FICTION

There is a popular notion that anyone can write a story. A good novel is easy reading, and it seems, on that account, to be easy writing. Many a reader, in the comfortable enjoyment of good fiction, misses the genius of it altogether. He is like the skeptical young man who could see nothing difficult in the art of sculpture. “All you need to do,” he said, “is to get a block of marble, then take a hammer and chisel, and knock off the parts you don’t want.” So stated, sculpture does seem very simple. But, after all, there is some importance in knowing what parts of the marble to knock off.

Many of us feel, at times, an inward stir that prompts us to express ourselves in the written word. We are quite sure that we could write a novel or a play. That we don’t do so is simply because we are so busy—or something else. “I could write plays as well as Shakespeare if I’d a mind to,” said someone years ago to Charles Lamb. “Yes,” answered the gentle humorist, “anyone could write plays as well as Shakespeare—if he had the mind to.”

Some take their pen in hand to prove to themselves how easy it all is. When they have tried out several of the productions that they have dashed off so readily, they sometimes discover that what was easy writing for them was hard reading for others, and the wise ones then come to realize that the good fiction that makes such easy reading is often the finished and refined product of double and re-doubled labor.

For those that are determined to win their way in fiction, the means for study and observation are ample. There are many books on the art of writing to inform and guide the aspiring author, and there is a wealth of fiction literature ever at hand to supply him with examples of good story writing. In a helpful, informing book on the technique of fiction, Professor Charles F. Horne makes clear the essential elements of the novel—which he finds to be six in number: (1) Plot, (2) Motive or Verisimilitude, truth to life, (3) Character Portrayal, (4) Emotional Quality—Sentiment, Passion, (5) Background, (6) Style. “A novel,” Professor Horne writes, “cannot consist simply of a fixed picture, a description of a man in repose. It must show him acting and acted upon. In other words, it deals with man in his relation to his environment. Hence it must have two essentials: the man and his movements; that is, the characters and the story. The causes and effects of these two essentials give us two more. The man can only move as he is

swayed internally by his emotions; and the movement can only be seen externally in its effect on his surroundings, his background. These four form the positive elements or content of the novel, and they must be presented under the limitations set by man’s experience of life or verisimilitude, and by his modes of conveying ideas, his style of speech.”

W. D. M.

The Mentor Association

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Entered as second-class matter, March 10, 1913, at the postoffice at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1918, by The Mentor Association, Inc.

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MAKERS OF MODERN AMERICAN FICTION

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Booth Tarkington ONE

Towards the close of the last century Booth Tarkington wrote “The Gentleman from Indiana.” It is as the Gentleman from Indiana that Mr. Tarkington has been widely known ever since. There was a time, some fifteen or twenty years ago, when every native Hoosier was supposed to have the manuscript of a “Best-Selling” novel concealed somewhere about his person. Some of the authors died, and some of them went into other occupations, and the state has managed to live the belief down. But Mr. Tarkington remains the most conspicuous living figure linking Indiana with letters.

Born in Indianapolis on July 29, 1869, he studied at Phillips-Exeter, and later at Princeton. In both places he was recognized as one likely to go far. Princeton he entered as a junior, but “made” the editorial boards of both college publications, the Tiger and the Lit—his sketches for the former being rather better than his literary contributions to the latter. He wrote the play for the Triangle Club, and, at graduation, was voted the most popular and promising man in the Class of 1893. There followed, however, lean years, when the prophecies seemed unlikely of fulfillment. That was a period, when, like the John Harkless of his own story (“The Gentleman from Indiana”), he was figuratively “sitting on a rail fence in Indiana.” Always a hard worker, he toiled unremittingly at invention and rewriting, only to have the manuscripts that he submitted with bright hopes come back to him with disheartening regularity. That was the story of the five or six years after 1893. His first tale to be sold was “Cherry,” a whimsical romance of the

country about Princeton and undergraduate life at the College of New Jersey in pre-Revolutionary days. Accepted by Harper’s, it was not published until long after. Then, suddenly, success came. Almost simultaneously “The Gentleman from Indiana” and “Monsieur Beaucaire” appeared, the first a full-length novel of mid-western life, the second a charming little romance of eighteenth-century manners at Bath when Beau Nash reigned and a Prince of the Blood came over from France in the guise of a barber in the French Minister’s train. The recognition won with those two books has widened with the years. After the “Gentleman” and “Beaucaire” came “The Two Van Revels,” the germ of which had been a short tale of two thousand words written in the author’s undergraduate days. As a result of a brief fling at political life Mr. Tarkington wrote the stories collected under the title “In the Arena.” That was followed by “The Conquest of Canaan,” the story of a discredited boy who leaves his native town under a shadow, and returns to win its reluctant admiration.

The years spent about that time in Europe suggested “The Guest of Quesnay,” and two shorter stories with scenes laid in Italy, “The Beautiful Lady,” and “Mine Own People.” The chief distinction of “The Flirt,” in which the author returned to the Indiana setting of the earlier books, was the picture of the heroine’s impish brother, Hedrick Madison. “The Turmoil,” dealing with the evolution of one of the great mid-western cities, showed Mr. Tarkington in the full maturity of his power. After that book he struck a new and rich vein in his sketches delineating boy life, the stories dealing with Penrod Schofield and William Sylvanus Baxter having found a response in every corner of the land. Mr. Tarkington has also to his credit considerable achievement as a playwright. “The Man From Home,” written in collaboration with Harry Leon Wilson, was one of the most successful plays of the American stage of recent years. Other plays from his pen are “Cameo Kirby,” “Springtime,” “Mister Antonio,” “The Country

Cousin,” and “Seventeen.” Calling Indianapolis his home town, Mr. Tarkington spends much of his time at Kennebunkport, Maine, and usually passes a month or two every year in Princeton, New Jersey.

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Robert W. Chambers TWO

What impresses one most about Mr. Robert W. Chambers is his amazing versatility. In addition to being a popular novelist, he is an expert on rare rugs; an artist, and so well qualified a judge of fine art that he can talk intelligently to the curators and directors of museums about the old masters on exhibition there; equipped with an understanding of Chinese and Japanese antiques so that he can detect forgeries in that art; an authority on mediæval armor; a lover of outdoors, of horses, dogs, and an ardent collector of butterflies; and, in addition, a thorough man of the world, who knows Paris and Petrograd, and many of the out-of-the-way corners of the earth. These are the qualities that come to mind readily, but the list is far from complete. The longer one knows Mr. Chambers, the more varied the knowledge he finds in him.

Out of such rich mental resources Mr. Chambers draws his material for fiction. He writes two novels a year for a large public that eagerly devours them. Mr. Chambers’ life is a full and active one.

He was born in Brooklyn, New York, on May 26, 1865, and in his youth he aspired to be a painter. He studied art in Paris at Julien’s Studio from 1886 to 1893, then returned to New York, and for a while contributed illustrations to the current publications. Then one day a novel, “In the Quarter,” appeared with his name as author. From that time on his life was given largely to writing fiction, and the record of the years has been a brilliant one. In 1893 he published the haunting, uncanny, but fascinating “The King in Yellow,” a collection of stories of art life. He turned to France first as a background for romance. At irregular intervals from 1894 to 1903 appeared “The Red Republic,” “Lorraine,” “Ashes of Empire,” and “Maids of Paradise.” They all had the France-Prussian War as their setting, and dashing young Americans as their heroes. Then in 1901 with “Cardigan” and other books he gave expression in fiction to the spirit of the American Revolution. It has not been simply as an historical or a semi-historical novelist,

however, that Mr. Chambers has made his widest appeal. In the foibles, extravagances, superficialities and eccentricities of contemporary American society, he has found his richest vein. It does not matter whether the background of a particular tale be New York, or Washington, or Palm Beach. The underlying social and ethical problems are of real importance. Marriage, the giving or selling in marriage, the reasons of heredity that make for or against a certain marriage: these are fundamentals common to all humanity. In “The Younger Set” and “The Firing Line” hero and heroine have unwisely married, and the story hinges largely on problems raised subsequently by divorce. In “The Fighting Chance” (1906), and “The Danger Mark” (1909) the problem is that of unfitness to marry. In the former it is the man who inherits a craving for alcohol, and the woman for sentimental philandering; in the latter the woman is given to intemperance and the man to excessive gallantry. In one of his later books, “The Hidden Children” (1915), Mr. Chambers returns to a favorite setting of

the earlier years, upper New York of the Colonial period.

On a basis of solid fact, it would seem impossible for one man to do all this work. Where does he ever find time to do it? The answer lies in the fact that Mr. Chambers keeps regular hours—office hours, almost—for his writing, all of which is done in long hand. At that he is not a rapid writer, frequent revision is essential, and a passion for the verification of details consumes much time. Yet the bulk and excellence of the accomplished performance remains an established fact; and in many ways it is little less than marvelous.

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Richard Harding Davis THREE

In 1890 there appeared in Scribner’s Magazine a short story entitled “Gallegher.” It gave an account of a smart young office boy employed on one of the newspapers, who succeeded in “beating the town” by bringing home a big, sporting story to his paper. It was held at once as one of the best newspaper tales ever printed. When the name of the author, Richard Harding Davis, was mentioned, the reading public recognized him as the son of Rebecca Harding Davis, a fiction writer of established reputation. Davis’ fifty-two years of life were full of color and manly achievement. He was a novelist, short story writer, war correspondent, editor and playwright. He began as newspaper reporter, a pursuit most natural, for his father, L. Clarke Davis, was a brilliant journalist and editor.

Richard Harding Davis was born in Philadelphia in 1864, and attended the Episcopal Academy and afterwards Lehigh and Johns-Hopkins Universities. In his college days he was weak in mathematics, but strong in all that made life full, joyous and vital. He entered eagerly into sports and wrote stories for the Lehigh magazines.

In 1887 he began newspaper work on the Philadelphia Record, also occasionally contributing to the Press and other Philadelphia papers. His first big assignment was in connection with the Johnstown Flood in 1889. It was in the Press office that Davis discovered the original Gallegher—the office boy who was immortalized in Davis’ famous story, just as the mongrel dog was vindicated in Davis’ later story “The Bar Sinister.” In 1889 he made a trip to London as correspondent to the Philadelphia Telegraph, and while there wrote of the Whitechapel murders in a way that attracted attention. He got his first job in New York in this way. In London he came to know Arthur Brisbane, who was then English correspondent of the New York Sun, and afterward editor of the Evening Sun. On his return to America he sought a newspaper job in New York, and Brisbane took him on the Evening Sun. His first experience was strikingly characteristic. A bunco man accosted him near the ferry. Davis gave him some marked money, then had him arrested and walked him boldly into the

Evening Sun office, showed him up for the crook he was—and then wrote him up in the form of a news story for the paper. Aside from his regular assignments as a reporter, Davis busied himself with pictures of various types of New York life. Among these the most famous were the Van Bibber stories, in which Davis presented types of New York society. In 1891 Davis went to Harper’s Weekly and remained there for three years as managing editor. Then he became a free lance. It was not necessary for him to “hold down a job.” All magazines and book publishers were eager for his work. His first engagement as war correspondent was on the battlefields of the Greco-Turkish War. He was a prominent figure among newspaper correspondents in all the great wars that followed. He made a genuine sensation by his war letters written from Cuba during the Spanish-American War of 1898. In that war Davis formed a friendship with Theodore Roosevelt that remained firm through life.

In 1898, with the publication of “Soldiers of Fortune” in Scribner’s Magazine, the reputation of Davis as a novelist became established, and, thereafter, the fiction that flowed from his pen found an eager and growing audience. His extensive travels enabled him to set his stories in widely varied scenes. “Soldiers of Fortune” told of revolution and political intrigue in a South American republic. That also was the vein and atmosphere of “Captain Macklin” and later of “The White Mice.” In “The Exiles” he invaded Morocco for his background and characters. Later, in “The King’s Jackal,” he laid his scenes in Tangier. “Ranson’s Folly” is a story of American army life—afterwards dramatized, as was “Soldiers of Fortune.” “Princess Aline” is a romantic story of the “Graustark” kind. Besides fiction, Davis wrote many books of adventure and travel impression, such as “Rulers of the Mediterranean,” “Three Gringos in Venezuela,” “The West from a Car Window,” “A Year from a Reporter’s Note Book,” “The Congo and

Coasts of Africa.” His later books, based on war correspondence, include “With the French,” “Somewhere in France,” and “With the Allies.”

We have named scarcely half the titles of Davis’ work. He was busy always with his pen, and, as one of his fellow craftsmen in literature observed, he “never penned a dull line.” In all his stories he left a record of his sturdy Americanism and his passionate devotion to a just cause, wherever he found it.

He died suddenly of heart disease on April 12, 1916. The loss to literature was great and was keenly felt in a history-making time like this that demands an eloquent chronicler. Davis will always be remembered as one of the most buoyant, brave, heroic and industrious workers in the field of American literature, a man who saw life fully and clearly, and who reflected it truly, in healthy, ringing, inspiring tones.

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Jack London FOUR

Jack London’s stories were written largely out of his own life. If they were not actual experiences cast in fiction form, they were narratives spun out of the fiber of his own experiences. Life was never certain for London. He was always on the go, and his life was an ever vigorous, vital present, with the future undetermined and unguessed. He was born in San Francisco on January 12, 1876. When he was eleven years old he left his ranch in the Livermore Valley and set out to satisfy his longing for a knowledge of the world and an expression of himself. He first went to Oakland, where, in the public library, he came under the romantic influence of such fiction writers as Washington Irving, Ouida and others. Out of Irving’s “Alhambra” he built castles in the air for himself, and launched upon a great literary career with a strong under-current of romance and an irresistible longing for adventure. He left home and joined the oyster pirates in San Francisco Bay. Then, tiring of the excitement of piracy, he turned with equal enthusiasm to the prosecution of it by joining the

Fish Patrol, and was entrusted with the arrest of some who were his former comrades. Thrilling accounts of this life appeared under the title of “Tales of a Fish Patrol.” In them is a wild buccaneer spirit, and the savor of the sea. Those of us that read the “Sea Wolf” can find there a passionate expression of the author’s own experiences before the mast while seal hunting in Behring Sea or along the coast of Japan. It is full of strong appealing character and strange sea lore. The same wild breath of adventure is to be found in “The Mutiny of the Elsinore,” in which London describes thrilling experiences in a trip around the Horn. London was a worker, and labored hard among the rougher elements of life—with longshoremen and shovellers in San Francisco; in factories and on the decks of coastwise vessels. He was as good a tramp, too, as he was a laboring man. He walked the Continent over from ocean to ocean, gathering the materials for a “vast understanding of the common man.” Out of these experiences came “The Road,” which is an appealing record of sympathy

with the vagrant poor, and an absorbing narrative of adventurous journeying.

London tried schooling at different times in his early life, working between hours to pay for his education. After several months of stern, hard application, in which he covered about three years’ preparatory work, he entered the University of California. The strain, however, of work and study combined was too much for him, and after three months he had to give up. Turning to things quite different, and with a desperate hope that he might find fresh inspiration in a new kind of life, he set off for the widely advertised Klondike to seek for gold. In the Klondike “nobody talks; everybody thinks; you get your true perspective; I got mine,” he says. After a year of hard toil in the north, London returned home and assumed the burden of supporting his family, his father having died while he was away. He wrote story upon story, and finally gained acceptance and success. As book after book came out, the public grew to know and recognize Jack London as one of the strongest figures in American fiction.