Threads of Grey and Gold

In The Story of Eva, Mr. Payne announces that Eva climbed out of a cab in “a fawn-coloured jacket,” conspicuous by reason of its newness, and a hat “with an owl’s head upon it!”

The jacket was possibly a coat of tan covert cloth with strapped seams, but it is the startling climax which claims attention. An owl! Surely not, Mr. Payne! It may have been a parrot, for once upon a time, before the Audubon Society met with widespread recognition, women wore such things, and at afternoon teas where many fair ones were gathered together the parrot garniture was not without significance. But an owl’s face, with its glaring glassy eyes, is too much like a pussy cat’s to be appropriate, and one could not wear it at the back without conveying an unpleasant impression of two-facedness, if the coined word be permissible.

Still the owl is no worse than the trimming suggested by a funny paper. The tears of mirth come yet at the picture of a hat of rough straw, shaped like a nest, on which sat a full-fledged Plymouth Rock hen, with her neck proudly, yet graciously curved. Perhaps Mr. Payne saw the picture and forthwith decided to do something in the same line, but there is a singular inappropriateness in placing the bird of Minerva upon the head of poor Eva, who made the old, old bargain in which she had everything to lose, and nothing save the bitterest experience to gain. A stuffed kitten, so young and innocent that its eyes were still blue and bleary, would have been more appropriate on Eva’s bonnet, and just as pretty.

In The Fortunes of Oliver Horn, Margaret Grant wears a particularly striking costume:

“The cloth skirt came to her ankles, which were covered with yarn stockings, and her feet were encased in shoes that gave him the shivers, the soles being as thick as his own and the leather as tough.

“Her blouse was of grey flannel, belted to the waist by a cotton saddle-girth, white and red, and as broad as her hand. The tam-o-shanter was coarse and rough, evidently home-made, and not at all like McFudd’s, which was as soft as the back of a kitten and without a seam.”

With all due respect to Mr. Smith, one must insist that Margaret’s shoes were all right as regards material and build. She would have been more comfortable if they had been “high-necked” shoes, and, in that case, the yarn hosiery would not have troubled him, but that is a minor detail. The quibble comes at the belt, and knowing that Margaret was an artist, we must be sure that Mr. Smith was mistaken. It may have been one of the woven cotton belts, not more than two inches wide, which, for a dizzy moment, were at the height of fashion, and then tottered and fell, but a “saddle-girth” – never!

In that charming morceau, The Inn of the Silver Moon, Mr. Viele puts his heroine into plaid stockings and green knickerbockers – an outrageous costume truly, even for wheeling.

As if recognising his error, and, with veritable masculine stubbornness, refusing to admit it, Mr. Viele goes on to say that the knickerbockers were “tailor-made!” And thereby he makes a bad matter very much worse.

In The Wings of the Morning, Iris, in spite of the storm through which the Sirdar vainly attempts to make its way, appears throughout in a “lawn dress” – white, undoubtedly, since all sorts and conditions of men profess to admire white lawn!

How cold the poor girl must have been! And even if she could have been so inappropriately gowned on shipboard, she had plenty of time to put on a warm and suitable tailor-made gown before she was shipwrecked. This is sheer fatuity, for any one with Mr. Tracy’s abundant ingenuity could easily have contrived ruin for the tailored gown in time for Iris to assume masculine garb and participate bravely in that fearful fight on the ledge.

Whence, oh whence, comes this fondness for lawn? Are not organdies, dimities, and embroidered muslins fully as becoming to the women who trip daintily through the pages of men’s books? Lawn has been a back number for many a weary moon, and still we read of it!

“When in doubt, lead trumps,” might well be paraphrased thus: “When in doubt, put her into white lawn!” Even “J. P. M.,” that gentle spirit to whom so many hidden things were revealed, sent his shrewish “Kate” off for a canter through the woods in a white gown, and, if memory serves, it was lawn!

In The Master, Mr. Zangwill describes Eleanor Wyndwood as “the radiant apparition of a beautiful woman in a shimmering amber gown, from which her shoulders rose dazzling.”

So far so good. But a page or two farther on, that delightful minx, Olive Regan, wears “a dress of soft green-blue cut high, with yellow roses at the throat.” One wonders whether Mr. Zangwill ever really saw a woman in any kind of a gown “with yellow roses at the throat,” or whether it is but the slip of an overstrained fancy. The fact that he has married since writing this gives a goodly assurance that by this time he knows considerably more about gowns.

Still there is always a chance that the charm may not work, for Mr. Arthur Stringer, who has been reported as being married to a very lovely woman, takes astonishing liberties in The Silver Poppy:

“She floated in before Reppellier, buoyant, smiling, like a breath of open morning itself, a confusion of mellow autumnal colours in her wine-coloured gown, and a hat of roses and mottled leaves.

“Before she had as much as drawn off her gloves – and they were always the most spotless of white gloves – she glanced about in mock dismay, and saw that the last of the righting up had already been done.”

Later, we read that the artist pinned an American Beauty upon her gown, then shook his head over the colour combination and took it off. If the American Beauty jarred enough for a man to notice it, the dress must have been the colour of claret, or Burgundy, rather than the clear soft gold of sauterne.

This brings us up with a short turn before the hat. What colour were the roses? Surely they were not American Beauties, and they could not have been pink. Yellow roses would have been a fright, so they must have been white ones, and a hat covered with white roses is altogether too festive to wear in the morning. The white gloves also would have been sadly out of place.

What a comfort it would be to all concerned if the feminine reader could take poor Cordelia one side and fix her up a bit! One could pat the artistic disorder out of her beautiful yellow hair, help her out of her hideous clothes into a grey tailor-made, with a shirt-waist of mercerised white cheviot, put on a stock of the same material, give her a “ready-to-wear” hat of the same trig-tailored quality, and, as she passed out, hand her a pair of grey suède gloves which exactly matched her gown.

Though grey would be more becoming, she might wear tan as a concession to Mr. Stringer, who evidently likes yellow.

In the same book, we find a woman who gathers up her “yellow skirts” and goes down a ladder. It might have been only a yellow taffeta drop-skirt under tan etamine, but we must take his word for it, as we did not see it and he did.

As the Chinese keep the rat tails for the end of the feast, the worst clothes to be found in any book must come last by way of climax. Mr. Dixon, in The Leopard’s Spots, has easily outdone every other knight of the pen who has entered the lists to portray women’s clothes. Listen to the inspired description of Miss Sallie’s gown!

“She was dressed in a morning gown of a soft red material, trimmed with old cream lace. The material of a woman’s dress had never interested him before. He knew calico from silk, but beyond that he never ventured an opinion. To colour alone he was responsive. This combination of red and creamy white, with the bodice cut low, showing the lines of her beautiful white shoulders, and the great mass of dark hair rising in graceful curves from her full round neck, heightened her beauty to an extraordinary degree.

“As she walked, the clinging folds of her dress, outlining her queenly figure, seemed part of her very being, and to be imbued with her soul. He was dazzled with the new revelation of her power over him.”

The fact that she goes for a ride later on, “dressed in pure white,” sinks into insignificance beside this new and original creation of Mr. Dixon’s. A red morning gown, trimmed with cream lace, cut low enough to show the “beautiful white shoulders” – ye gods and little fishes! Where were the authorities, and why was not “Miss Sallie” taken to the detention hospital, pending an inquiry into her sanity?

It would seem that any man, especially one who writes books, could be sure of a number of women friends. Among these there ought to be at least one whom he could take into his confidence. The gentleman novelist might go to the chosen one and say: “My heroine, in moderate circumstances, is going to the matinée with a girl friend. What shall she wear?”

Instantly the discerning woman would ask the colour of her eyes and hair, and the name of the town she lived in, then behold!

Upon the writer’s page would come a radiant feminine vision, clothed in her right mind and in proper clothes, to the joy of every woman who reads the book.

But men are proverbially chary of their confidence, except when they are in love, and being in love is supposed to put even book women out of a man’s head. Perhaps in the new Schools of Journalism which are to be inaugurated, there will be supplementary courses in millinery elective, for those who wish to learn the trade of novel writing.

If a man knows no woman to whom he can turn for counsel and advice at the critical point in his book, there are only two courses open to him, aside from the doubtful one of evasion. He may let his fancy run riot and put his heroine into clothes that would give even a dumb woman hysterics, or he may follow the example of Mr. Chatfield-Taylor, who says of one of his heroines that “her pliant body was enshrouded in white muslin with a blue ribbon at the waist.”

Lacking the faithful hench-woman who would gladly put them straight, the majority of gentlemen novelists evade the point, and, so far as clothes are concerned, their heroines are as badly off as the Queen of Spain was said to be for legs.

They delve freely into emotional situations, and fearlessly attempt profound psychological problems, but slide off like frightened crabs when they strike the clothesline.

After all, it may be just as well, since fashion is transient and colours and material do not vary much. Still, judging by the painful mistakes that many of them have made, the best advice that one can give the gallant company of literary craftsmen is this: “When you come to millinery, crawfish!”

Maidens of the Sea

Far out in the ocean, deep and blue,Where the winds dance wild and free,In coral caves, dwells a beautiful band —The maidens of the sea.There are stories old, of the mystic tide,And legends strange, of the deep,How the witching sound of the siren’s songCan lull the tempest to sleep.When moonlight falls on a crystal sea,When the clouds have backward rolled,The mermaids sing their low sweet songs,And their harp strings are of gold.The billows come from the vast unknown —From their far-away unseen home;The waves bring shells to the sandy bar,And the fairies dance on the foam.

The Technique of the Short Story

An old rule for those who would be well-dressed says: “When you have finished, go to the mirror and see what you can take off.” The same rule applies with equal force to the short story: “When you have written it out, go over it carefully, and see what you can take out.”

Besides being the best preparation for the writing of novels, short-story writing is undoubtedly, at the present time, the best paying and most satisfactory form of any ephemeral literary work. The qualities which make it successful are to be attained only by constant and patient practice. The real work of writing a story may be brief, but years of preparation must be worked through before a manuscript, which may be written in an hour or so, can present an artistic result.

The first and most important thing to consider is the central idea. There are only a few ideas in the world, but their ramifications are countless, and one need never despair of a theme. Your story may be one of either failure or success, but it must have the true ring. Given the man and the circumstances, we should know his action.

The plot must unfold naturally; otherwise it will be a succession of distinct sensations, rather than a complete and harmonious whole.

There is no better way to produce this effect than to follow Edmund Russell’s rule of colour in dress: “When a contrasting colour is introduced, there should be at least two subordinate repetitions of it.”

Each character should appear, or be spoken of, at least twice before his main action. Following this rule makes one of the differences between artistic and sensational literature.

The heroine of a dime novel always finds a hero to rescue her in the nick of time, and perhaps she never sees him again. In the artistic novel, while the heroine may see the rescuer first at the time she needs him most, he never disappears altogether from the story.

Description is a thing which is much abused. There is no truer indication of an inexperienced hand than a story beginning with a description of a landscape which is not necessary to the plot. If the peculiarities of the scenery must be understood before the idea can be developed, the briefest possible description is not out of place. Subjectively, a touch of landscape or weather is allowable, but it must be purely incidental. Weather is a very common thing and is apt to be uninteresting.

It is a mistake to tell anything yourself which the people in the story could inform the reader without your assistance. A conversation between two people will bring out all the facts necessary as well as two pages of narration by the author.

There is a way also of telling things from the point of view of the persons which they concern. Those who have studied Latin will find the “indirect discourse” of Cicero a useful model.

The people in the story can tell their own peculiarities better than the author can do it for them. It is not necessary to say that a woman is a snarling, grumpy person. Bring the old lady in, and let her snarl, if she is in your story at all.

The choice of words is not lightly to be considered. Never use two adjectives where one will do, or a weak word where a stronger one is possible. Fallows’ 100,000 Synonyms and Antonyms and Roget’s Thesaurus of Words and Phrases will prove invaluable to those who wish to improve themselves in this respect.

Analysis of sentences which seem to you particularly strong is a good way to strengthen your vocabulary. Take, for instance, the oft-quoted expression of George Eliot’s: “Inclination snatches argument to make indulgence seem judicious choice.” Substitute “takes” for “snatches” and read the sentence again. Leave out “seem” and put “appear” in its place. “Proper” is a synonym for “judicious”; substitute it, and put “selection” in the place of “choice.”

Reading the sentence again we have: “Inclination takes argument to make indulgence appear proper selection.” The strength is wholly gone although the meaning is unchanged.

Find out what you want to say, and then say it, in the most direct English at your command. One of the best models of concise expressions of thought is to be found in the essays of Emerson. He compresses a whole world into a single sentence, and a system of philosophy into an epigram.

“Literary impressionism,” which is largely the use of onomatopoetic words, is a valuable factor in the artistic short story. It is possible to convey the impression of a threatening sky and a stormy sea without doing more than alluding to the crash of the surf against the shore. The mind of the reader accustomed to subtle touches will at once picture the rest.

An element of strength is added also by occasionally referring an impression to another sense. For instance, the newspaper poet writes: “The street was white with snow,” and makes his line commonplace doggerel. Tennyson says: “The streets were dumb with snow,” and his line is poetry.

“Blackening the background” is a common fault with story writers. In many of the Italian operas, everybody who does not appear in the final scene is killed off in the middle of the last act. This wholesale slaughter is useless as well as inartistic. The true artist does not, in order that his central figure may stand out prominently, make his background a solid wall of gloom. Yet gloom has its proper place, as well as joy.

In the old tragedies of the Greeks, just before the final catastrophe, the chorus is supposed to advance to the centre of the theatre and sing a bacchanal of frensied exultation.

In the Antigone of Sophocles, just before the death of Antigone and her lover, the chorus sings an ode which makes one wonder at its extravagant expression. When the catastrophe occurs, the mystery is explained. Sophocles meant the sacrifice of Antigone to come home with its full force; and well he attained his end by use of an artistic method which few of our writers are subtle enough to recognise and claim for their own purposes.

“High-sounding sentences,” which an inexperienced writer is apt to put into the mouths of his people, only make them appear ridiculous. The schoolgirl in the story is too apt to say: “The day has been most unpleasant,” whereas the real schoolgirl throws her books down with a bang, and declares that she has “had a perfectly horrid time!”

Her grammar may be incorrect, but her method of expression is true to life, and there the business of the writer ends.

Put yourself in your hero’s place and see what you would do under similar circumstances. If you were in love with a young woman, you wouldn’t get down on your knees, and swear by all that was holy that you would die if she didn’t marry you, at the same time tearing your hair out by handfuls, and then endeavour to give her a concise biography of yourself.

You would put your arm around her, the first minute you had her to yourself, if you felt reasonably sure that she cared for you, and tell her what she meant to you – perhaps so low that even the author of the story couldn’t hear what you said, and would have to describe what he saw afterward in order to let his reader guess what had really happened.

It is a lamentable fact that the description of a person’s features gives absolutely no idea of his appearance. It is better to give a touch or two, and let the imagination do the rest. “Hair like raven’s wing,” and the “midnight eyes,” and many similar things, may be very well spared. The personal charms of the lover may be brought out through the mediations of the lovee, much better than by pages of description.

The law of compensation must always have its place in the artistic story. Those who do wrong must suffer wrong – those who work must be rewarded, if not in the tangible things they seek, at least in the conscious strength that comes from struggling. And “poetic justice,” which metes out to those who do the things that they have done, is relentless and eternal, in art, as well as in life.

“Style” is purely an individual matter, and, if it is anything at all, it is the expression of one’s self. Zola has said that, “art is nature seen through the medium of a temperament,” and the same is true of literature. Bunner’s stories are as thoroughly Bunner as the man who wrote them, and The Badge of Courage is nothing unless it be the moody, sensitive, half-morbid Stephen Crane.

Observation of things nearest at hand and the sympathetic understanding of people are the first requisites. Do not place the scene of a story in Europe if you have never been there, and do not assume to comprehend the inner life of a Congressman if you have never seen one. Do not write of mining camps if you have never seen a mountain, or of society if you have never worn evening dress.

James Whitcomb Riley has made himself loved and honoured by writing of the simple things of home, and Louisa Alcott’s name is a household word because she wrote of the little women whom she knew. Eugene Field has written of the children that he loved and understood, and won a truer fame than if he had undertaken The Master of Zangwill. Kipling’s life in India has given us Plain Tales from the Hills and The Jungle Book, which Mary E. Wilkins could not have written in spite of the genius which made her New England stories the most effective of their kind. Joel Chandler Harris could not have written The Prisoner of Zenda, but those of us who have enjoyed the wiles of that “monstus soon beast, Brer Rabbit,” would not have it otherwise.

You cannot write of love unless you have loved, of suffering unless you have suffered, or of death unless some one who was near to you has learned the heavenly secret. A little touch of each must teach you the full meaning of the great thing you mean to write about, or your work will be lacking. There are few of us to whom the great experiences do not come sooner or later, and, in the meantime, there are the little everyday happenings, which are full of sweetness and help, if they are only seen properly, to last until the great things come to test our utmost strength, to crush us if we are not strong, and to make us broader, better men and women if we withstand the blow.

And lastly, remember this, that merit is invariably recognised. If your stories are worth printing, they will fight their way through “the abundance of material on hand.” The light of the public square is the unfailing test, and a good story is sure to be published sooner or later, if a fair amount of literary instinct is exercised in sending it out. Meteoric success is not desirable. Slow, hard, conscientious work will surely win its way, and those who are now near the bottom of the ladder are gradually ascending to make room for the next generation of story-writers on the rounds below.

To Dorothy

There’s a sleepy look in your violet eyes,So the sails of our ship we’ll unfurl,And turn the prow to the Land of Rest,My dear little Dorothy girl.Twilight is coming soon, little one,The sheep have gone to the fold;See! where our white sails bend and dipIn the sunset glow of gold.The roses nod to the sound of the waves,And the bluebells sweet are ringing;Do you hear the music, Dorothy dear?The song that the angels are singing?The fairies shall weave their drowsy spellOn the shadowy shore of the stream;Dear little voyager say “good-night,”For the birds are beginning to dream.O white little craft, with sails full spread,My heart goes out with thee;God keep thee strong with thy precious freight,My Dorothy – out at sea.

Writing a Book

Having written a few small books which have been published by a reputable house, and which have been pleasantly received by both the press and the public, and having just completed another which I devoutly pray may meet the same fate, I feel that I may henceforth deem myself an author.

I have been considered such for some time among my numerous acquaintances ever since I made my literary bow with a short story in a literary magazine, years and years ago. Being of the feminine persuasion, I am usually presented to strangers as “an authoress.” It is at these times that I wish I were a man.

The social side of authorship is extremely interesting. At least once a week, I am asked how I “came to write.”

This is difficult, for I do not know. When I so reply, my questioner ascertains by further inquiries where I was educated and how I have been trained. Never having been through a “School of Journalism,” my answer is not satisfactory.

“You must read a great deal in order to get all those ideas,” is frequently said to me. I reply that I do read a great deal, being naturally bookish, but that it is the great object of my life to avoid getting ideas from books. To an author, “Plagiarist” is like the old cry of “Wolf,” and when an idea is once assimilated it is difficult indeed to distinguish it from one’s own.

I am often asked how long it takes me to write a book. I am ashamed to tell, but sometimes the secret escapes, since I am naturally truthful, and find it hard to parry a direct question. The actual time of composition is always greeted with astonishment, and I can read the questioner’s inference, that if I can do so much in so short a time, how much could I do if I actually worked!