 292
_Genesis of the War, The_, by Right Honourable Herbert Henry Asquith,
146
_Genius of America, The_, by Stuart P. Sherman, 265
_Gentle Julia_, by Booth Tarkington, 237
_Gentleman from Indiana, The_, by Booth Tarkington, 217, 218, 222,
227, 236
_Geography of the Great Capitals, A_, by Vaughan Cornish, 49
_George Gissing: A Critical Study_, by Frank Swinnerton, 155
Gerould, Katharine Fullerton, _A Change of Air_, 37;
_Conquistador_, 36, 215;
_Edith Wharton, a Critical Study_, 362;
_Hawaii: Scenes and Impressions_, 38;
_Lost Valley_, 37;
_Modes and Morals_, 36, 37, 258;
_The Great Tradition_, 37;
_The Remarkable Rightness of Rudyard Kipling_, 37;
_Vain Oblations_, 37;
_Valiant Dust_, 37
_Getting a Polish_, by Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson, 237
Gibbs, George, _Fires of Ambition_, 216
Gibbs, Sir Philip, _The Middle of the Road_, 216
_Gibson Upright, The_, by Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson, 237
_Gigolo_, by Edna Ferber, 269
Giles, Herbert A., _A History of Chinese Literature_, 46, 266
_Girl of the Limberlost, A_, by Gene Stratton-Porter, 291
_Girls, The_, by Edna Ferber, 269
_Gist of Golf, The_, by Harry Vardon, 210
Glasgow, Ellen, 260;
_One Man in His Time_, 269;
_The Deliverance_, 269;
_The Shadowy Third_, 215, 269
Glazier, Richard, _Historic Textile Fabrics_, 212
Gleaves, Admiral Albert, _The Life of an American Sailor_, 154
_Glimpses of the Moon, The_, by Edith Wharton, 352, 362
_Going-to-the-Sun_, by Vachel Lindsay, 305
_Golden Spider, The_, by Francis Lynde, 173
_Goldfish, The_, by Arthur Train, 101
Goldschmidt, Richard, _The Mechanism and Physiology of
Sex Determination_, 208
Goldwyn, Samuel, _Behind the Screen_, 149
Gordon, Major Charles W. (see Ralph Connor), 185
Gordon, Margery, and Marie B. King, _Verse of Our Day_, 307
Gosse, Edmund, _Three French Moralists_, 319
_Gothic Rose, The_, by Wilfred Rowland Childe, 300, 301
Graham, Stephen, _In Quest of El Dorado_, 42;
_Tramping With a Poet in the Rockies_, 50
Grahame, Kenneth, _The Wind in the Willows_, 170
Grant, Madison, _The Passing of the Great Race_, 195, 266, 380
Gray, Joslyn, _Bouncing Bet_, 174;
_Elsie Marley_, 174;
_Kathleen’s Probation_, 174;
_Rosemary Greenaway_, 174;
_Rusty Miller_, 174;
_The January Girl_, 174;
_The Old Mary Metcalf Place_, 174
Gray, Terence, _And in the Tomb Were Found_, 45;
_The Life of Hatshepsut_, 45
Grayson, David (_Adventures in Contentment_), 38;
_Adventures in Friendship_, 39;
_Great Possessions_, 39;
_Hempfield_, 39;
_The Friendly Road_, 39
Grimm Brothers, _Fairy Tales_, 168
Grimshaw, Beatrice, 55;
_Nobody’s Island_, 55;
_The Sands of Oro_, 55
Groesbeck, H. O. Jr., _The Process and Practice of Photo-Engraving_,
209
_Guest of Quesnay, The_, by Booth Tarkington, 237
_Gunner Aboard the “Yankee,” A_, by Russell Doubleday, 174
_Guns of Bull Run, The_, by Joseph A. Altsheler, 172
_Grandissimes, The_, by George W. Cable, 319
_Great Game of Politics, The_, by Frank R. Kent, 213
_Great Possessions_, David Grayson, 39
_Great Sioux Trail, The_, by Joseph A. Altsheler, 172
_Great Tradition, The_, by Katharinen Fullerton Gerould, 37
_Greater Inclination, The_, by Edith Wharton, 349, 361
_Greatest Story in the World, The_, by Horace G. Hutchinson, 266
_Greek View of Life, The_, by G. Lowes Dickinson, 208, 266
_Greenmantle_, by John Buchan, 60
_Grey Wethers_, by V. Sackville-West, 117, 118
_Ground Swell, The_, by Alfred B. Stanford, 216, 317
Haggard, Andrew C. P., _Victor Hugo_, 155
_Hail and Farewell_, by George Moore, 315
_Half-Hours_, by J. M. Barrie, 308
Hall, Amanda, _The Dancer in the Shrine_, 298, 299
Hall, G. Stanley, _Adolescence_, 147
_Jesus the Christ, in the Light of Psychology_ 207;
_Life and Confessions of a Psychologist_, 146, 147;
_Senescence_, 147
_Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America_, by Frank M. Chapman, 176
_Handbook of Cookery for a Small House, A_, by Jessie Conrad, 210
_Hans Brinker_, by Mary Mapes Dodge, 170
Harker, L. Allen, _The Really Romantic Age_, 215
Harris, Corra, _The House of Helen_, 216
Harris, Emerson P., and Florence Harris, _The Community Newspaper_,
212
Harris, Joel Chandler, _Brer Rabbit_, 160;
_Uncle Remus_, 167, 168
Harrison, Frederic, 35
_Harvester, The_, by Gene Stratton-Porter, 281, 291
_Haunted Bookshop, The_, by Christopher Morley, 364, 372, 379
_Hawaii, Scenes and Impressions_, by Katharine Fullerton Gerould, 38
Hawthorne, Hildegarde, 340;
_Joseph C. Lincoln’s America_, 344;
_Harold Bell Wright, the Man Behind the Novels_, 138
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, _A Wonder Book_, 171;
_The Scarlet Letter_, 261
_Head Coach, The_, by Ralph D. Paine, 173
_Heart’s Kindred_, by Zona Gale, 253
_Heir, The_, by V. Sackville-West, 109, 110, 118
_Helen of the Old House_, by Harold Bell Wright, 119, 136, 138
_Hellenism and Christianity_, by Edwyn Bevan, 266
_Hempfield_, David Grayson, 39
Hendrick, Burton J., _The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page_, 142,
143
Henley, W. E., _Poems_, 304
Henry, O., 318, 355;
_Other O. Henry Stories for Boys_, 174;
_The Ransom of Red Chief_, 174
Henty, G. A., _Bravest of the Brave_, 163;
_By Sheer Pluck_, 164;
_With Clive in India_, 164
_Her Father’s Daughter_, by Gene Stratton-Porter, 286, 290, 292
_Here You Have Me_, by Robert Roe, 304
Herford, Oliver, _Neither Here Nor There_, 63;
_This Giddy Globe_, 63
_Heritage_, by V. Sackville-West, 110, 118
_Herman Melville_, by Raymond Weaver, 262
_Hermione_, by Don Marquis, 58, 317
_Hermit and the Wild Woman, The_, by Edith Wharton, 361
_Hermit of Turkey Hollow, The_, by Arthur Train, 101
_Hero, The_, by Gilbert Emery, 312
_Hero of Erie, The_, by J. Barnes, 175
_Hero of Manila, The_, by Rossiter Johnson, 175
_Heroes of the Ruins_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 173
Herrold, Lloyd Dallas, _Advertising for the Retailer_, 211
Heyliger, William, _Don Strong, American_, 172;
_Don Strong, Patrol Leader_, 172;
_Don Strong of the Wolf Patrol_, 172;
_High Benton_, 162, 172;
_High Benton, Worker_, 172;
_The Spirit of the Leader_, 162
_Hidden People, The_, by Leo E. Miller, 173
_Hide and Seek_, by Christopher Morley, 367, 375, 379
_High Benton_, by William Heyliger, 162, 172
_High Benton, Worker_, by William Heyliger, 172
_His Children’s Children_, by Arthur Train, 95, 96, 97, 98, 101
_His Own People_, by Booth Tarkington, 237
_Historic Textile Fabrics_, by Richard Glazier, 212
_History of Art in Egypt_, by G. Maspero, 45
_History of Assyria_, by A. T. Olmstead, 45
_History of Chinese Literature, A_, by Herbert A. Giles, 266
_History of Don Quixote de la Mancha_, edited by J. B. Trend, 170
_History of Egypt_, by James Henry Breasted, 45
Holliday, Robert Cortes, 371;
_Booth Tarkington_, 221, 238;
_Broome Street Straws_, 238;
_In the Neighborhood of Murray Hill_, 44;
and Alexander Van Rensselaer, _The Business of Writing_, 212.
Holloway, Emory, editor of _Uncollected Poetry and Prose of Walt
Whitman_, 263
_Holy Land, and Syria, The_, by Frank Carpenter, 41
_Home Handy Book, The_, by A. Frederick Collins, 176
_Homing With the Birds_, by Gene Stratton-Porter, 292
Hooker, Forrestine, _Prince Jan, St. Bernard_, 168;
_Star: The Story of an Indian Pony_, 160
_Hope of Happiness, The_, by Meredith Nicholson, 205
Hornaday, William T., _The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals_, 47, 167
Hotchkiss, George Burton, and Richard B. Franken, _The Leadership
of Advertised Brands_, 211
Hough, Emerson, _North of Thirty-Six_, 216
_House of Helen, The_, by Corra Harris, 216
_House of Mirth, The_, by Edith Wharton, 346, 349, 356, 361
_House Plants_, by Parker T. Barnes, 210
Housman, Laurence, _Stories from the Arabian Nights_, 171
Howe, P. P., _The Best of Hazlitt_, 262;
_The Life of William Hazlitt_, 155, 262
_How to Box_, by Norman Clark, 211
_How to Fly_, by A. Frederick Collins, 176
_How to Make the Best of Life_, by Arnold Bennett, 267
_How to Sing_, by Luisa Tetrazzini, 209
Hoxie, Robert F., _Trade Unionism in the United States_, 212
Hubbard, W. Hustace, _Cotton and the Cotton Market_, 212
Hudson, Jay William, _Abbé Pierre_, 203;
_Nowhere Else in the World_, 203
_Human Nature in the Bible_, by William Lyon Phelps, 265
_Humanizing of Knowledge, The_, by James Harvey Robinson, 189, 191,
208, 212
Hume, Cyril, _The Wife of the Centaur_, 200
Huneker, James Gibbons, _Steeplejack_, 154, 262
Huneker, Josephine, editor of _Letters of James Gibbons Huneker_, 154
_Hunters of the Hill, The_, by Joseph A. Altsheler, 172
_Hunting Hidden Treasure in the Andes_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 173
_Huntingtower_, by John Buchan, 60
Hutchinson, Horace G., _The Greatest Story in the World_, 266
Huxley, Aldous, 34;
_Crome Yellow_, 315;
_Mortal Coils_, 315;
_On the Margin_, 34, 35
_Ideals of Theodore Roosevelt, The_, by Edward H. Cotton, 207
_Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt_, by Lawrence F. Abbott, 260
_In Chancery_, by John Galsworthy, 23, 31
_In Cotton Wool_, by W. B. Maxwell, 257
_In Morocco_, by Edith Wharton, 350, 362
_In Quest of El Dorado_, by Stephen Graham, 42
_In the Arena_, by Booth Tarkington, 228, 231, 237
_In the Days Before Columbus_, by Frances Rolt-Wheeler, 174
_In the Neighborhood of Murray Hill_, by Robert Cortes Holliday, 44
_In the Tiger’s Lair_, by Leo E. Miller, 173
_In the Wasp’s Nest_, by Cyrus Townsend Brady, 175
_In the Wilds of South America_, by Leo E. Miller, 49
_India in Ferment_, by C. M. Van Tyne, 47
_Indian Summer of a Forsyte_, by John Galsworthy, 23
_“Indiscretions” of Lady Susan_, by Lady Susan Townley, 153
_Inheritors, The_, by Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Hueffer, 88
_Inn of Tranquillity, The_, by John Galsworthy, 30
_Inns and Taverns of Pickwick, The_, by B. W. Matz, 50
_Interior Decoration_, by Frank Alvah Parsons, 209
_Intimate Strangers, The_, by Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson,
238
_Irish Guards in the Great War, The_, by Rudyard Kipling, 143, 258
Irwin, Will, _Christ or Mars_, 207
_Island Pharisees, The_, by John Galsworthy, 21, 30
_Italian Backgrounds_, by Edith Wharton, 350, 361
_Italian Villas and Their Gardens_, by Edith Wharton, 350, 361
_It Is To Laugh_, by Edna Geister, 176
_J. Hardin and Son_, by Brand Whitlock, 200, 201
_Jack of All Trades, The_, by Dan Beard, 171
_Jack Straw_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 310
Jacks, L. P., _Religious Perplexities_, 191, 192
Jacobs, W. W., _At Sunwich Port_, 319;
_Salthaven_, 319
James, Henry, 316, 345, 355, 372;
_Notes of a Son and Brother_, 262
_January Girl, The_, by Joslyn Gray, 174
_Java and the East Indies_, by Frank Carpenter, 41
_Jay Bird Who Went Tame, The_, by John Breck, 168
_Jeeves_, by P. G. Wodehouse, 59
_Jennifer Lorn_, by Elinor Wylie, 315
_Jeremy_, by Hugh Walpole, 258
_Jeremy and Hamlet_, by Hugh Walpole, 258
_Jerusalem_, by Selma Lagerlöf, 250
_Jesus, the Christ_, by G. Stanley Hall, 207
_Jocelyn_, by John Galsworthy, 21
_John Keats_, by Sir Sidney Colvin, 262
_John H. Patterson_, by Samuel Crowther, 154
_John-No-Brawn_, by George Looms, 203, 204
Johnson, Rossiter, _The Hero of Manila_, 175
Johnson, William, _The Waddington Cipher_, 61
_Joining in Public Discussion_, by Alfred Dwight Sheffield, 208, 209
_Jolly Tinker, The_, by Frank M. Rich, 176
_Joseph Conrad: A Study_, by Richard Curle, 70
_Joseph Conrad_, by Ruth M. Stauffer, 89
_Joseph Conrad: The Man_, by Elbridge L. Adams, 90
_Joseph C. Lincoln’s America_, by Hildegarde Hawthorne, 344
_Journey to the Center of the Earth, A_, by Jules Verne, 173
_Joy_, by John Galsworthy, 30
_Joy of Living, The_, by Edith Wharton, 362
_Jungle Books_, by Rudyard Kipling, 166, 168
_Justice_, by John Galsworthy, 13, 30, 309
_Kai Lung’s Golden Hours_, by Ernest Bramah, 316, 317
Kaufman, George S., and Marc Connelly, _To the Ladies_, 312
_Kathleen_, by Christopher Morley, 367, 375, 379
_Kathleen’s Probation_, by Joslyn Gray, 174
Keene, Frances B., _Lyrics of the Links_, 63
Keller, Helen, _The Story of My Life_, 260
Kenlon, John, _Fourteen Years a Sailor_, 153, 165
Kennedy, A. L., _Old Diplomacy and New_, 151
Kent, Frank R., _The Great Game of Politics_, 213
_Kent Knowles: Quahaug_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 344
_Keziah Coffin_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 339, 343.
_Kidnapped_, by Robert Louis Stevenson, 169
Kilmer, Aline, 300
_Kim_, by Rudyard Kipling, 166, 258
King, Basil, _The Conquest of Fear_, 267
King, Marie B., and Margery Gordon, _Verse of Our Day_, 307
Kingsley, Charles, _Westward Ho!_, 169
Kipling, Rudyard, 304;
_Captains Courageous_, 166;
_Jungle Books_, 166;
_Kim_, 166, 258;
_How the Alphabet Was Made_, 168;
_Plain Tales from the Hills_, 258;
_The Brushwood Boy_, 258;
_The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo_, 168;
_The Elephant’s Child_, 168;
_The Irish Guards in the Great War_, 143;
_They_, 258
Kirkpatrick, Frank H., _Public Speaking_, 209
_Kiss for Cinderella, A_, by J. M. Barrie, 308
Kleiser, Grenville, _Training for Power and Leadership_, 211
_Knights Errant_, by Sister M. Madeleva, 301
_Knole and the Sackvilles_, by V. Sackville-West, 105, 118, 156
Kohlsaat, H. H., _From McKinley to Harding_, 154
Krock, Arthur, _The Editorials of Henry Watterson_, 154
Kruhm, Adolph, _The Vegetable Garden_, 210
Kummer, Frederick Arnold, _The First Days of Knowledge_, 159;
_The First Days of Man_, 159
_Laddie_, by Gene Stratton-Porter, 291
_Lady Frederick_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 310
_Lady from the Air, The_, by C. N. and A. M. Williamson, 61
_Lady Palmerston and Her Times_, by Mabell, Countess of Airlie, 151
_Lady Rose Weigall_, by Rachel Weigall, 152, 153
Lagerlöf, Selma, 259;
_Jerusalem_, 259;
_The Emperor of Portugallia_, 259;
_The Further Adventures of Nils_, 160;
_The Story of Gösta Berling_, 259;
_The Wonderful Adventures of Nils_, 160
Lambskin Library, 255, 260
_La Parcelle 32_, by Ernest Perochon, 216
Lanier, Sidney, _The Boy’s King Arthur_, 169
_Last of the Chiefs, The_, by Joseph A. Altsheler, 172
_Last of the Mohicans, The_, by J. Fenimore Cooper, 169
_Last Rebel, The_, by Joseph A. Altsheler, 172
_Laugh a Day Keeps the Doctor Away, A_, by Irvin Cobb, 63
_Lawns_, by Leonard Barron, 210
_Law of Sales, The_, by James Burton Read, 211
_Leadership of Advertised Brands, The_, by George Burton Hotchkiss,
and Richard B. Franken, 211
_Leave it to Psmith_, by P. G. Wodehouse, 59
_Leaves of Grass_, by Walt Whitman, 263
Lefevre, Edwin, _Reminiscences of a Stock Operator_, 212
_Legend of Ulenspiegel_, by Charles De Coster, 269
Leighton, Joseph, _The Field of Philosophy_, 208
_Let’s Play_, by Edna Geister, 176
_Letters and Papers of John Addington Symonds_, edited by
Horatio F. Brown, 262
_Letters of Anne Gilchrist, The_, by Horace Traubel, 263
_Letters of James Gibbons Huneker_, edited by Josephine Huneker, 154
_Letters of James Huneker_, 262
_Letters of Henry James, The_, edited by Percy Lubbock, 262
_Letters of Lord and Lady Wolseley, The_, edited by
Sir George Arthur, 152
_Life and Confessions of a Psychologist_, by G. Stanley Hall, 146, 147
_Life and Death of Mrs. Tidmus, The_, by Wilfred Blair, 302
_Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, The_, by Burton J. Hendrick, 142,
143
_Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria_, by G. Maspero, 45
_Life of an American Sailor_, edited by Admiral Albert Gleaves, 154
_Life of Dr. James Robertson, The_, by Ralph Connor, 187
_Life of Sir William Harcourt_, by A. G. Gardiner, 151
_Life of Hatshepsut_, by Terence Gray, 45
_Life of Johnson_, by Boswell, 261
_Life of Reason, The_, by George Santayana, 194
_Life of Lord Rosebery, The_, by E. T. Raymond, 155
_Life of William Schwenk Gilbert, The_, by Sidney Dark, 155
_Life of William Hazlitt, The_, by P. P. Howe, 155, 262
Lie, Jonas, _The Family at Gilje_, 201, 202
_Lige Mounts_, by Frank B. Linderman, 173
Lincoln, Joseph C., 321;
_Cape Cod Ballads_, 325, 343;
_Cap’n Dan’s Daughter_, 344;
_Cap’n Eri_, 325, 343;
_Cap’n Warren’s Wards_, 344;
_Cy Whittaker’s Place_, 339, 343;
_Doctor Nye of North Ostable_, 336, 337, 338, 344;
_Extricating Obadiah_, 326, 344;
_Fair Harbor_, 344;
_Galusha the Magnificent_, 326, 344;
_Kent Knowles: Quahaug_, 344;
_Keziah Coffin_, 339, 343;
_Mary-Gusta_, 344;
_Mr. Pratt_, 343;
_Mr. Pratt’s Patients_, 344;
_Our Village_, 343;
_Partners of the Tide_, 339, 343;
_Shavings_, 327, 332, 339;
_Some Samples of Yankee Shrewdness_, 335, 344;
_Thankful’s Inheritance_, 339, 344;
_The Depot Master_, 343;
_The “Old Home House,”_ 343;
_The Rise of Roscoe Paine_, 344;
_The Portygee_, 332, 339, 340, 344;
_The Postmaster_, 331, 339, 344;
_The Woman-Haters_, 344
Linderman, Frank B., _Lige Mounts_, 173
Lindsay, Vachel, 42;
_Going-to-the-Sun_, 305
_Little Black Bear, The_, by May Byron, 168
_Little Brown Rooster, The_, by May Byron, 168
_Little Essays Drawn from the Works of George Santayana_,
by Logan Pearsall Smith, 194
_Little Essays of Love and Virtue_, by Havelock Ellis, 267
_Little Grey House, The_, by Marion Ames Taggart, 174
_Little Jarvis_, by Molly Elliot Seawell, 175
_Little Lord Fauntleroy_, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, 170
_Little Tan Terrier, The_, by May Byron, 168
_Little Yellow Duckling, The_, by May Byron, 168
_Little Warrior, The_, by P. G. Wodehouse, 59, 60
_Lives of the Hunted_, by Ernest Thompson Seton, 167
Lloyd George, 146;
_Where Are We Going?_ 146
_Lochinvar Luck_, by Albert Payson Terhune, 165
_Locked Book, The_, by Frank L. Packard, 60
Looms, George, _John-No-Brawn_, 203, 204
_Loose Leaves_, by Katherine Dayton, 63
_Lord Jim_, by Joseph Conrad, 64, 79, 84, 88, 329
_Lord Northcliffe: A Memoir_, by Max Pemberton, 153
_Lost Hunters, The_, by Joseph A. Altsheler, 172
_Lost Valley_, by Katharine Fullerton Gerould, 37
_Love Legend, The_, by Woodward Boyd, 215
_Lovers of Pelleas and Ettarre, The_, by Zona Gale, 253
_Loyalties_, by John Galsworthy, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 32, 309
Lubbock, Percy, Earlham, 156;
_The Letters of Henry James_, 262
Lynde, Francis, _The Golden Spider_, 173
Lyon, A. Laurance, _The Pomp of Power_, 151;
_When There Is No Peace_, 151
_Lyrics of the Links_, by Frances B. Keene, 63
Mabell, Countess of Airlie, _Lady Palmerston and Her Times_, 151
MacGrath, Harold, _The Drums of Jeopardy_, 62;
_The Man With Three Names_, 62;
_The Pagan Madonna_, 62;
_The Ragged Edge_, 62;
_The World Outside_, 62
Mackenzie, Compton, _Carnival_, 319;
_Parson’s Progress_, 199;
_Sinister Street_, 319;
_The Altar Steps_, 199
Mackintosh, Charles Henry, _Creative Selling_, 211
MacLaurin, C., M.D., _Post Mortem_, 152
_Madame Claire_, by Susan Ertz, 216
_Madame de Treymes_, by Edith Wharton, 361
Madeleva, Sister M., _Knights Errant_, 301
_Magic Casements_, by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora A. Smith, 169
_Magic-Makers of Morocco, The_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 173
_Magic Sea Shell, The_, by John Farrar, 176
_Magnificent Ambersons, The_, by Booth Tarkington, 226, 229, 230 237,
238
_Major, The_, by Ralph Connor, 186, 188
_Making Letters Pay_, by Edward H. Schulze, 211
_Making of the Western Mind, The_, by F. Melian Stawell, and
F. S. Marvin, 208
_Making of an Executive, The_, by A. Hamilton Church, 211
_Man and the Attainment of Immortality_ by James Y. Simpson, 207
_Man From Glengarry, The_, by Ralph Connor, 183, 187
_Man from Home, The_, by Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson, 237
_Man From Maine, A_, by Edward W. Bok, 154
_Man of Devon and Other Stories, A_, by John Galsworthy, 21
_Man of Property, The_, by John Galsworthy, 13, 23, 30
_Man Who Rocked the Earth, The_, by Arthur Train and Robert
William Wood, 101
_Man With Three Names, The_, by Harold MacGrath, 62
_Margot Asquith_, 152
_Marne, The_, by Edith Wharton, 350, 362
Marquand, J. P., _Four of a Kind_, 215
Marquis, Don, 57, 371;
_Carter and Other People_, 58;
_Dreams and Dust_, 59;
_Hermione_, 58, 317;
_Noah an’ Jonah an’ Captain John Smith_, 58;
_Prefaces_, 58;
_Poems and Portraits_, 59, 294;
_Premonitions_, 294;
and Christopher Morley, _Pandora Lifts the Lid_, 58, 59, 215, 379;
_Sonnets to a Red-Haired Lady and Famous Love Affairs_, 58, 294;
_The Almost Perfect State_, 58;
_The Cruise of the Jasper B._, 58;
_The Name_, 293;
_The Old Soak_, 58;
_The Revolt of the Oyster_, 58
_Marriage Verdict, The_, by Frank H. Spearman, 215
“_Marse Henry_,” by Henry Watterson, 155
Marshall, Bernard, _The Torch Bearers_, 176
Marshall, H. E., _This Country of Ours_, 175
Martens, Frederick H., _The Art of the Prima Donna_, 209
Martin, Percy B., _Egypt Old and New_, 45
Marvin, F. S. (and F. Melian Stawell), _The Making of the
Western Mind_, 208
_Mary-’Gusta_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 344
Mason, A. E. W., 256;
_The Four Feathers_, 56;
_The Summons_, 56;
_The Winding Stair_, 56;
_The Witness for the Defense_, 56
Masson, Thomas L., _That Silver Lining_, 63
Maspero, G., _Egyptian Art: Studies_, 45;
_History of Art in Egypt_, 45;
_Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria_, 45
_Mass-Men, The_, by Ernest Toller, 311
_Matahari_, by H. O. Morgenthaler, 47
Mathews, Basil, _The Quest of Liberty_, 175
Matthews, Brander, _Poems of American Patriotism_, 169;
_The Tocsin of Revolt_, 267
Mathiews, Franklin K., editor of _The Boy Scouts’ Book of Campfire
Stories_, 171
Matz, B. W., _Dickensian Inns and Taverns_, 50;
_The Inns and Taverns of Pickwick_, 50
Maugham, W. Somerset, _Jack Straw_, 310;
_Lady Frederick_, 310;
_The Circle_, 310;
_The Explorer_, 310;
_The Moon and Sixpence_, 259, 260;
_The Trembling of a Leaf_, 310
Maxwell, W. B., 256;
_In Cotton Wool_, 257;
_Mrs. Thompson_, 257;
_Spinster of This Parish_, 257;
_The Day’s Journey_, 257;
_The Devil’s Garden_, 257
_McAllister and His Double_, by Arthur Train, 101
McCormick, Elsie, _Audacious Angles on China_, 46
McFee, William, _Casuals of the Sea_, 316, 317, 374;
_Command_, 317
McKnight, George H., _English Words and Their Background_, 266
McNeile, H. C., _The Black Gang_, 61;
_The Dinner Club_, 61
McVey, Frank L., _Modern Industrialism_, 212
_Mechanism and Physiology of Sex Determination_, by Richard
Goldschmidt, 208
_Memories_, by John Galsworthy, 28
_Memories and Notes of Persons and Places_, by Sir Sidney Colvin, 262
_Memories of a Turkish Statesman_, by Djemal Pasha, 150
_Memories of Later Years_, by Oscar Browning, 152
_Memoirs of the Empress Eugenie_, by Comte Fleury, 151
_Men and Animals_, by Carl Akeley, 48
_Men of the Old Stone Age_, by Henry Fairfield Osborn, 266
_Mercy of Allah, The_, by Hilaire Belloc, 265
_Mermaid and Other Stories, The_, by Andersen, 169
_Merry Adventures of Robin Hood_, 169
_Mexico_, by C. Reginald Enock, 49
_Michael O’Halloran_, by Gene Stratton-Porter, 291
_Middle Father, The_, by Anthony M. Rud, 215
_Middle of the Road, The_, by Sir Philip Gibbs, 216
_Midshipman Farragut_, by J. Barnes, 175
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, 264
_Midwinter_, by John Buchan, 60, 199
Miller, Leo E., _Adrift on the Amazon_, 173;
_In the Tiger’s Lair_, 173;
_In the Wilds of South America_, 49;
_The Black Phantom_, 173;
_The Hidden People_, 173
Miller, Warren H., _Camping Out_, 171;
_Canoeing, Sailing and Motorboating_, 171;
_The Boy’s Book of Hunting and Fishing_, 171
_Mince Pie_, by Christopher Morley, 364, 375, 379
_Minds and Manners of Wild Animals, The_, by Wm. T. Hornaday, 47, 167
_Mine with the Iron Door, The_, by Harold Bell Wright, 135, 138
_Mirror of the Sea, The_, by Joseph Conrad, 69, 80, 86, 88
_Miss Bracegirdle and Others_, by Stacy Aumonier, 215
_Miss Lulu Bett_, by Zona Gale, 250, 251, 252, 253
_Mister Antonio_, by Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson, 237
Mitchell, John Ames, _Amos Judd_, 319
Mitchell, Ruth Comfort, _Corduroy_, 216
Mitchell, Sydney, _Gardening in California_, 210
_Mob, The_, by John Galsworthy, 31
_Modern Auction, 1923_, by Grace G. Montgomery, 210
_Modern College and a Modern School, A_, by Abraham Flexner, 212
_Modern Essays_, by Christopher Morley, 379
_Modern Industrialism_, by Frank L. McVey, 212
Modern Student’s Library, 255
_Modes and Morals_, by Katharine Fullerton Gerould, 36, 258
_Monsieur Beaucaire_, by Booth Tarkington, 217, 218, 222, 236;
and E. G. Sutherland, 237
_Monsieur Jonquelle_, by Melville Davisson Post, 53
_Monsieur Lecoq_, by Emile Gaboriau, 52
Montague, C. E., _Fiery Particles_, 316, 317
Montgomery, Grace G., _Modern Auction, 1923_, 210
_Moods, Songs, and Doggerels_, by John Galsworthy, 31
_Moon and Sixpence, The_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 259, 260
Moore, Annie Carroll, _New Roads to Childhood_, 177;
_Roads to Childhood_, 177
Moore, George, 235, 356, 372;
_Hail and Farewell_, 315
Morgenthaler, H. O., _Matahari_, 47
Morgenthau, Henry, _All in a Lifetime_, 153
Morley, Christopher, 373;
_Chimneysmoke_, 305, 377, 379;
_Hide and Seek_, 367, 375, 379;
_Kathleen_, 367, 375, 379;
_Mince Pie_, 364, 375, 379;
_Modern Essays_, 379;
_Parnassus on Wheels_, 364, 368, 370, 379;
_Parson’s Pleasure_, 304, 373, 378, 379;
_Pipefuls_, 364, 375, 379;
_Plum Pudding_, 379;
_Rehearsal_, 379;
and Bart Haley, _In the Sweet Dry and Dry_, 367, 379;
and Don Marquis, _Pandora Lifts the Lid_, 58, 215, 379;
_Shandygaff_, 364, 371, 372, 379;
_Songs for a Little House_, 367, 379;
_Tales from a Roll-top Desk_, 376, 379;
_The Eighth Sin_, 379;
_The Haunted Bookshop_, 364, 372, 379;
_The Powder of Sympathy_, 377, 379;
_The Rocking Horse_, 367, 372, 379;
_Thursday Evening_, 379;
_Translations from the Chinese_, 379;
_Travels in Philadelphia_, 367, 375, 379;
_Where the Blue Begins_, 369, 379
_Morning Face_, by Gene Stratton-Porter, 291
Morris, Lloyd, _The Poetry of Edwin Arlington Robinson_, 306
_Mortal Coils_, by Aldous Huxley, 315
_Mortmain_, by Arthur Train, 101
_Mostly About Nibble the Bunny_, by John Breck, 168
_Mostly Sally_, by P. G. Wodehouse, 59, 60
_Motherless, The_, by Bengt Berg, 215
_Mothers to Men_, by Zona Gale, 253
_Moths of the Limberlost_, by Gene Stratton-Porter, 281, 291
_Motley, A_, by John Galsworthy, 30
_Motor-Flight Through France, A_, by Edith Wharton, 350, 361
_Mr. Lloyd George_, by E. T. Raymond, 154
_Mr. Pratt_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 343
_Mr. Pratt’s Patients_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 344
_Mrs. Thompson_, by W. B. Maxwell, 257
Mullins, Isla May, _Captain Pluck_, 174
Murray Hill Library, 255
_Music of the Wild_, by Gene Stratton-Porter, 291
_My Best Story_, 268
_My Boyhood_, by John Burroughs, 153
_My Garden_, by Louise Beebe Wilder, 210
_My Life and Work_, by Henry Ford, and Samuel Crowther, 153
_My Memories of Eighty Years_, by Chauncey M. Depew, 154
_My Musical Life_, by Walter Damrosch, 154
Myers, L. H., _The Orissers_, 215
_Myself and a Few Moros_, by Sidney A. Cloman, 47
_Mysterious Island, The_, by Jules Verne, 169
_Mysterious Rifleman_, by Everett T. Tomlinson, 175
Naether, Carl A., _The Business Letter_, 211
Nature Library, 261
_Neighborhood Stories_, by Zona Gale, 253
_Neighbors_, by Zona Gale, 253
_Neither Here Nor There_, by Oliver Herford, 63
_New Jerusalem, The_, by G. K. Chesterton, 48
_New Roads to Childhood_, by Annie Carroll Moore, 177
Newberry, Percy Edward, _The Valley of the Kings_, 46
_New World of Islam, The_, by Lothrop Stoddard, 207, 381, 382, 386
_Nibble Rabbit Makes More Friends_, by John Breck, 168
_Nice People_, by Rachel Crothers, see _Contemporary American Plays_,
312
Nicholson, Meredith, _Broken Barriers_, 205, 215;
_The Hope of Happiness_, 205
Nielsen, Kay, 161;
ill. _East of the Sun and West of the Moon_, 170;
_The Twelve Dancing Princesses_, 168, 170
_Nigger of the Narcissus, The_, by Joseph Conrad, 71, 78, 79, 80, 87
_Night of the Wedding, The_, by C. N. and A. M. Williamson, 61
_Nineteenth Century Romance, A_, by C. H. Dudley Ward, 152
_Noah an’ Jonah an’ Captain John Smith_, by Don Marquis, 58
_Nobody’s Island_, by Beatrice Grimshaw, 55
_Nocturne_, by Frank Swinnerton, 202;
_The Pit_, 319
Norris, Kathleen, _Butterfly_, 215;
_Certain People of Importance_, 269
_North of Thirty-six_, by Emerson Hough, 216
_Northern Italy_, by Baedeker, 40
_Nostromo_, by Joseph Conrad, 21, 64, 67, 73, 79, 84, 88, 111, 113,
114, 115, 116
_Notes of a Son and Brother_, by Henry James, 262
_Notes on Life and Letters_, by Joseph Conrad, 89
_Nowhere Else in the World_, by William Jay Hudson, 203
O’Connor, V. C. Scott, _A Vision of Morocco_, 48
_O. Henry, Biography_, by C. Alphonso Smith, 262
_Old Diplomacy and New_, by A. L. Kennedy, 151
_“Old Home House,” The_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 343
_Old Inns_, by Cecil Aldin, 50
_Old Lady Shows Her Medals, The_, by J. M. Barrie, 308
_Old Mary Metcalf Place, The_, by Joslyn Gray, 174
_Old Morocco and the Forbidden Atlas_, by C. E. Andrews, 48
_Old Soak, The_, by Don Marquis, 58
_Old Wives’ Tale, The_, by Arnold Bennett, 116, 128, 200, 329
Olmstead, A. T., _History of Assyria_, 45
_On_, by Hilaire Belloc, 44, 265
_One Man in His Time_, by Ellen Glasgow, 269
_On the Borderland_, by F. Britten Austin, 61
_On the Gorilla Trail_, by Mary Hastings Bradley, 48
_On the Margin_, by Aldous Huxley, 34, 35
_On the Old Kearsage_, by Cyrus Townsend Brady, 175
_Orchard and Vineyard_, by V. Sackville-West, 110, 118
_Orissers, The_, by L. H. Myers, 215
Osborn, Henry Fairfield, _Men of the Old Stone Age_, 266
_Other O. Henry Stories for Boys_, 174
_Our Winter Birds_, by Frank M. Chapman, 176
_Outdoor Handy Book, The_, by Dan Beard, 171
_Out Trail, The_, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 43
_Overset_, by Franklin P. Adams, 305
_P’s and Q’s_, by Tannahill, Sallie B., 211
_Pagan Madonna, The_, by Harold MacGrath, 62
Page, Roswell, _Thomas Nelson Page_, 153
Page, Thomas Nelson, _Washington and Its Romance_, 49
Page, Walter H., 142
Packard, Frank L., _The Four Stragglers_, 60;
_The Locked Book_, 60
Paget, Lady Walburga, _Embassies I Have Known_, 155
Paine, Ralph D., _A Cadet of the Black Star Line_, 173;
_Campus Days_, 173;
_College Days_, 173;
_Sandy Sawyer, Sophomore_, 173;
_Sons of Eli_, 173;
_The Fugitive Freshman_, 173;
_The Head Coach_, 173;
_The Stroke Oar_, 173
Paleologue, Maurice, _An Ambassador’s Memoirs_, 151
_Palestine Notebook, A_, by C. R. Ashbee, 48
_Pandora Lifts the Lid_, by Don Marquis and Christopher Morley, 58,
59, 215, 379
_Parnassus on Wheels_, by Christopher Morley, 364, 368, 370, 379
_Parody Outline of History, A_, by Donald Ogden Stewart, 239, 243, 244
Parrish, Maxfield, ill. of _The Arabian Nights_, 170;
_Poems of Childhood_, 170
Parsons, Frank Alvah, _Interior Decoration_, 209;
_The Psychology of Dress_, 209
Parsons, Floyd, _Everybody’s Business_, 213
_Parson’s Pleasure_, by Christopher Morley, 305, 373, 378, 379
_Parson’s Progress_, by Compton Mackenzie, 199
_Partners of the Tide_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 339, 343
_Passing of the Great Race, The_, by Madison Grant, 195, 266, 380
Pasteur, Louis, _Creative Chemistry_, 195
_Patrician, The_, by John Galsworthy, 29, 30
_Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail, The_, by Ralph Connor, 183, 184, 188
_Paul Jones_, by Molly Elliot Seawell, 175
_Peace in Friendship Village_, by Zona Gale, 253
Pearson, Gilbert T., _The Bird Study Book_, 176
Peixotto, Ernest, _Through Spain and Portugal_, 48
Pemberton, Max, _Lord Northcliffe: A Memoir_, 153
_Penrod_, by Booth Tarkington, 229, 237
_Penrod and Sam_, by Booth Tarkington, 229, 237
_Perfect Behavior_, by Donald Ogden Stewart, 244, 246
_Perilous Seat, The_, by Caroline Dale Snedeker, 174
Perochon, Ernest, _La Parcelle_, 32, 216
Perry, Lawrence, _For the Game’s Sake_, 173;
_The Big Game_, 173;
_The Fullback_, 173
_Personal Record, A_, by Joseph Conrad, 68, 69, 71, 73, 80, 88
_Peru_, by C. Reginald Enock, 49
_Peter Pan_, by J. M. Barrie, 309
Phelps, William Lyon, _Human Nature in the Bible_, 265
Phillips, David Graham, _Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise_, 319
Pier, Arthur Stanwood, _The Boys of Saint Timothy’s_, 173
_Pigeon, The_, by John Galsworthy, 31, 309
_Pilgrim’s Progress_, 120, 131, 280
_Pilot of Swan Creek, The_, by Ralph Connor, 187
_Pipefuls_, by Christopher Morley, 364, 375, 379
_Pit, The_, by Frank Norris, 319
_Places Young Americans Want to Know_, by Everett T. Tomlinson, 175
_Plain Sailing Cook Book, The_, by Susanna Shanklin Browne, 210
_Plain Tales from the Hills_, by Rudyard Kipling, 258
_Planning Your Garden_, by W. S. Rogers, 210
_Plays_, First Series by John Galsworthy, 30, 309;
Second Series, 31, 309;
Third Series, 31;
Fourth Series, 31;
Fifth Series, 32
_Plays for Children_, by S. Lyle Cummins, 177
_Plotting in Pirate Seas_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 173
_Plum Pudding_, by Christopher Morley, 379
_Pocket Bridge Book, A_, by Walter Camp, 210
Pocock, Noel, 161;
ill. of _Fairy Tales_, by Grimm Brothers, 168;
_of Robinson Crusoe_, 170
_Poems and Portraits_, by Don Marquis, 59
_Poems_, by George Santayana, 193
_Poems_, by W. E. Henley, 304
_Poems of Alice Meynell, The_, 300
_Poems of American Patriotism_, chosen by Brander Matthews, 169
_Poems of Childhood_, by Eugene Field, 170
_Poems of West and East_, by V. Sackville-West, 110, 118
_Poetic Procession, The_, by J. F. Roxburgh, 293
_Poetry of Edwin Arlington Robinson, The_, by Lloyd Morris, 306
_Poldekin_, by Booth Tarkington, 232;
and Harry Leon Wilson, 238
_Pomp of Power, The_, by Laurence Lyon, 151
Porter, Jane, _The Scottish Chiefs_, 169
_Portygee, The_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 332, 339, 344
Post, Melville Davisson, _Monsieur Jonquelle_, 53, 54;
_The Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason_, 54;
_Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries_, 53
_Post Mortem_, C. Maclaurin, M. D., 152
_Postmaster, The_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 331, 339, 343
_Powder of Sympathy, The_, by Christopher Morley, 377, 379
_Prefaces_, by Don Marquis, 58
_Present-Day Europe_, by Lothrop Stoddard, 386
_Prince Jan: St. Bernard_, by Forrestine Hooker, 168
_Prince of Malaya, A_, by Sir Hugh Clifford, 47
_Princeton Stories_, by Jesse Lynch Williams, 173
_Print of My Remembrance, The_, by Augustus Thomas, 154
_Prisoner at the Bar, The_, by Arthur Train, 101
_Prospector, The_, by Ralph Connor, 187
_Process and Practice of Photo-Engraving, The_, by H. O. Groesbeck,
Jr., 209
_P’s and Q’s_, by Sallie B. Tannahill, 211
_Psychology of Dress, The_, by Frank Alvah Parsons, 209
_Public Speaking_, by Frank H. Kirkpatrick, 209
_Public Square, The_, by Will Levington Comfort, 216
Pupin, Michael Idvorsky, _From Immigrant to Inventor_, 148
Pyle, Howard, ill. of _The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood_, 169;
_The Story of King Arthur and His Knights_, 169;
_The Story of the Champions of the Round Table_, 169;
_The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur_, 169
_Quality Street_, by J. M. Barrie, 308
_Quest of Liberty_, by Basil Mathews, 175
_Quest of the Four, The_, by Joseph A. Altsheler, 172
_Quest of the Western World, The_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 174
_Quentin Durward_, by Scott, 264
Quinn, Arthur H., _Contemporary American Plays_, 311
Quiller-Couch, _Statement of Gabriel Foot, Highwayman_, 268;
_The Sleeping Beauty_, 171;
_The Twelve Dancing Princesses_, 168, 170
_R. U. R._, by Karel Capek, 311
_Racial History of Man, The_, by Roland B. Dixon, 196
Rackham, Arthur, 161;
ill. of Aesop’s _Fables_, 171;
_A Fairy Book_, 171;
_A Wonder Book_, 171;
Milton’s _Comus_, 264
_Ragged Edge, The_, by Harold MacGrath, 62
_Rain_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 310
_Rainbow Cat, The_, by Rose Fyleman, 158, 168
_Ramsey Milholland_, by Booth Tarkington, 229, 237
_Ransom of Red Chief, The_, by O. Henry, 174
Raymond, E. T., _Mr. Lloyd George_, 154;
_The Life of Lord Rosebery_, 155
Read, James Burton, _The Law of Sales_, 211
_Real Soldiers of Fortune_, by Richard Harding Davis, 175
_Real Story of the Pirate, The_, by A. Hyatt Verrill, 62, 175
_Real Story of the Whaler, The_, by A. Hyatt Verrill, 62, 175
_Really Romantic Age, The_, by L. Allen Harker, 215
_Recall of Love, The_, by Ralph Connor, 187
_Recreations for Girls_, by Lina and Adelia B. Beard, 172
_Re-Creation of Brian Kent, The_, by Harold Bell Wright, 119, 130, 138
_Red Badge of Courage, The_, by Stephen Crane, 319
_Reef, The_, by Edith Wharton, 362
_Rehearsal_, by Christopher Morley, 379
_Religious Perplexities_, by L. P. Jacks, 191, 192
_Reminiscences of a Stock Operator_, by Edwin Lefevre, 212
_Republics of Central and South America_, by C. Reginald Enock, 49
_Rescue, The_, by Joseph Conrad, 17, 72, 79, 84, 88
_Return of the Middle Class, The_, by John Corbin, 265
_Return of the Native, The_, by Hardy, 261
_Revolt Against Civilization, The_, by Lothrop Stoddard, 382, 386
_Revolt of the Oyster, The_, by Don Marquis, 58
Rice, Elmer L., _The Adding Machine_, 311
_Riceyman Steps_, by Arnold Bennett, 200
Rich Frank M., _The Jolly Tinker_, 176
Richmond, Grace S., _Rufus_, 215
Riley, Alice C. D., _Ten Minutes by the Clock_, 177
Riley, James Whitcomb, 124, 221
Rinehart, Mary Roberts, 214;
_Tenting Tonight_, 43;
_The Out Trail_, 43, 44;
_Through Glacier Park_, 43
_Rise of Roscoe Paine, The_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 344
_Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy_,
by Lothrop Stoddard, 381, 386
_Roads to Childhood_, by Annie Carroll Moore, 177
_Robert Browning_, by Frances M. Sim, 140
_Robert Louis Stevenson: A Critical Study_, by Frank Swinnerton, 155
_Robinson Crusoe_, by Daniel Defoe, 170
Robinson, James Harvey, _The Humanizing of Knowledge_, 189, 191, 208,
212;
_The Mind in the Making_, 189
_Rock Garden_, by Louise Beebe Wilder, 210
_Rocking Horse, The_, by Christopher Morley, 367, 372, 379
Rockwell, F. F., _Gardening Under Glass_, 210
Roe, Robert, _Here you Have Me_, 304
Rogers, Julia Ellen, 261;
_Trees Worth Knowing_, 176
Rogers, W. S., _Planning Your Garden_, 210
Roget, S. R., _Travel in the Two Last Centuries of Three Generations_,
49
Rolt-Wheeler, Francis, _A Toreador of Spain_, 173;
_Heroes of the Ruins_, 173;
_Hunting Hidden Treasure in the Andes_, 173;
_In the Days Before Columbus_, 174;
_Plotting in Pirate Seas_, 173;
_The Coming of the Peoples_, 174;
_The Magic-Makers of Morocco_, 173;
_The Quest of the Western World_, 174
_Romance_, by Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Hueffer, 88
_Romance Island_, by Zona Gale, 253
_Roosevelt_, Theodore, 124, 287
_Roosevelt as the Poets Saw Him_, edited by Charles Hanson Towne, 307,
308
_Rosalind_, by J. M. Barrie, 308
_Rose Fyleman’s Fairy Book_, 158
_Rosemary Greenway_, by Joslyn Gray, 174
_Rosinante to the Road Again_, by John Dos Passos, 310, 319
_Rossetti and His Circle_, by Max Beerbohm, 315
_Rover, The_, by Joseph Conrad, 85, 88
Roxburgh, J. F., _The Poetic Procession_, 293
_Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam_, 264
Rud, Anthony M., _The Middle Father_, 215
_Rudder Grange_, by Frank R. Stockton, 319
_Rufus_, by Grace S. Richmond, 215
Russell, John, _The Price of a Head_, 268
_Rusty Miller_, by Joslyn Gray, 174
Sackville-West, Miss V., 102;
_Challenge_, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118;
_Grey Wethers_, 117, 118;
_Heritage_, 110, 118;
_Knole and the Sackvilles_, 105, 118, 156;
_Orchard and Vineyard_, 110, 118;
_Patience_, 110, 111;
_Poems of West and East_, 110, 118;
_The Christmas Party_, 110, 111;
_The Dragon in Shallow Waters_, 110, 118;
_The Heir_, 109, 110, 118;
_Saint’s Progress_, by John Galsworthy, 18, 28, 31
_Salthaven_, by W. W. Jacobs, 319
_Sailor, The_, by John Collins Snaith, 256
_Sanctuary_, by Edith Wharton, 361
_Sandman’s Forest, The_, by Louis Dodge, 170
_Sandman’s Mountain, The_, by Louis Dodge, 170
_Sands of Oro, The_, by Beatrice Grimshaw, 55
_Sandy Sawyer, Sophomore_, by Ralph D. Paine, 173
_Santa Lucia_, by John Galsworthy, 30
Santayana, George, _Character and Opinion in the United States_, 194;
_Poems_, 193, 303;
_Scepticism and Animal Faith_, 193;
_Soliloquies_, 194;
_The Life of Reason_, 194;
_The Sense of Beauty_, 194;
_Winds of Doctrine_, 194
_Sartor Resartus_, by Carlyle, 261
Saunders, Marshall, _Bonnie Prince Fetlar_, 167;
_The Wandering Dog_, 167
_Scarlet Letter, The_, by Hawthorne, 261
_Scepticism and Animal Faith_, by George Santayana, 193
Schulze, Edward H., _Making Letters Pay_, 211
_Science Remaking the World_, edited by Edwin E. Slosson, and
Otis W. Caldwell, 194, 195
Scott, 260;
_Quentin Durward_, 264
_Scottish Chiefs, The_, by Jane Porter, 169
_Scouting on the Border_, by Everett T. Tomlinson, 175
Scribner, Charles Sons, 214
Seawell, Molly Elliot, _Decatur and Somers_, 175;
_Little Jarvis_, 175;
_Paul Jones_, 175
_Secret Agent, The_, by Joseph Conrad, 79, 84, 88, 231
_Secret of the Sahara: Kufara, The_, by Rosita Forbes, 49
_Secret Sharer, The_, by Joseph Conrad, 84
_Senescence_, by G. Stanley Hall, 147
_Sense and Sensibility_, by Jane Austen, 318
_Sense of Beauty, The_, by George Santayana, 194
_Set of Six, A_, by Joseph Conrad, 88
Seton, Ernest Thompson, _Bannertail_, 167;
_Game Animals and the Lives They Live_, 47;
_Lives of the Hunted_, 167;
_Sign Talk_, 171;
_The Book of Woodcraft_, 171;
_Wild Animals I Have Known_, 167;
_Woodcraft Manual for Boys_, 171;
_Woodcraft Manual for Girls_, 171
_Seventeen_, by Booth Tarkington, 229, 237, 238
_Shadow Line, The, A Confession_, by Joseph Conrad, 88
_Shadowy Third, The_, by Ellen Glasgow, 215, 269
Shakespeare, _The Tempest_, 264
_Shandygaff_, by Christopher Morley, 59, 364, 371, 372, 379
_Shavings_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 327, 332, 339
Shay, Frank, editor of _A Treasury of Plays for Women_, 379
_Sheaf, A_, by John Galsworthy, 28, 31
Sheffield, Alfred Dwight, _Joining in Public Discussion_, 208, 209
_Shell Book, The_, 261
_Shelters, Shacks and Shanties_, by Dan Beard, 171
_Shepherd of the Hills, The_, by Harold Bell Wright, 119, 138
_Shepherdess, The_, by Alice Meynell, 300
Sherman, Stewart P., _Americans_, 265;
_The Genius of America_, 265
_Short Sixes_, by H. C. Bunner, 318
Shorter, Clement K., 59;
_C. K. S., An Autobiography_, 155
_Sign Talk_, by Ernest Thompson Seton, 171
_Silver Box, The_, by John Galsworthy, 30, 309
Sim, Frances M., _Robert Browning, the Poet and Man_, 140
Simpson, James Y., _Man and the Attainment of Immortality_, 207
Sims, Admiral, _The Victory at Sea_, 150
_Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo, The_, by Rudyard Kipling, 168
_Singles and Doubles_, by W. T. Tilden, 2nd, 210
_Sins of Silvertip the Fox, The_, by John Breck, 168
_Sinister Street_, by Compton Mackenzie, 319
_Sister Carrie_, by Theodore Dreiser, 227
_Six Short Plays_, by John Galsworthy, 31, 309
_Ski-ing Turns_, by Vivian Caulfield, 210
_Skin-Game, The_, by John Galsworthy, 31, 309
_Sky Pilot, The_, by Ralph Connor, 183, 187
_Sky Pilot in No Man’s Land_, by Ralph Connor, 186, 188
_Snake Doctor and Other Stories_, by Irvin S. Cobb, 205
_Sleeping Beauty_, retold by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, 171
Slosson, Edwin E., and Otis W. Caldwell, editors of _Science Remaking
the World_, 194, 195
Smith, C. Alphonso, _O. Henry Biography_, 262
Smith, Jessie Wilcox, ill. of _A Child’s Garden of Verse_, 170
Smith, Logan Pearsall, _Little Essays Drawn from the Works of George
Santayana_, 194
Smith, Nora A., and Kate Douglas Wiggin, _The Fairy Ring_, 169
Smith, Nora A., _Magic Casements_, 169
Smith, Nora A., editor of _The Arabian Nights_, 170;
_The Scottish Chiefs_, 169
Snaith, John Collins, _Araminta_, 257;
_Broke of Covenden_, 256;
_The Coming_, 256;
_The Sailor_, 256;
_The Van Roon_, 257;
_Undefeated_, 256
Snedeker, Caroline Dale, _The Perilous Seat_, 174
_So There_, by Franklin P. Adams, 305
_Soliloquies_, by George Santayana, 194
_Some Reminiscences_, see _A Personal Record_, by Joseph Conrad, 88
_Some Samples of Yankee Shrewdness_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 335, 336
_“Son” and Other Stories of Childhood and Age_, by Mrs. Arthur Train,
99
_Son at the Front, A_, by Edith Wharton, 358, 359, 362
_Song of the Cardinal, The_, by Gene Stratton-Porter, 291
_Song of the Dragon, The_, by John Taintor Foote, 216
_Songs for a Little House_, by Christopher Morley, 367, 379
_Sonnets to a Red-Haired Lady and Famous Love Affairs_,
by Don Marquis, 58, 294
_Sons of Eli_, by Ralph D. Paine, 173
_Spain and Portugal_, by Baedeker, 40
_Spanish America_, by C. Reginald Enock, 49
Speare, Dorothy, _The Gay Year_, 216
Spearman, Frank H., _The Marriage Verdict_, 215
_Spirit of Islam, The_, by Syed Ameer Ali, 207
_Spirit of the Leader, The_, by William Heyliger, 162
_Spook Stories_, by E. F. Benson, 61
_Springtime_, by Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson, 237
Squire, J. C., _Anthology of American Verse_, 306;
_Books Reviewed_, 44;
_Essays at Large_, 44
_Stakes of the War, The_, by Lothrop Stoddard, 386
Stanford, Alfred B., _The Ground Swell_, 216, 317
_Star: The Story of an Indian Pony_, by Forrestine C. Hooker, 160
Stawell, F. Melian, and F. S. Marvin, _The Making of the
Western Mind_, 208
Steen, Herman, _Co-operative Marketing_, 212
_Steeplejack_, by J. G. Huneker, 154, 262
Stevenson, Robert Louis, _A Child’s Garden of Verse_, 170;
_Kidnapped_, 169;
_The Black Arrow_, 169;
_Treasure Island_, 164, 169
Stewart, Donald Ogden, 244;
_Aunt Polly’s Story of Mankind_, 245, 246;
_Parody Outline of History_, 243, 244, 246;
_Perfect Behavior_, 244, 246
Stock, Ralph, _The Cruise of the Dream Ship_, 174
Stockton, Frank R., _Rudder Grange_, 319
Stoddard, Lothrop, 196;
_Present-Day Europe--Its National States of Mind_, 386;
_The French Revolution in San Domingo_, 386;
_The New World of Islam_, 207, 381, 382, 386;
_The Revolt Against Civilization_, 382, 386;
_The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy_, 381, 386;
_The Stakes of the War_, 386;
_The World at War_, 386
Stoker, Bram, _Dracula_, 259, 260
_Stolen Story, The_, by Jesse Lynch Williams, 173
Stork, Charles Wharton, translator of _The Motherless_, 215
_Story of General Pershing, The_, by Everett T. Tomlinson, 175
_Story of Gösta Berling, The_, by Selma Lagerlöf, 259
_Story of King Arthur and His Knights, The_, 169
_Story of My Life, The_, by Helen Keller, 260
_Story of Sir Launcelot and His Companions, The_, 169
_Story of the Champions of the Round Table_, 169
_Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur, The_, 169
_Stories of Inventors_, by Russell Doubleday, 176
_Stories from Hans Andersen_, 170
_Stories from the Arabian Nights_, retold by Laurence Housman, 171
_Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason, The_, by Melville Davisson Post,
54
Stratton-Porter, Gene, _A Daughter of the Land_, 292;
_A Girl of the Limberlost_, 291;
_At the Foot of the Rainbow_, 291;
_Birds of the Bible_, 291;
_Euphorbia_, 288, 289, 292;
_Freckles_, 272, 284, 286, 291;
_Her Father’s Daughter_, 286, 290, 292;
_Homing With the Birds_, 292;
_Laddie_, 291;
_Michael O’Halloran_, 291;
_Morning Face_, 291;
_Moths of the Limberlost_, 281, 291;
_Music of the Wild_, 291;
_The Fire Bird_, 288, 292;
_The Harvester_, 281, 291;
_The Song of the Cardinal_, 291;
_The White Flag_, 286, 290, 292
Street, Julian, 52; _Cross-Sections_, 215;
and Booth Tarkington, _The Country Cousin_, 237
_Streets of Night_, by John Dos Passos, 200
_Strife_, by John Galsworthy, 30, 309
_Stroke Oar, The_, by Ralph D. Paine, 173
_Stroke of Lightning_, by John Galsworthy, 30
_Suggestion and Mental Analysis_, by William Brown, 208
_Summer_, by Edith Wharton, 362
_Sun, The_, by John Galsworthy, 31
_Survey, A_, by Max Beerbohm, 315
_Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise_, by David Graham Phillips, 319
Sutherland, E. G., and Booth Tarkington, _Monsieur Beaucaire_, 237
_Swinging Lanterns_, by Elizabeth Crump Enders, 46
Swinnerton, Frank, _Authors and Advertising_, 368;
_Coquette_, 202;
_George Gissings, A Critical Study_, 155;
_Nocturne_, 202;
_Robert Louis Stevenson: A Critical Study_, 155;
_Young Felix_, 202
_Tad Coon’s Great Adventure_, by John Breck, 168
_Tad Coon’s Tricks_, by John Breck, 168
Taggart, Marion Ames, _Captain Sylvia_, 174;
_The Annes_, 174;
_The Daughters of the Little Grey House_, 174;
_The Little Grey House_, 174;
“_Who Is Sylvia?_”, 174
_Tail of the Hemisphere, The_, by Frank Carpenter, 41
_Tales from a Rolltop Desk_, by Christopher Morley, 375, 379
_Tales of Men and Ghosts_, by Edith Wharton, 361
_Tales of Unrest_, by Joseph Conrad, 88
_Tales Told by the Gander_, by Maud Radford Warren and Eve Davenport,
170
Tannahill, Sallie B., _P’s and Q’s_, 211
Tarkington, Booth, 217, 218, 221, 222, 223, 232, 235, 237, 272;
_Alice Adams_, 218, 230, 237;
_Beasley’s Christmas Party_, 237;
_Beauty and the Jacobin_, 227, 237;
_Cherry_, 222, 236;
_Clarence_, 232;
_Gentle Julia_, 237;
_His Own People_, 237;
_In the Arena_, 228, 231, 237;
_Monsieur Beaucaire_, 217, 218, 222, 236;
_Penrod_, 229, 237;
_Penrod and Sam_, 229, 237;
_Poldekin_, 231;
_Ramsey Milholland_, 229; 237;
and Julian Street, _The Country Cousin_, 237;
and E. G. Sutherland, _Monsieur Beaucaire_, 237;
and Harry Leon Wilson, _Cameo Kirby_, 237;
_Clarence_, 237;
_Getting a Polish_, 237;
_Mister Antonio_, 237;
_Poldekin_, 238;
_Springtime_, 237;
_The Gibson Upright_, 237;
_The Intimate Strangers_, 238;
_The Man from Home_, 237;
_The Wren_, 238;
_Up from Nowhere_, 237;
_Your Humble Servant_, 237;
_Seventeen_, 229, 237, 238;
_The Beautiful Lady_, 237;
_The Conquest of Canaan_, 217, 227, 228, 237;
_The Fascinating Stranger and Other Stories_, 237;
_The Flirt_, 228, 229, 230, 231, 237;
_The Quest of Quesnay_, 237;
_The Gentleman from Indiana_, 217, 218, 222, 227, 236;
_The Magnificent Ambersons_, 226, 229, 230, 237, 238;
_The Turmoil_, 217, 223, 229, 230, 237, 238;
_The Two Vanrevels_, 222, 236
_Tatterdemalion_, by John Galsworthy, 31
_Tempest, The_, by Shakespeare, 264
_Ten Minutes by the Clock_, by Alice C. D. Riley, 177
_Tennyson: A Modern Portrait_, by Hugh I’Anson Fausset, 155
Terhune, Albert Payson, _Buff: A Collie_, 167;
_Further Adventures of Lad_, 167;
_Lochinvar Luck_, 165;
_The Amateur Inn_, 61
Tetrazzini, Luisa, _How to Sing_, 209
_Texas Star, The_, by Joseph A. Altsheler, 172
_Thankful’s Inheritance_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 339, 344
_That Printer of Udell’s_, by Harold Bell Wright, 119, 132, 138
_That Silver Lining_, by Thomas L. Mason, 63
Theatre Guild, 311;
Library, 311
_Their Yesterdays_, by Harold Bell Wright, 119, 138
Theiss, Lewis E., _A Champion of the Foothills_, 174
_Theodore Roosevelt’s Letters to His Children_, edited by
Joseph Bucklin Bishop, 175
_They_, by Rudyard Kipling, 258
_Things That Have Interested Me_, by Arnold Bennett, 267
_This Country of Ours_, by H. E. Marshall, 175
_This Giddy Globe_, by Oliver Herford, 63
_This Side of Paradise_, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 316, 317
Thomas, Augustus, _The Print of My Remembrance_, 154
_Thomas Nelson Page_, by Roswell Page, 153
_Three French Moralists_, by Edmund Gosse, 319
_Three Men and a Maid_, by P. G. Wodehouse, 59
_Three Soldiers_, by John Dos Passos, 204
_Three Studies in English Literature_, by Andre Chevrillon, 258
_Three to Make Ready_, by Louise Ayres Garnett, 177
_Through Spain and Portugal_, by Ernest Peixotto, 48
_Through the Wheat_, by Thomas Boyd, 204
_Thumbelisa_, by Andersen, 169
_Thursday Evening_, by Christopher Morley, 379
Thurston, E. Temple, 256
Tilden, W. T. 2nd, _Singles and Doubles_, 210
_Timber_, by John Galsworthy, 30
_To Him That Hath_, by Ralph Connor, 186, 188
_To Let_, by John Galsworthy, 23, 24
_To the Ladies_, by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly, 312
_Tobogganing on Parnassus_, by Franklin P. Adams, 305
_Tocsin of Revolt, The_, by Brander Matthews, 267
Toller, Ernest, _The Mass-Men_, 311
_Tom Masson’s Annual for 1923_, 62, 63
Tomlinson, Everett T., _Fighters Young Americans Want to Know_, 175;
_Mysterious Rifleman_, 175;
_Places Young Americans Want to Know_, 175;
_Scouting on the Border_, 175;
_The Story of General Pershing_, 175;
_Young People’s History of the American Revolution_, 175
_Too Much Government--Too much Taxation_, by Charles Norman Fay, 213
_Torch Bearer, A_, by Bernard Marshall, 176
_Toreador of Spain, The_, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler, 173
_Touchstone, The_, by Edith Wharton, 361
Towne, Charles Hanson, _Roosevelt as the Poets Saw Him_, 307
Townley, Lady Susan, _“Indiscretions” of Lady Susan_, 153
Townsend, Reginald T., _The Book of Building and Interior Decorating_,
209
_Trade Unionism in the United States_, by Robert F. Hoxie, 212
Train, Arthur, 93, 99;
_By Advice of Counsel_, 101;
_C. Q., or In the Wireless House_, 101;
_Confessions of Artemus Quibble_, 101;
_Courts, Criminals and the Camorra_, 101;
_His Children’s Children_, 95, 96, 97, 98, 101;
_Indictment No. 1_, 92, 93, 98;
_McAllister and His Double_, 101;
_Mortmain_, 101;
see Robert William Wood, _The Man Who Rocked the Earth_, 101;
_The Butler’s Story_, 101;
_The Earthquake_, 101;
_The Goldfish_, 101;
_The Hermit of Turkey Hollow_, 101;
_The Prisoner at the Bar_, 101;
_The World and Thomas Kelly_, 101;
_True Stories of Crime_, 101;
_Tut, Tut! Mr. Tutt_, 100, 101
Train, Mrs. Arthur--_“Son” and Other Stories of Childhood and Age_, 99
_Training for Power and Leadership_, by Grenville Kleiser, 211
_Tramping With a Poet in the Rockies_, by Stephen Graham, 50
_Travel in the Two Last Centuries of Three Generations_,
by S. R. Roget, 49
_Travels in Philadelphia_, by Christopher Morley, 367, 375
Traubel, Horace, _The Letters of Anne Gilchrist_, 263;
_Walt Whitman_, 263;
_With Walt Whitman in Camden_, 263
_Treasure Island_, by Robert Louis Stevenson, 164, 169
_Treasury of Plays for Women, A_, edited by Frank Shay, 379
_Tree Book, The_, 261
_Trees Worth Knowing_, by Julia Ellen Rogers, 176
_Trembling of a Leaf, The_, by W. Somerset Maugham, 310
Trudeau, Edward Livingston, _Autobiography_, 262
_True Stories of Crime_, by Arthur Train, 101
_Truth About an Author, The_, by Arnold Bennett, 318
_Truth o’ Women_, by Josephine Daskam Bacon, 301
_Turmoil, The_, by Booth Tarkington, 217, 224, 229, 230, 237, 238
Tupper, Tristram, _Adventuring_, 61, 62
_Tutt and Mr. Tutt_, by Arthur Train, 100, 101
_Tut-Ankh-Amen_, by Arthur Weigall, 46
_Tut, Tut! Mr. Tutt_, by Arthur Train, 100, 101
_Twelve Dancing Princesses, The_, retold by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch,
168
_Twelve-Pound Look, The_, by J. M. Barrie, 308
_Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_, by Jules Verne, 173
_’Twixt Land and Sea_, by Joseph Conrad, 88
_Two Vanrevels, The_, by Booth Tarkington, 222, 236
_Typhoon_, by Joseph Conrad, 84, 88
_Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries_, by Melville Davisson Post, 53, 54
_Uncle Remus_, by Joel Chandler Harris, 167, 168
_Uncollected Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman_, edited
by Emory Halloway, 263
_Undefeated, The_, by J. C. Snaith, 256
_Under Western Eyes_, by Joseph Conrad, 79, 84, 88
_Up from Nowhere_, by Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson, 237
_Up From Slavery_, by Booker T. Washington, 260, 262, 320
_Vacation Camping for Girls_, by Jeannette Mark, 171
Vaerting, Mathilde and Mathias, _The Dominant Sex_, 208
_Vain Oblations_, by Katharine Fullerton Gerould, 37
_Valiant Dust_, by Katharine Fullerton Gerould, 37
_Valley of Decision, The_, by Edith Wharton, 346, 355, 361
_Valley of the Kings, The_, by Percy Edward Newberry, 46
_Van Roon, The_, by John Collins Snaith, 257
van Dyke, Henry, _Companionable Books_, 265
van Dyke, Henry, Hardin Craig, and Asa Don Dickinson, ed.
_A Book of British and American Verse_, 307
van Dyke, Paul, _Catherine de Medici_, 151
Van Rensselaer, Alexander, and Robert Cortes Holliday, _The Business
of Writing_, 212
Van Tyne, C. M., _India in Ferment_, 47
Vardon, Harry, _The Gist of Golf_, 210
_Vegetable Garden, The_, by Adolph Kruhm, 210
_Velveteen Rabbit, The_, by Margery Williams, 167
_Vera_, 269
Verne, Jules, _A Journey to the Centre of the Earth_, 173;
_Around the World in Eighty Days_, 173;
_From the Earth to the Moon_, 173;
_The Mysterious Island_, 169;
_Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_, 173
Verrill, A. Hyatt, _The Real Story of the Pirate_, 62, 175;
_The Real Story of the Whaler_, 62, 175
_Verse of Our Day_, by Margery Gordan and Marie B. King, 307
_Victor Hugo_, by Andrew C. P. Haggard, 155
_Victory_, by Joseph Conrad, 56, 64, 70, 74, 82, 84, 88
_Victory at Sea, The_, by Admiral Sims, 150
_Villa Rubein_, by John Galsworthy, 21, 30
_Virtue_, by John Galsworthy, 30
_Vision of Morocco, A_, by V. C. Scott O’Connor, 48
_Waddington Cipher, The_, by William Johnson, 61
Walker, Dugald Stewart, ill. of _Magic Casements_, 169;
_The Fairy Ring_, 169;
_The Garden of Paradise_, 169;
_The Mermaid_, 169;
_Thumbelisa_, 169
Walpole, Hugh, 110, 256;
_Jeremy_, 258;
_Jeremy and Hamlet_, 258;
_The Cathedral_, 258
Walsh, Dr. James J., _Cures_, 196, 197
Walsh, H. Vandervoort, _Construction of the Small House_, 209
_Walt Whitman_, by Leon Bazalgette, 263
_Wandering Dog, The_, by Marshall Saunders, 167
Ward, C. H. Dudley, _A Nineteenth Century Romance_, 152
Warren, Maud Radford and Eve Davenport, _Adventures in the Old
Woman’s Shoe_, 170;
_Tales Told by the Gander_, 170
_Washington and Its Romance_, by Thomas Nelson Page, 49
Washington, Booker T., _Up From Slavery_, 260, 262, 320
Watterson, Henry, “_Marse Henry_,” 155
_Watsons, The_, by Miss Oulton, 318
_Wavy Tailed Warrior, The_, by John Breck, 168
Weaver, Raymond, _Herman Melville_, 262
Weed, Clarence M., _Butterflies Worth Knowing_, 176
Weigall, Arthur, _Tut-Ankh-Amen_, 46
Weigall, Rachel, _Lady Rose Weigall_, 152, 153
_Weights and Measures_, by Franklin P. Adams, 305
Wells, Carolyn, _Wheels Within Wheels_, 61
_Westward Ho!_ by Charles Kingsley, 169
Wharton, Edith, 346, 349, 350;
_A Motor-Flight Through France_, 350, 361;
_A Son at the Front_, 358, 359, 362;
_Age of Innocence_, 97, 346, 358, 362;
_Artemis to Actæon and Other Verse_, 350, 361;
_Crucial Instances_, 361;
_Ethan Frome_, 351, 357, 361;
_Fighting France_, 350, 362;
_French Ways and Their Meaning_, 350, 362;
_Glimpses of the Moon_, 352, 362;
_In Morocco_, 350, 362;
_Italian Backgrounds_, 350, 361;
_Italian Villas and Their Gardens_, 350, 361;
_Madame de Treymes_, 361;
_Sanctuary_, 361;
_Summer_, 362;
_Tales of Men and Ghosts_, 361;
_The Book of the Homeless_, 350, 362;
_The Custom of the Country_, 357, 362;
_The Decoration of Houses_, 350, 362;
_The Descent of Man, and Other Stories_, 361;
_The Fruit of the Tree_, 346, 356, 357, 361;
_The Greater Inclination_, 349, 361;
_The Hermit and the Wild Woman_, 361;
_The House of Mirth_, 346, 349, 357, 361;
_The Joy of Living_, 362;
_The Marne_, 350, 362;
_The Reef_, 362;
_The Touchstone_, 361;
_The Valley of Decision_, 346, 355, 361;
_Xingu and Other Stories_, 362
_What Bird Is That?_ by Frank M. Chapman, 176
_What Books Can Do for Me_, by Jesse Lee Bennett, 265
_What Every Woman Knows_, by J. M. Barrie, 308
_What I have Done with Birds_, by Gene Stratton-Porter, 291
Wheelock, John Hall, 295;
_Dust and Light_, 295;
_The Black Panther_, 295
_Wheels Within Wheels_, by Carolyn Wells, 61
_When a Man’s a Man_, by Harold Bell Wright, 119, 127, 137, 138
_When There Is No Peace_, by Laurance Lyon, 151
_Where Are We Going?_ by David Lloyd George, 146
_Where the Blue Begins_, by Christopher Morley, 369, 379
White, Bouck, _The Book of Daniel Drew_, 320
White, Stewart Edward, _Daniel Boone_, 175;
_The Adventures of Bobby Orde_, 173
_White Flag, The_, by Gene Stratton-Porter, 286, 290, 292
Whiting, Mary Bradford, _Dante_, 267
Whitlock, Brand, _Belgium_, 150, 200;
_J. Hardin and Son_, 200, 201
Whitman, Walt, 125, 322;
_Leaves of Grass_, 263
“_Who Is Sylvia?_” by Marion Ames Taggart, 174
_Why Marry?_ by Jesse Lynch Williams, 311
_Wife of the Centaur, The_, by Cyril Hume, 200
Wiggin, Kate Douglas, and Nora A. Smith, _Magic Casements_, 169;
ed. _The Arabian Nights_, 170;
_The Fairy Ring_, 169;
_The Scottish Chiefs_, 169
_Wild Animals I Have Known_, by Ernest Thompson Seton, 167
Wilder, Louise Beebe, _Adventures in My Garden_, 210;
_Colour in My Garden_, 210;
_My Garden_, 210;
_Rock Garden_, 210
Wildman, Edwin, _Writing to Sell_, 212
Williams, Jesse Lynch, _Princeton Stories_, 173;
_The Adventures of a Freshman_, 173;
_The Day Dreamer_, 173;
_The Stolen Story_, 173;
_Why Marry?_, 311
Williams, Margery, _The Velveteen Rabbit_, 167
Williamson, C. N. and A. M., _The Lady from the Air_, 61;
_The Night of the Wedding_, 61
Wilson, Harry Leon, 231, 237, 238
_Wind in the Willows, The_, by Kenneth Grahame, 170
_Winds of Doctrine_, by George Santayana, 194
_Winding Stair, The_, by A. E. W. Mason, 56, 57
_Windows_, by John Galsworthy, 32
_Winning of Barbara Worth, The_, by Harold Bell Wright, 119, 136, 138
_With Both Armies in South Africa_, by Richard Harding Davis, 175
_With the Flag in the Channel_, by J. Barnes, 175
_With Walt Whitman in Camden_, by Horace Traubel, 263
_Within the Tides_, by Joseph Conrad, 88
_Witness for the Defense, The_, by A. E. W. Mason, 56
Wodehouse, Pelham Grenville, 57;
_A Damsel in Distress_, 59;
_Jeeves_, 59;
_Leave It to Psmith_, 59;
_Mostly Sally_, 59, 60;
_Piccadilly Jim_, 59;
_The Little Warrior_, 59, 60;
_Three Men and a Maid_, 59
_Woman-Haters, The_, by Joseph C. Lincoln, 344
_Women in the Labour Movement_, 208
_Wonder Book, A_, by Hawthorne, 171
_Wonderful Adventures of Nils, The_, by Selma Lagerlöf, 160
_Woodcraft Manual for Boys_, by Ernest Thompson Seton, 171
_Woodcraft Manual for Girls_, by Ernest Thompson Seton, 171
_Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement_, by Ray Stannard Baker, 150
_World at War, The_, by Lothrop Stoddard, 386
_World Crisis, The_, by Winston Churchill, 145
_World and Thomas Kelly, The_, by Arthur Train, 101
_World Outside, The_, by Harold MacGrath, 62
_Worst Journey in the World, The_, by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, 48
_Wren, The_, by Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson, 238
_Writing to Sell_, by Edwin Wildman, 212
Wright, Harold Bell, 119, 124, 125, 129, 130, 131, 134, 136;
_Helen of the Old House_, 119, 136, 138;
_That Printer of Udell’s_, 119, 132, 138;
_The Calling of Dan Mathews_, 119, 138;
_The Eyes of the World_, 119, 130, 138;
_The Mine with the Iron Door_, 135, 138;
_The Re-Creation of Brian Kent_, 119, 130, 138;
_The Shepherd of the Hills_, 119, 127, 138;
_The Uncrowned King_, 119, 138;
_The Winning of Barbara Worth_, 119, 136, 138;
_Their Yesterdays_, 119, 138;
_When a Man’s a Man_, 119, 127, 137, 138
Wyeth, N. C., ill. _of Kidnapped_, 169;
_Poems of American Patriotism_, 169;
_Treasure Island_, 169;
_The Black Arrow_, 169;
_The Boy’s King Arthur_, 169;
_The Last of the Mohicans_, 169;
_The Mysterious Island_, 169;
_The Scottish Chiefs_, 169;
_Westward Ho!_, 169
Wylie, Elinor, _Black Armour_, 296;
_Jennifer Lorn_, 315
_Xingu and Other Stories_, by Edith Wharton, 362
_Yardley Hall Stories_, by Ralph Henry Barbour, 172
_Young Felix_, by Frank Swinnerton, 202
_Young People’s History of the American Revolution_,
by Everett T. Tomlinson, 175
_Young Trailers, The_, by Joseph A. Altsheler, 172
Young, Stark, _The Flower in Drama_, 312
_Your Inner Self_, by Dr. Louis E. Bisch, 198
_Your Humble Servant_, by Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson, 237
_Youth_, by Joseph Conrad, 64, 70, 88
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.
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