Seeing Things at Night

I have noticed that most essayists are like that. Their enthusiasms are intense, but not of long duration. It is just as well. After all, there probably is no great field for expression in the subject of penwipers. The essayist does it once in a fine spirit of frenzy and then goes on to something else. If he were faithful to the one theme there's no telling when he might exhaust his market.

Sometimes I am inclined to distrust the enthusiasm of the essayist. Being a man much moved to write, he comes to be so sensitive that even a puff of wind will propel him into an essay. And then sometimes on dead calm days he will begin to write under the pretense that a breath from some far corner of the world has touched him. Perhaps it has. But then again it may be that he, too, is among the fakers.

"It is time, I think," writes Alpha of the Plough, in Windfalls, "that some one said a good word for the wasp. He is no saint, but he is being abused beyond his deserts."

But why is it time? Fabre has said some hundreds of thousands of good words about wasps, but even if he hadn't, whence comes the cry of "justice for the wasp"? The wasps themselves haven't complained. Nor is there much persuasion in what Alpha sets down.

"Now the point about the wasp," he writes, "is that he doesn't want to sting you." Of still less moment to the world than the wrongs of the wasp are his motives and intentions. Any wasp who stings me will be wasting his time if he lingers around after the deed to explain, "I didn't want to do it."

Still, the whole trick of the essayist is to pick side-alley subjects. Selecting at random from Windfalls, there are On a Hansom Cab, Two Glasses of Milk, On Matches and Things. Few of them, it seems to me; are better than pretty good. That is hardly good enough. The essay is a stunt. Either the writer can balance his theme on the end of his nose or he can't.

What with the various new jobs which are being created, some enterprising university should found a School of Censorship. It might, most fittingly, be a Sumner school, and the college yell without question will be "Carnal I yell! I yell carnal!"

At first we were inclined to look at prohibition with tolerance, because it meant a release from all the books which described what would happen to a guinea pig if he were inoculated with Bronx cocktails. The relief was temporary, for we find that it takes just as much time to read the heartrending accounts of the effect of one drop of nicotine placed on the tongue of a dog.

In Habits That Handicap, by Charles B. Towns, we find the following ailments attributed directly or indirectly to the use of tobacco: Bright's disease, apoplexy, chronic catarrh, headache, heart disease, lassitude, dizziness, low scholarship, small lung capacity, predisposition to alcoholic excesses, hardening of the arteries, paralysis of the optic nerve, blindness, acid dyspepsia, insomnia, epilepsy, muscular paralysis, cancer, lack of appetite, insanity and loss of moral tone. Mumps, measles and beri-beri are slighted in the present edition.

"There is nothing to be said in its favor," writes Mr. Towns, "save that it gives pleasure."

"It seems," he adds in another portion of the book, "to give one companionship when one has none – something to do when one is bored – keeps one from feeling hungry when one is hungry and blunts the edge of hardship and worry."

Suppose, then, that every ailment which Mr. Towns has traced to tobacco actually lies at its door – even then is the case for the prohibition of smoking persuasive? Of course, low scholarship is a fearful and humiliating thing, but we wonder whether it is more devastating than loneliness. It is better, we think, to have a little lassitude now and then, or even a touch of acid dyspepsia, than to be without the weed which gives "one companionship when one has none." And consider the tremendous testimonial in favor of tobacco which Mr. Towns has written when he says that it gives "something to do when one is bored." Although we haven't the statistics for last year yet, we venture the guess that about 63 per cent of all the people who die in any one year cease living because they are bored. Boredom is the cause of 85 per cent of all actions for divorce. It fills our jails. Nations make war because of it. Social unrest, bedroom farces, tardiness, rudeness, blasphemy, crime, lies and yawning in the presence of company all rise because of it.

And so we are disposed to sit defiantly shoulder to shoulder with other smokers and to cry out against the foe who creeps ever closer through the haze, "Bring on your 'lack of appetite.'"

It may be true, as Mr. Towns says, that smoking causes a loss of moral tone, but if the smoker will save his coupons religiously at the end of a few months he will be able to exchange them for a book on character building.

It seems to us that Booth Tarkington belongs at the top or thereabouts in American letters. We will be surprised and disappointed if Penrod does not persist for a century or so. And yet much of Tarkington's work is flawed by a curious failing. Almost invariably the novels are carefully thought out to a certain point, and then they weaken. This point occurs, as a rule, within a chapter or so of the end. The story "hangs," as the racetrack reporters express it, in the last few strides. In Ramsey Milholland, for instance, it seemed to us that Tarkington, after a minute development of a theme, cut it off abruptly. He was, according to our impression, a little tired and anxious to have it over with before he had actually reached the finishing mark. To-day we received a story which may provide an explanation. "Booth Tarkington," says a publisher's note, "probably uses more lead pencils than any other writer in America. Always he has disdained a typewriter.

"He works at an artist's drawing table, and," the story continues, "with a little stock of paper before him he then sets about the actual business of composition very slowly, very carefully. Every phrase – almost every word – is pondered, balanced, scrutinized before it is permitted to pass. As often as not a dozen phrases have been rejected before the final one, which seems to readers to come so trippingly, has been arrived at. Individual words are scored out again and again."

All this makes the slackening of vigor toward the end of a long novel comprehensible. Though a man begin with a dozen well sharpened pencils catastrophes are sure to occur in the course of fifty or sixty thousand words. Finally, the author finds himself with an aching wrist and only one pencil, which has grown a little dull. If he is to add another chapter he must pause to find a safety razor blade and sharpen up. And so instead he rounds off the tale while lead remains.

On the other hand, we feel certain that Harold Bell Wright composes on a typewriter, pausing only once every twenty-four hours to oil the machine with a little treacle.

Robert W. Chambers uses an adding machine and Theodore Dreiser favors an ax.

"Man is a machine," writes Dr. David Orr Edson in Getting What We Want, "with the directions for use written on his physiognomy – which society in general neglects to read. Through this omission much of the unrest in the world has developed, and psychologists have been forced to recognize and attempt to cope with the protests of the psychophysical against unendurable conditions of life."

To us these seem true words. It isn't only that society neglects to read, but also that it reads awry. Again and again our legible physiognomy has been taken to mean, "Shake well before using," when anybody with half an eye ought to know that it says, "Lay on its side in a cool, dry place."

We were discussing the education of H. 3rd the other day, and when we were asked where he was to go, of course we said, "The Rand School."

"No," said the friend who put the question, "I don't believe it. By the time H. is ready to go to school you'll be saying that the Rand School is a reactionary institution and full of snobs."

Perhaps, since he is to be a book reviewer, H. should go to a Montessori school. They teach the children to skip.

Gerald Cumberland's Set Down in Malice reveals the interesting fact that Mrs. Shaw calls him "George." Moreover, she is quoted as saying "Don't be absurd, George."

There are limits to the success of the most adroit literary advertiser the modern world has known, as we learned from a trip to the British front two years ago. Our conducting officer had been Shaw's guide a few months before, and we were anxious to learn how he had impressed the army.

"Oh, he was no end of nuisance," replied the young officer. "When I got him out to our mess I found out that he was a vegetarian, and I had to hop around and get him eggs and all sorts of truck."

If Gerald Cumberland is thirty-one or less, Tales of a Cruel Country is an exceedingly promising collection of short stories. If, on the other hand, he has gone beyond that age we see only a doddering literary future for him. There are twenty-two stories in Tales of a Cruel Country and three of them are excellent. One, in fact, seems to us a superb short story, but many of the other nineteen are rot. Now, they are the sort of rot which a young man may turn out by the bushel and still go on to great things. "Her eyes are pits of darkness," "a beautiful animal," "whiter than the paper on which this little history is written," "he pulled his body together sensually," "his teeth bit more deeply into his lower lip," "brutally I tore her arms away and flung her from me as a man would fling away a snake that had coiled around him in his sleep" – that is the sort of rot we mean.

It has its place in the work of every young writer. In fact, if he writes honestly there is no skipping this period, which must be passed before he is ready to do more important work. Fortunately, there are several easy tests by which one may determine whether a writer is still in his salad days, in which he does as the romaines, or whether he is ready to go on and deal with hardier grasses. Ask him what the word "mirror" suggests to him and note whether he replies "a man shaving" or "a slender woman disrobing." Try him with "model" and see whether he replies "artist's" or "tenement," and finally, if he can meet your "bed" immediately with "eight hours' sleep" you may put him down as among those who have finished their literary stint of "half insane gleam of desire," "her eyes swooped into his," and "vermouth on purple trays."

We are particularly interested in the publication of Clarence Buddington Kelland's The Little Moment of Happiness, because we made a dramatization of the novel last year which failed of production partly because of the deplorable lapse in morals which Mr. Kelland allows to his hero. The story concerns a Puritanical young American officer who is stationed in Paris during the war and falls in love with a beautiful French girl named Andrée. Now, Andrée is not like the girls whom Kendall, our hero, has been accustomed to meet in America. "A young man love a young girl," says Andrée, "and a young girl love a young man… They marry, maybe. That is well. But maybe they do not marry. It is expensive to marry. Then they see each other very often, and he gives her money so she can live… That is well, because they are fidèle."

Naturally, we were as much shocked by this doctrine as Kendall, the hero; but, since Mr. Kelland's story was largely concerned with the young man's eventual decision to make shift without benefit of clergy, we could see no way open for us to act about the reformation of Andrée's character. As a matter of fact, owing to the exigencies of dramatic action, we were compelled to make the affair much more precipitate than in the book. We gave the hero an order to return to the front. We had off-stage bands of soldiers wandering up and down singing "Madelon," in the most heartrending way, and, finally, we introduced an air raid to shut off the Metro so that the heroine should have no available means of transportation to go home even if she desired to leave the apartment of the hero.

It was not enough. A manager read the play and at first seemed favorably inclined. Then he began to think it over and finally he summoned us to a conference.

"Suppose you had been an American officer in France during the war," he said.

We accepted the supposition.

"And then suppose after you came home you took your wife, or your mother, or your fiancée, to see this play."

We nodded again and he paused for dramatic effect.

"At the end of the third act when they found that this girl was going to stay all night in the apartment of this American officer, suppose they had turned to you and said, 'Heywood, did you live like that in Paris?' Or, even if they said nothing, but just looked at you accusingly, what would you say to them?"

We suggested, "Isn't it rather stuffy in here? Do you mind if I go out to smoke?" But that did not seem wholly satisfactory, and so our version of The Little Moment of Happiness never reached the stage.

The office force got started on a discussion of what character in fiction each of us would take out to dinner if he had his choice. Most of the men spoke for Becky Sharp, although there were scattering bids here and there for Thaïs. But the night editor, who had put in a long evening of it, said, "My choice would be little Eva."

"Why?" we asked tactfully.

"Because she'd probably have to go home early!" he answered.

Brian Kent, the hero of Harold Bell Wright's new novel, The Re-Creation of Brian Kent, is first introduced to us as a defaulting bank clerk. Later he is reformed by the influence of "dear old Auntie Sue" and becomes a novelist. His first book sells so well that in six months he is able to pay back all the money he stole and have something left over. This would seem to prove that Brian was an unusually successful novelist. Or, again, it may merely indicate that he had no real gift for embezzlement.

It rather seems to us that the distinct failure of political radicalism in America may be explained in part by its devotion to the concrete as opposed to the abstract. "We are going to make the world over anew at 12:25 o'clock p. m. next Thursday," says the concrete radical. And then Thursday comes and it rains and nothing is done about fixing up the world, and all the followers of the young radical are disappointed, and they go home firmly convinced that the world never will be fixed up. The man who realizes the value of the abstract ideal is shrewder. He says: "The world ought to be scrubbed up a lot, and if we can make a start next Thursday some time after breakfast we will. But if we can't do it then we've just got to keep on plugging away, because the job must be done."

In other words, the man with abstract ideals makes the job the important thing. The concrete man is impressed more by the date of the doing.

A little abstraction is an excellent thing for the reformer or the revolutionist. It provides, we should say, a sort of reinforced concrete purpose.

At the worst, an abstract ideal is pemmican to carry the voyager through the long nights until the ice begins to break.

Some writers are hardly fair to women, but not so Julian Street. In his new novel, After Thirty, he describes marriage as a canoe trip beginning in the Rapids of Romance, and later he observes: "Presently they come to the first cataract – the birth of their first child – a long, hard portage, with the larger portion of the burden on the wife."

Generous, we call it.

"Mr. Seton's new book of the outdoors," says the jacket of Woodland Tales, "is meant for children of six years and upward. But in the belief that mother or father will be active as leader, those chapters which are devoted to woodcraft are addressed to the parent, who throughout is called 'The Guide.'"

So far we have found the business of being a father hard enough without assuming the responsibilities of "The Guide" as well. The only piece of woodcraft within our knowledge which we can pass on to H. 3rd comes from Harvey O'Higgins, who says that he can always find his way about in London by remembering that the moss grows on the north side of an Englishman.

"This history of Wells," said our friend Rollo, "seems to me to confirm the story of creation as told in Genesis. The impression which I gather is that the Creator attempted various life forms again and again, and each time wasn't satisfied and swept them all away. Apparently he was experimenting continually through the ages until finally he got to me and said, 'That's it,' and stopped."

"But you don't know that he's stopped," objected A. W. "What seems to you a pause is only a fraction of a second in infinity. It seems to me more likely that the Creator is just shaking his head and saying, 'Well, I suppose I'd better go back to the Neanderthal man and start all over again.'"

A magazine editor is a man who says "Sit down," then knits his brows for five minutes, and suddenly brightens as he exclaims, "Why don't you do us a series like Mr. Dooley?"

In his book Average Americans, Theodore Roosevelt comments on the fact that all classes and conditions of men were to be found in the ranks of the American army – waiters, chauffeurs, lawyers. He adds:

"A lieutenant once spoke to me after an action, saying that when he was leading his platoon back from the battle one of his privates asked him a question. The question was so intelligent and so well thought out that the lieutenant said to him: 'What were you before the war?' The reply was 'City editor of The Cleveland Plain Dealer.'"

The story does not surprise us. Years before the war we maintained that if ever a catastrophe great enough to shake the world came along a certain appearance of intelligence might be jarred loose even in city editors.

Henry Ford, so the story goes, called upon the editor of his magazine The Dearborn Independent to ascertain how things were going.

"We're too statistical, I'm afraid," said the editor. "Of course we can try and get that sort of stuff over by putting it in the form of how many hours it takes to turn out enough end-to-end Fords to reach from here to Shanghai and back, but that sort of thing has been done before. It doesn't take the curse off. What we need is some good, live fiction."

"All right," replied Mr. Ford, "let's have fiction."

"It's not as easy as all that," objected the young editor. "There's very keen competition among all the magazines for the fiction writers, and I'd need a pretty big appropriation to get any of them."

"Why not get some of the bright young men on the magazine to write us some fiction?" suggested Ford.

"That's not feasible," said the editor. "Fiction's a highly specialized product. Nobody on our magazine has the complete equipment to turn out successful fiction."

"Ah, but that's where efficiency comes in," interrupted Ford triumphantly. "Get one of the young men to think up an idea. Then let another outline the general structure. A third can do the descriptions and another one the dialogue. And then you – you're the editor – you assemble it."