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Read Ebook: The Literary Shop and Other Tales by Ford James L James Lauren
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Ebook has 561 lines and 56406 words, and 12 pages
THE LITERARY SHOP.
IN AN OLD GARRET 1
THE "LEDGER" PERIOD OF LETTERS 11
SOMETHING ABOUT "GOOD BAD STUFF" 24
THE EARLY HOLLAND PERIOD 34
MENDACITY DURING THE HOLLAND PERIOD OF LETTERS 47
THE DAWN OF THE JOHNSONIAN PERIOD 62
WOMAN'S INFLUENCE IN THE JOHNSONIAN PERIOD 78
LITERATURE--PAWED AND UNPAWED; AND THE CROWN-PRINCE THEREOF 99
CERTAIN THINGS WHICH A CONSCIENTIOUS LITERARY WORKER MAY FIND IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK 118
"HE TRUN UP BOTE HANDS!" 139
THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER. 160
AND OTHER TALES.
THE POETS' STRIKE 183
ANCIENT FORMS OF AMUSEMENT 194
THE SOBER, INDUSTRIOUS POET, AND HOW HE FARED AT EASTER-TIME 199
THE TWO BROTHERS; OR, PLUCKED FROM THE BURNING 208
THE STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN OF TALENT 223
THE SOCIETY REPORTER'S CHRISTMAS 231
THE DYING GAG 245
"ONLY A TYPE-WRITER" 251
THE CULTURE BUBBLE IN OURTOWN 260
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE CONSTRUCTION AND PRESERVATION OF JOKES 275
MCCLURE'S MODEL VILLAGE FOR LITERARY TOILERS 299
THE CANNING OF PERISHABLE LITERATURE 316
LITERARY LEAVES BY MANACLED HANDS 323
MCCLURE'S BIRTHDAY AT SYNDICATE VILLAGE 331
LITERATURE BY PRISON CONTRACT LABOR 340
CHRISTMAS EVE AT THE SYNDICATE VILLAGE 351
THE LITERARY SHOP
IN AN OLD GARRET.
I am lying at full length on a broken-down haircloth sofa that has been placed near the cobwebby window of an old garret in a country farm-house. It is near the close of a rainy day, and all the afternoon I have listened to the pattering of the heavy drops on the shingled roof, the rustling of the slender locust-trees and the creaking of their branches as the wind moves them.
There are pop-corn ears drying on the floor of this old garret; its solid rafters are festooned with dried apples and white onions. Odd bits of furniture, and two or three hair trunks bearing initials made with brass-headed nails, are scattered about the room, and from where I lie I can see a Franklin stove, a pair of brass andirons, and one of those queer wooden-wheeled clocks that used to be made in Connecticut years ago, and which are a fitting monument to the ingenuity of the Yankee race.
The "Notices to Correspondents" are a joy forever, and reflect with charming simplicity and candor the minds of the thousands of anxious inquirers who were wont to lay all their doubts and troubles at Robert Bonner's feet.
And now I hear from the carping critic again: "But you don't mean to tell me that any good poetry was produced by such a process? Why, suppose one of our great magazines--"
THE "LEDGER" PERIOD OF LETTERS.
For instance: One day a maker of prose and verse received from the hands of the great editor a story which he had submitted to him the week before.
"If you please," said the poet, politely, "I should like to know why you cannot use my story, so that I may be guided in the future by your preferences."
"Certainly," replied Mr. Bonner. "This story will not do for me because you have in it the marriage of a man with his cousin."
"But," protested the young author, "cousins do marry in real life very often."
That gives us a taste of the milk in the cocoanut, although it does not account for the hair on the outside of the shell.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Bonner knew that a great many of his subscribers did not approve of a man marrying his own cousin when there were plenty of other folks' cousins to be had for the asking; and so, rather than cause a moment's annoyance to a single one of these, he forbade the practice in the columns of his paper.
I pondered for several moments over the words of the poet and then I said to him, "But if you were so successful with the 'Two Brothers' why didn't you try to do as well with two sisters?"
"I did," he replied. "I started a 'Two Sisters' series as soon as the brothers were all harvested, but I got them back on my hands again. You know Bonner is down on sisters."
"Bonner is down on sisters!"
But there were other folks besides sisters and matrimonial cousins who were regarded with disfavor by the great editor and thinker who long ago set the pace for modern American fiction.
It was more than "all right." It was a delicate, imaginative bit of verse, descriptive of the young bride kneeling reverently in the nursery of her new home and praying that God would make her a good mother to the sleeping stepchildren. It was a real poem--such a poem as poor, gifted Irish Jack Moran could write, but only when the mood was upon him, for he was not one of those makers of verse who go to work at six in the morning with their dinner-pails.
"I do," replied Jack, briefly. "It was worth just twenty to me."
And why was Bonner "down" on stepmothers? Simply because he wished to avoid giving offense to those who disapproved of second marriages, and who formed a very large part of his constituency.
I hope that I have thrown sufficient pathos into my description of the condition of the poor rhymester of a dozen or fifteen years ago to touch the hearts of my sympathetic readers. How much better off, you say, is the literary man of to-day, who makes steady wages in Franklin Square, or occupies one of the neat white cottages erected for the employees of the McClure Steam Syndicate Mills in Paterson!
In regard to the practice of cutting an idea into eight pieces and serving up each piece as a separate poem or story, can any one familiar with current literature deny that ideas are just as much cut up now as they ever were? More than that, have not some of our writers solved the old problem of making bricks without straw? Why, then, you ask, is their manuscript printed in preference to matter that is more virile and fresh and readable? For the same reason that Jack Moran's "Stepmother's Prayer" was returned to him by the very hand that was stretched forth in glad eagerness to grasp the sixteen poems that had sprung from the solitary idea of the two country brothers. Why, I know of one or two poets whose verses enjoy the widest sort of publicity, and who, I am sure, cut an idea into thirty-two pieces instead of sixteen.
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