Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

DEAR EDITOR: Last week when I was in Ne York attending the Annual Convention of And ican Life Insurance Presidents, I fully intend to make a personal call at your great institutiseek you out and tell you how much genuin

The Reverend T. L. Trot, rector of Episco- pleasure I got out of each issue of the Magazi pal Church at Statesville, N. C.:

In December's SCRIBNER's you have indeed shown us how to grow old gracefully. Your "A Freshman Again at Sixty" is so inspiring and stimulating that I cannot resist the impulse to tell you so and to thank you for the great pleasure I have had in reading the article.

A ROTARIAN PROFESSES ENVY

Former United States Senator J. Hamilton Lewis:

Wonderful. Full of the breath of the pines. Honorable E. Haywood (Raleigh lawyer): Read it with great interest. Bought several copies for friends, went for more and all were sold out.

Mrs. Frank Grover, Evanston, Ill.:

Your example is an inspiration. Do give us some more articles full of your rich experiences. Doctor Hines of Vanderbilt University: Bravo-Bravissimo-Keep at it and give us

more.

Professor Montgomery of William and Mary:

Thoroughly delightful and refreshing. The college world is your debtor.

Andrew Joynes (Greensboro newspaper man):

You are the only person in the world who has done what I wish to do.

Elliott Cooper (National City Bank, New York):

Extremely interesting article. The public will undoubtedly seek for more.

J. Parker, lawyer, New York:

In the article, as well as in the adventure that it recounts, you have shown yourself to be a genuine philosopher-you have chosen the better part.

And even the Rotary Club.

Willis Smith, president of the Rotary Club, Raleigh, N. C.:

How could you be so cruel as to write "A

in 1924, most particularly the December issu Unfortunately, I was so tied up that I did a get an opportunity to say what I feel I ought say to you.

The December number was a great joy. ( course, John Galsworthy's story was in a class itself. The one that particularly appealed to however, was by Robert Watson Winston, e titled "A Freshman Again at Sixty." He t just what I hope to be able to do myself, sex time.

Eva Moore Adams' story had all the heart terest anybody could hope for, and "Pete Retires about 'most every other feature in the Decem brought back memories. I could write a par number. I have itemized just this one or tw because I feel that the service you are giving th people who read your Magazine ought to t commended. There are a great many people *: enjoy reading good things, and the number, than Heaven, is constantly increasing.

*

HOMER GUCK

And from scholastic New Haven com commendation of unorthodoxy:

48 Starr Street New Haven, Con

DEAR EDITOR: To say that I enjoyed Gayi S. White's paper on Settlement Work is pur it mildly. It would not be such a far cry to Brotherhood of Man" if more people took t view of life that Mr. White does.

Let me commend SCRIBNER'S for printing unorthodox a paper. "Remarkable" is a fitt descriptive for his essay. To think that if IET not been a subscriber, I might have missed gem. Score one for Princeton.

PHILIP BERNSTED DESMOND ON THE AMERICAN LANGUAC

Shaw Desmond settles an argument fc: and makes some sage remarks:

Leicester Ho Twickenham, Middles! Englan!

DEAR EDITOR: You have perfectly unrav the tangle of my "inexorably tangled" i "Pad and the Mom." It is of course exact you or any other artist [thanks, Mr. Desme Ed.] would have put it. The whole trouble my friends who don't "get" it is that I am ş

ing in the East whereas they are answering in the West-and although we all know Kipling's "East is East, etc.," I feel sure that could they and I talk it over together in friendly fashion we should prove Kipling wrong!

I am neither impatient nor angry at the criticisms, which are natural under the circumstances. It all reminds me of a question I put to Edison when I was with him at West Orange upon a trifle of electricity. "I will answer your question," the dear old man said, "when you have developed the electrical mind."

All these matters of what is "vulgarity" or "blasphemy" are matters of degrees of perception. That is all. And there are a million roads to "understanding" and to heaven-glory_be. And I am in good company. Tolstoy and Zola in their day were accused of both.

Incidentally, it is just because the "American language" has violently divorced English words from their usual and original meanings, that America continues to be the greatest inspiration and feeder of the English language.

And thank Brooks for his "Pete Retires." He made me laugh until my sides ached, and my heart! And he did it without being either “vulgar" or "blasphemous," bless him!

[blocks in formation]

"comlark"-from commercial plus architec

ture

"beaucom"-from beauty plus commercial are terms which would be fitting.

A beautil type of building; a beautilark structure; the comlark construction; a beaucom plan all appeal to the ear and have the merit of being descriptive. Beautil is the best in point of euphony. M. E. MOODY.

NAUGHTY MR. PEARSON

As soon as he is upheld in one of his irreverences, he is chided for another. Here is a man who read "Ten Nights in a Bar-Room," and believes others did.

East Orange, N. J.

DEAR EDITOR: I was much interested in that article in your November number, "Temperance Novels," by Edmund Lester Pearson. It took me back in a reminiscent mood to the time when I was a boy in college almost sixty years ago.

One Sunday evening, after my room-mate had gone to church, I looked around for something to read. Not finding anything to suit me I stepped across the hall into the room of our neighbors and found nobody at home. On the table lay a book, attractively bound and printed. I read the title "Ten Nights in a Bar-Room." I took it to my room and at once started to read it. I read on and on till my room-mate arrived, until he went to bed, and afterward, and finished it in the small hours of Monday morning. It made a deep and lasting impression upon my boyish mind, an impression that has not left me in all of these years. That little book, and the play based on it, have changed the habits of thousands of drinking men. And yet it all seemed very amusing to Mr. Pearson. I fail to see the humor of it, and yet I think I am not short on humor.

I think "Parson Willoughby and His Wine" set many wine-drinking ministers to thinking, and caused them to become abstainers. Mrs. Julia McNair Wright was the wife of the Presbyterian minister at Pomeroy, Ohio, near my boyhood home. We saw her occasionally, and considered it a rare treat to look at a live author who wrote books.

Yes, Mr. Pearson, these "Temperance Novels" were read, widely read. Mrs. Wright's books were very popular. In our Good Templar Lodge we had a fair-sized library of these stories, and they were read eagerly by a large group of young people, and influenced their lives for good.

It is difficult in this day to get a correct conception of the public mind of sixty years ago. Sixty years hence people may make sport of our popular books. Who can tell?

This tendency to treat lightly and flippantly serious questions is far from wholesome. And yet it is indulged to quite an extent in our leading magazines. There is a proper place for the exercise of humor. It is scarcely wise here.

GEORGE C. WILDING.

Times have indeed changed. We have been known to pick up a book on a Sunday evening and finish it in the small hours of Monday morning. But it wasn't ever "Ten Nights in a Bar-Room," nor were we left alone because our room-mate went to church.

Our room, it must be confessed, was not among those pointed to with pride as a great moral influence on the campus, but the more saintly students, to the best of our knowledge, were not addicted to temperance novels, either. Earlier in our youth we once did witness a performance of "Ten Nights in a Bar-Room." We also marched in a temperance parade, wondering what it was all about. For this youthful indiscretion, we are now doing pen

ance.

It is quite possible that people sixty years hence will be making sport of our popular books. We sincerely hope so. Too many of them escape being made sport of now.

IS THIS AN AQUATIC COMPLEX ? This man praises Brooks and Van de Water:

Hartford, Conn.

DEAR EDITOR: In the editorial comment of your December issue there is a just remark to the effect that only a considerable enthusiasm will place in your hands a letter of commendation of your magazine, while adverse opinions find. much readier expression. Yes, unhappily, criticism does get itself "out of the system' more easily than praise, or appreciation.

Since reading the December number, I own to a more than considerable enthusiasm, and so, the condition being fulfilled, I am impelled to make it known to you. The level of the entire number set, I thought, a fine standard, but I cannot tell you with what genuine delight I read, and re-read, F. F. V's. "Three Minutes of Silent Prayer" (I ought to say "we read," as the First Lady of the Land and I do our reading aloud together) which we considered a gem of purest ray serene, equal to-nay, better than-Booth Tarkington's best. We are grateful to (and envious of) Mr. Van de Water. There was sincerity in his story, to the very master-stroke with which it closed.

And let me mention, too, the joy with which we hailed "Pete Retires" (we were both overseas) with its savor of the A. E. F., its denial of heroics, its capital story quality, mingling incredible truths with preposterously plausible invention. To one buck-private who was there (and his wife) it brought real pleasure. Incidentally, we thought the story was perfectly topped off by the final illustration! "C'est la guerre à la guerre comme à la guerre !"

This is a first offense. Also, very likely, a last -time is so fleeting. Success to you!

A HUMBLE SPECTATOR.

[blocks in formation]

DEAR EDITOR: Alexander Dana Noyes, fre my viewpoint, appears to write more to our pear of mind than either of your disputants in “Wha You Think About It."

International relations in their effects upon the money question are so far-reaching, and he take us up the various highways of finance so interestingly, one cannot-unless dense in experience daily expenditures-but be guided by careful foresight and insight in one's investigations.

Moreover, Mr. Noyes educates us along the lines of discovering for our satisfaction that the citizens of our great United States in their us and abuse of money depend materially upon th international values of money in the regulation of our American market prices: in other words in the U. S. we cannot consume the surplus employees are throwing upon our home markets hence we are more-than-less largely amenable !. the international value changes.

Mr. Noyes appears to do much more tow." making SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE the most dest able reading matter-"hit us in our pockets at you hit us all over." BILLIE HILL

We are also in receipt of a communicati from the Bar-Nothin' Ranch, Little Bluff. M. It reminds us of the story of the edu tional prospectus which proclaimed that school was "founded on a healthy bluff." A since the postmark on the envelope read “L anon" and we were able to find a Lebanez almost any State, but N. M., we shall enjoy all by ourselves.

[graphic]

the ab hundred ye

ed orga ican P DICE

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

THE CLUB CORNER

Being Suggestions for Topics of Discussion and Study for Women's Clubs

Only this morning there came to our desk a review of a recent SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE by The Bookman of the Manitoba Free Press, who says among other things, "It is rare to find mediocre verse in SCRIBNER'S."

A study of the magazine for 1924 and the first quarter of 1925 reveals the work of fifty-nine American poets, ranging from Edith M. Thomas who also contributed to the first volume of SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE in 1887, to young poets in their teens or early twenties, such as Evelyn Hardy, Helen Choate, Milton Offutt, and Edward Steese.

A PROGRAM ALL COMPLETE

The poets and poems appearing in SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE during this period and the number in which they appear follow (the year to be understood as 1924 unless otherwise specified): John Alden-"On Hearing the Clavichord," Sept. Eleanor Baldwin-"The Rider of the Wind," May. William

Rose Benét-"The Wood-Cutter's Wife," Aug.

Bertha Bolling-"Pan's Garden," Dec. Helen Bowen-"Scent of Sage," March. Anna M. Branson-"The Dreamer," Sept. Roger Burlingame-"Romance," Nov. Amelia Josephine Burr-"Sanctuary," June. Struthers Burt-"Threnody in Major and Minor," June; "To This House," Dec. Helen Choate "The Tired Woman," April, 1925. Thomas Caldecot Chubb-"Longshore," Feb.; "At the Edge of the Bay," Jan., 1925. Martha Haskell Clark-"The Purchasers," Jan. Helen Coale Crew-"Non Sine Floribus," July. Grace Noll Crowell "Silver Poplars," April; "I Grieve for Beauty Wasted," April, 1925. Elizabeth Daly-"To the Ladies," Aug. Dorothy Dow-"Man-of-All-Work," Sept. Louis Dodge "The Prison," May. H. G. Dwight-"Codicil," Jan. John Erskine "Mediterranean," March, 1925... John Finley-"The Blue Flowers of Marathon," June; "At Christendom's Cross," April, 1925. Helen Ives Gilchrist-"The Leash," Aug. Arthur Guiterman-"Little Ponds," Aug. Robert Beverly Hale-"Mary Ellen," April, 1925. Ann Hamilton-"Two Songs," Feb., 1925. Evelyn Hardy-"The Trust," June; "Certainty," Aug.

William H. Hayne "Unfathomed," Aug.; "Mirth," Sept.

[blocks in formation]

1925.

Corinne Roosevelt Robinson-"Refusal," Dec.
Archibald Rutledge "Deserted," Sept.
Louise Saunders-"Unreality," Oct.

Helen Minturn Seymour-"A Dancer from
Tanagra," Aug.

Margaret Sherwood-"The Latch," Feb., 1925.
Cornelia Otis Skinner-"Martinique," Dec.
Lewis Worthington Smith-"On a Woman With
a Letter," Feb.

George Sterling "Lonely Beaches," Aug.
Charles Livingston Snell-"The Chalice," Sept.
Edward Steese-"Daylight Saving," April, 1925.
Marian Storm-"Perdita," Feb., 1925.
Edith M. Thomas-"Asylum Artis," Sept.
Charles Hanson Towne-"Wisdom," May; "In
Autumn," Nov.

Mark van Doren-"Alfalfa Coming," April. Lorraine Roosevelt Warner-"The Poet," Jan., 1925.

John V. A. Weaver-"Old Farm," Jan., 1925. John Hall Wheelock-"I Sought You," Dec. Edith Ives Woodworth-"Contrasts," Sept. Roland Young-"Pittsburg-Lakewood," Jan.

Biographical information concerning any of these poets given upon request, accompanied by stamped self-addressed envelope, to Editor, Club Corner, SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE, 597 Fifth Avenue, New York.

Dear, dear.

1 wonder where Mr. Hammond get that funny Idea!

about it

[blocks in formation]

Where the Reader, the Author, and the Editor Mix It Up
in a Friendly Manner

A short time after John Hays Hammond's "Strong Men of the Wild West" appeared there came a letter from Charles J. Bosworth, of the Pacific Coast Department of the Fidelity and Casualty Company of New York.

DEAR EDITOR: I read, with great interest the article of John Hays Hammond "Strong Men of the Wild West," but I want you to write to Mr. Hammond and correct a misstatement made in this article. He speaks at length about Charles A. Siringo and ends up by stating that Mr. Siringo is in his grave. I want you to advise him that on January 8th, Mr. Siringo was very much alive and living at 6057 Eleanor Avenue, Hollywood, California.

A little later there came this letter.

6057 Eleanor Ave.
Hollywood, Cal.

DEAR EDITOR: Having read John Hays Hammond's story "Strong Men of the Wild West" in your magazine for February, thought I would send you a detailed account of my part in the Cœur d'Alene riots. Mr. Hammond is mistaken in one thing, and that is that I am in my grave. CHAS. A. SIRINGO.

After such evidence, we became a bit skeptical of the cadaverification of the doughty Siringo. We forwarded the letter to Mr. Hammond and received the following in reply: Thanks for your letter of the 19th. I too have heard from our friend Siringo and I am inclined to doubt the accuracy of my statement concerning his demise.

So that's that, and Siringo is not dead,long live Siringo.

PLAGIARISM?

Hollywood figures largely in our columns this month. We violate our general rule against printing anonymous communications because so much interest is attached to this

one.

Hotel Hollywood.
Hollywood, Cal.

DEAR EDITOR: I have read with great pleasure the interesting January number of SCRIBNER'S. and was much struck with "Letters from a Bourgeois Father To His Bolshevik Son." It is too bad that this story should be taken bodily from two old Saturday Evening Post features "The Gibson Upright," by Harry Leon Wilson and Booth Tarkington, and "The Letters of Oli Gordon Graham," by George Horace Lorimer.

But SCRIBNER's would please everybody if he would publish a series of good and original fiction stories on the foolish and ridiculous literary and artistic Young Bolshevists of Greenwich Village. A READER OF SCRIBNER'S

The author replies thus:

Old Colony Club, Hotel Tutwiler. Birmingham, Ala. DEAR EDITOR: I am returning the communica tion of the anonymous Hollywood lady, after noting contents carefully.

It is astonishing that she found a similarity between my "Letters" and Mr. Lorimer's. Now that I recall the details, I am forced to admit that each series had something to do with a father, and each mentioned a son.

I had never read "The Gibson Upright," but I hastened to do so to-day. If Mr. Tarkington and Mr. Wilson were guilty of anticipatory plagiarization in using my idea, it was doubtless due to the fact that this project of turning a factory over to its workmen has been discussed, in fiction and out, some thousands of times, and all three of us may have been influenced by the events in Russia. Beyond that point, I am sorry to say on my own behalf, I can find no likeness between my story and the play by the gentlemen from Idiana. However, I am grateful to the Holly wood lady for the compliment.

E. D. TORGERSON.

Our correspondent apparently voiced he conviction to Harry Leon Wilson also.

Even before this letter came, Mr. Wilson forwarded a letter which he had received from

« AnteriorContinuar »