The Mentor: Makers of American Fiction, Vol. 6, Num. 14, Serial No. 162, September 1, 1918

September 1, 1918 Volume 6 Number 14

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.

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.

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.

PHOTOGRAPH BY PACH BROS.

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.