Read Ebook: The Literary Shop and Other Tales by Ford James L James Lauren

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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.

SOMETHING ABOUT "GOOD BAD STUFF."

As for the poet who tried to guide Jack's footsteps in the path that led to fame, he is alive to-day, and a highly esteemed member of the guild. Indeed, a more industrious, sober, or thrifty man of letters never put on a pair of overalls or crossed the North River in the early morning boat with a basket of poems, jokes, and stories on his arm.

Then my friend showed me how the watchers could tell by the movements of the dark shade whether a poem had been accepted or refused. If the editor walked from his desk to the remote corner of his private office they knew that he did it in order to place a poem in the drawer of an old bureau in which he kept the accepted manuscript; but if, on the other hand, he came directly to the door a horrible feeling of anxiety came into every mind, and each poet uttered a silent prayer--while his heart literally stood still within him--that the blow might fall on some head other than his own.

On this occasion my friend received ten dollars for his poem entitled "When the Baby Smiled," and in the fullness of his heart he invited the author of the rejected verses on "Resignation"--who, by the way, was uttering the most horrible curses as he descended the staircase--to join us in a drink.

It was on this occasion, also, as I distinctly remember, that my friend the poet put the whole trade of letters in a nutshell:

"There are plenty of people," he remarked, "who can write good good stuff, but there are not many who can write good bad stuff. Here's one of those 'Two Brothers' poems I told you about, and if that isn't good bad stuff, I'd like to know what is." He handed me a printed copy of the poem, and I can still recall the first verses of it:

Herbert to the city went, Though as sturdy was his arm As plain Tom's, who, quite content, Stayed at home upon the farm.

Herbert wore a broadcloth coat, Thomas wore the homespun gray; Herbert on display did dote, Thomas labored every day.

These lines have clung to my memory during many changing years, and I quote them now with undimmed admiration as almost the best example of "good bad stuff" that our literature possesses. And if the lines compel our regard, what must be our respect for the genius which could extract sixteen ten-dollar poems from the one primitive idea of the two rustic brothers?

Is there any demand for "good bad stuff" nowadays?

There is an almost limitless demand for it, and there always will be, provided the gas-fitters and the paper-hangers and the intelligent and highly cultivated American women continue to exert the influence in the field of letters that they do to-day.

Don't understand me to say that there is no good prose or verse to be found on those highly glazed, beautifully printed pages to which we of the present generation of readers turn for our literary refreshment. On the contrary, the modern magazines give us so much that is admirable, so many thoughtful essays and descriptive articles, that one wonders only why so much of the fiction which they offer should be of such poor calibre.

But the editors and publishers of the great monthlies know what they are about as well as Mr. Bonner ever did, and they know, too, the immense value of the good bad stuff which they serve to their patrons in such tempting and deceptive forms.

THE EARLY HOLLAND PERIOD.

Of these I consider Washington Gladden entitled to the highest rank as an exponent of mediocrity. Indeed, after a careful survey of the magazine barons' wide domain, I must award the palm of merit to this popular manufacturer of literary wares for even mediocrity, unspoiled by the slightest sense of humor. It is that very lack of humor which has brought success to many a man whose mission in life has been to write for the great, simple-minded public. The poets and humorists of the Jack Moran school, who were compelled to descend to the commonplace and the stupid because of their temporal necessities, never really became thorough masters of the divine art of writing mediocrity, because their sense of the ludicrous brought them to a halt before those Alpine heights of tedious imbecility which people like E. P. Roe and Washington Gladden scaled with unblanched cheeks.

This story deals with a league composed of all the Protestant churches in a small Connecticut town, for the promotion of large-hearted geniality and mutual aid in the work of evangelization. It contains a description of a scene in the Methodist Church at the moment when it seems that the congregation will be unable to raise the debt which has long weighed them down. They are about to abandon the attempt, when the other churches in the town learn of their distress and proceed to help them out. The First Congregational Church pledges 75, the Universalist Church sends 0, and finally the Second Congregational Church raises the ante to 10, while the people burst forth into shouts of "Hallelujah!" and fervent songs of praise.

If any one were to write a wild burlesque on the ecclesiastical methods in vogue in Connecticut he would fall far short of Mr. Gladden's account of this extraordinary meeting. The New England country parson who gets his salary regularly is a fortunate man, and as to subscriptions for the church, they are usually collected with the aid of a stomach-pump. I have never yet heard of a man giving anything toward any church save that in which he had a pew, but I do remember the scene which ensued one morning in a little country meeting-house, when the richest man in the congregation relaxed his grip on three hundred dollars--and there was a string tied to every bill, too.

These Christian Endeavor people are a mystery to me. More than thirty thousand of them took possession of our city, and there was one erring brother among them who fell by the wayside, and was locked up in the House of Detention, charged with having been robbed of his return-ticket and about two hundred dollars in money. He was confined nearly a week, and during that time not one of his fellow Christian Endeavorers held out a helping hand to him. If the unfortunate man had come on from the West to attend a convention of sneak-thieves he would have fared better than he did.

"But what have the Christian Endeavorers to do with literature?" asks my doubting and critical friend. They have a great deal to do with literature just now, more's the pity. I did not drag them into these pages by the neck and ears simply to say what I thought of them , but to give my audience an idea of one of the elements--and it is a large one, too--to which our magazine publishers are obliged to cater, if they wish to hold their own in point of circulation.

MENDACITY DURING THE HOLLAND PERIOD OF LETTERS.

The Holland age of letters may be said to have extended over the eighth decade of this century, and that it was an era of change and progress can be readily seen by a glance at the periodical literature of the seventies.

It is during this era, however, that we find indications of a deplorable tendency on the part of the good doctor to pander to the prejudices of the gas-fitter and the paper-hanger element, by the publication of stories and articles which were either spurious as literature or else absolutely mendacious as to the facts which they recorded and the scenes which they described.

I have devoted a good deal of space to this long-forgotten article because it is a fair sample of the sort of stuff that is offered to us from time to time, prepared especially for us, like so much baby's food, by men and women who are carefully selected by the magazine barons, and who generally rival Mr. Rhodes in point of simian incompetence and utter lack of all appreciative or perceptive qualities.

But let us turn from the awful spectacle of Mr. Rhodes standing like a lone penguin in the very midst of the Latin Quarter of Paris, and wailing mournfully about the poor girl who "sometimes compels the young man to marry her." A far brighter picture is that presented by the distinguished English gentleman who, having won the highest distinction with his pencil, takes up his pen with the air of one who is enjoying a holiday fairly earned by a lifetime of toil, and portrays the real Quartier Latin of the Second Empire with a humor that makes us think of Henri Murger, and with a delicacy of touch, a human sympathy, and a tendency to turn aside and moralize that place him very near to Thackeray.

If you wish to read a story which is at once human, truthful, and interesting, read George Du Maurier's "Trilby," and note the skill with which he has caught the very essence of the spirit of student life, preserved it for a third of a century, and then given it to us in all its freshness, and with the fire of an artistic youth blended with the philosophy and worldly knowledge that belong only to later life.

To read "Trilby" is to open a box in which some rare perfume has been kept for thirty odd years, and to drink in the fragrance that is as pervading and strong and exquisite as ever.

And while we are enjoying this charming story, let us not forget to give thanks to the Harpers for the courage which they have shown in publishing it, for if there is anything calculated to injure them in the eyes of the gas-fitters and paper-hangers it is a novel in which the truth is told in the high-minded, cleanly, and straightforward fashion in which Mr. Du Maurier tells it here. Fancy the feelings of a Christian Endeavorer--the modern prototype of the Levite who passed by on the other side--on finding in a publication of the sort which he has always found as soothing to his prejudices and hypocrisy and pet meannesses as the purring of a cat on a warm hearthstone--fancy the feelings of such an one as he finds the mantle of charity thrown over the sins and weaknesses of the erring, suffering, exquisitely human Latin Quarter model.

But to return to our sheep--and in the case of Mr. Rhodes the word is an apt one--why was that article about the Latin Quarter of Paris published?

Perhaps some of my readers think it was that the Scribner people did not know any better, or because Mr. Rhodes belonged to that "ring of favored contributors" of which one hears so much in certain artistic circles. In reply, let me say that the "ring of favored contributors" is a myth, or at least I have never been able to find reasonable proof of its existence. Magazine editors buy exactly what they consider suitable for their readers, and they buy from whoever offers what they want. If they allowed themselves to be influenced by their small personal likes and dislikes the whole literary system which they have reared would go to pieces, and some dialect-writers that I wot of would be "back on the old farm," like the slick chaps in eight of the "Two Brothers" poems.

THE DAWN OF THE JOHNSONIAN PERIOD.

I first heard of the existence of Mr. Johnson, who is unquestionably the one dominant figure in American literature of to-day, about fourteen years ago, just as I was beginning to learn something about the trade of writing. I had placed in the hands of a literary friend--now well known as one of the most successful of the modern school of story-writers--the manuscript of a story which dealt with the criminal life of the lower east side of the town, and was wondering how soon I was to awake and find myself famous when my manuscript was returned to me with a brief note from my friend, in which he said:

The pen fell from my hand--it happened to be employed just then on a story dealing with life in a Pell Street opium-joint--and I said to myself: "Merciful heavens! must I devote my life to the delineation of what are called society types, simply because Johnson--whoever he may be--does not like low life?"

I think that if I had known then that low life was only one of a thousand things that could not meet the approval of Johnson, and that, moreover, Bonner was down on fast horses, stepmothers, sisters, matrimonial cousins, and brindle-pups, I would have thrown down my pen and endeavored to support myself in some other way.

I can afford to smile now as I recall the bitterness of spirit in which I used to chafe under the restrictions imposed upon us by the all-powerful barons of literature. I used to console my wounded vanity then by picturing to myself a bright future, when Johnson would stretch out his hands to me and beg me to place on the tip of his parched tongue a few pages of my cooling and invigorating manuscript. And with what derision would I have laughed then had any one told me that in the years to come I would be the one to accord to Mr. Johnson the honor which is his just due, and to recognize the wisdom which he showed in rejecting my story of low life!

"... and he stood by the platform of the last car as the express stopped.

"There was a crowd around Horace in an instant. His head was whirling; but, in a dull way, he said what he had to say. An officious passenger, who would have explained it all to the conductor if the conductor had waited, took the deliverer in his arms--for the boy was near fainting--and enlightened the passengers who flocked around.

"Horace hung in his embrace, too deadly weak even to accept the offer of one of dozen flasks that were thrust at him."

Now an ignorant layman will, I am bound, find nothing in the quoted sentences that could possibly give offence to the most sensitive reader; but it was precisely at the point where the quotation ends that the finely trained and ever-alert editorial sense of Mr. Johnson told him of the danger that lurked in the author's apparently innocuous phrase.

"Hold on!" he cried; "can't you make it two or three flasks instead of a dozen?"

Well did the keen-witted Johnson know that to many a serious minded gas-fitter or hay-maker the spectacle of a dozen evil-minded and evil-living men riding roughshod through the pages of a family periodical and over the feelings of its readers would be distasteful in the extreme, if not absolutely shocking. Two or three flasks would lend to the scene a delicate suggestion of the iniquity of the world, just enough to make them thank God that they were not as other men are; but a dozen was altogether too much for them, and Johnson was the man who knew it.

It is only fair to add that the author very properly refused to alter his manuscript, and the story stands, to-day, as it was originally written.

To the present literary era, we are indebted, also, for the higher development of that peculiar form of fiction called the short story, the popularity of which has at least served to give employment to a large number of worthy people who would otherwise have been compelled to eke out an existence by humbler and more exhausting forms of labor. No sooner had the short-story fever taken possession of the magazine offices than there appeared from various corners of the earth men, women, and children, many of whom had never written anything before in their lives, but who now besieged the Franklin and Union Square strongholds, bearing in their inky hands manuscript which in many instances they were fortunate enough to dispose of, to the rage and wonder of those old-timers who, having learned their trade under Mr. Bonner and Dr. Holland, now found themselves too old to readily fall in with the new order of things.

Some of these short-story marvels have been extremely successful, and now take rank as first-class writers of fiction. I would have a much higher regard for them, though, if they could write novels--not serials, but novels.

WOMAN'S INFLUENCE IN THE JOHNSONIAN PERIOD.

I have read dozens of books of this sort, and have often wondered at the uniform ignorance and stupidity which characterized them. There was a time when I wondered who bought these books, for no young man on the threshold of life would be seen reading one of them. I know now that they are not written to suit the tastes of the young men themselves, but of the old grannies who will buy one at Christmas-time as a present for Bob or Tom or Bill.

They are compiled either by literary hacks, enfeebled clergymen, or women of limited intelligence, and they are artfully designed to ensnare the fancy of the simple-minded, the credulous, and the good. I have noticed that those which are plentifully supplied with texts from Holy Writ command the largest sale, provided, of course, the texts are printed in italics.

But although the latter-day process of distillation is undoubtedly the same that was employed in centuries long gone by the effects of the poison are by no means the same now that they were then. In the Homeric age it sent a man forth to do valiant if unnecessary deeds; but in the present era it slowly but surely robs the young writer of his originality, undermines his reputation, nips all healthy ambition in the bud, and leaves him a stranded wreck of whom men say contemptuously as they pass by: "Bad case of the Swelled Head." It may happen that some more thoughtful of the passers-by will have the grace to put the blame where it belongs by adding: "That young fellow was doing very well two years ago, and we all thought he was going to amount to something; but he fell in with a lot of silly women who flattered him and told him he was the greatest writer in the world. They swelled his head so that he could not write at all, and now he's of no use to himself or any one else."

But although these poor stranded human wrecks may be encountered in every large community I have yet to find a writer of advice to young men with sufficient courage, veracity, and conscience to utter a word of warning against the poison to which so many owe their fall.

In order that I may make clear my meaning in regard to the evil influences of good women let us imagine the unheard-of case of a young man who actually reads one of these books of advice to young men on life's threshold, and is sufficiently influenced by its teachings to seek the sort of female companionship which he is told will prove of such enduring benefit to him. This young man, we will say, is beginning his literary career in the very best possible way, as a reporter on a great morning newspaper. He is not a "journalist," nor a compiler of "special stories" , nor is he "writing brevier" or "doing syndicate work." He is just a plain reporter of the common or garden kind; and very glad he is to be one, too, for he and his fellows know that the reporter wields the most influential pen in America in the present year of grace.

And every day this young man adds some new experience to the store of worldly knowledge which will be his sole capital in the profession which he has chosen. To-day the task of reporting the strike at the thread-mills gives him an insight into the condition of the working-classes such as was never possessed by the wiseacres who write so learnedly in the great quarterlies about the relation of labor to capital. To-morrow he will go down the Bay to interview some incoming foreign celebrity, and next week will find him in a distant city reporting a great criminal trial which engrosses the attention of the whole country. He is working hard and making a fair living, and, best of all, he is making steady progress every day in the profession of writing.

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