tial and acquainted with The Great Woman, and she forgot all about interviews and editors, and chatted as only one woman can chat with another woman, when both have common interests. And The Great Woman knew so much more than The Woman, that she was moved to speak her brightest and give her best.

And so it happened that she called The Woman "my dear," and squeezed her hand good-bye, and said all manner of friendly words, and The Woman departed in a state of beatitude.

with big black headlines, and The Woman's heart rejoiced.

In later days The Woman has interviewed many great ones and under divers conditions. She has interviewed through cracks of doors, on front stoops, and under second-story windows at the midnight hour; in railroad trains and hotel corridors; on street corners and in carriages; in green-rooms and church vestries; in the family kitchen at house-cleaning time, and in my lady's boudoir with my lady's bangs in curl-papers.

She has been treated as is the book-agent and the soap-pedler; and again she has been feasted in flesh and spirit, and entertained as an angel unawares.

But never, never can be forgotten the terror and the triumph of the first interview, by which The Woman learned that great ones have human sympathies, and was no longer afraid. BOSTON, Mass.

Mary Worswick.

I am not certain that I have chosen my title rightly. Some writers assert that stories are not made, but that they spring full-fledged from the brain of their happy authors. This may be true, in some instances, but I have never been so fortunate.

Perhaps I should have been nearer right if I had called this "How My Stories Make Themselves"; for this I think is what they do, but not in the quick and happy manner that has been suggested.

It may be presumptuous for one so little known as I to venture into a field that is supposed to be preëmpted by famous names, or to think that any public exposition of my methods could have value or interest. But my excuse is Touchstone's, that, though poor things, my stories are mine own, and I have a tender

place in my heart for them. I hope I may not be accused of egotism because the personal element is here made so conspicuous, for I see no way to avoid it.

I had been for some time engaged in literary work of various sorts before entering upon the business of story-telling. I had essayed it once or twice, but had not been able to bring my stories to any conclusion. One who knew of my attempts (and who, perhaps, knew me better than I knew myself) urged me to repeat the trial. And it was finally to prove that I could not do it that I began the task in earnest.

I set about it early one morning. The previous evening I had walked with my wife a long distance in the country. It was a beautiful summer night, and our way was along a wellmade road lying between green fields. Com

the barnyards we could hear the lowing of cattle and the neighing of horses. The smoke curled up from kitchen chimneys, where housewives were preparing the evening meal. As the night came on lights flitted out here and there.

In the comprehensive and impersonal way that women have, my companion made a sweeping gesture that included the whole of visible nature, and exclaimed that here was a good scene for a story.

I replied that while it might be a good scene for a story, I knew of no story for the scene. It may be that I was irritated because my brain could not at will conjure one up. But I now believe that I had so long accustomed myself to think that I was deficient in imagination, that I had ceased to make any effort.

Still there was something about the scene that impressed me with its possibilities. Two facts took strong hold of me. One was a long, smooth, white road, leading on endlessly through the happy country. The other, that it would be a sorry thing for a man to happen along that road, having no aim, no home to journey toward, but with busy, comfortable homes mocking him at every step.

These thoughts haunted me, yet they had taken no tangible form when I began to build a story about them. But as I worked, the story grew. Order was evolved out of chaos, and the story made itself under my pen. I think I am wholly truthful in saying that my thought did not for an instant outrun my pen. The story was told without conscious thinking or planning. I do not know that I make this quite clear. I had thought, or tried to think, before I began to write, but had accomplished nothing. I could not weave the story in my mind.

It is, perhaps, unnecessary to add anything further to this, except to say that the story sold, -possibly not upon the first intention, but upon the second or third, at furthest.

This surprised me, and at the same time gave me a little confidence in myself, so that I resurrected an unfinished manuscript that had lain in my desk for years. It was a story, complete as far as it went, but I had never been able to think out the end. Now I pursued the method

that had been successful in the former instance, and without much difficulty soon completed it. This story, also, was soon sold.

I then began to try to think of subjects for stories; but this I found as futile as the endeavor to write them previously had been. It seemed to me that all the stories had been told, and I began to wonder how I had by any chance fallen upon those two.

While I was casting about in this way, I read in a newspaper a very innocent and unpretentious paragraph. It was to the effect that the wife of a certain Union general had once been a flower seller in the streets of an Ohio city; that there the general (then a young lieutenant, just off for the war) had met and loved her; and that, when war's cruel alarms were over, he had hastened back to wed her. I knew well the city where the scene of this little romance was laid. I went to my desk at once, with barely an idea of the story I should write, and the thing grew under my hand.

The flower seller, of course, was French; for I told myself that none other would have chosen so dainty a way of recouping fallen fortunes. The characters dropped into their places and into the story easily. The early days of the war gave opportunity for the sound of the drum and the fife. The mixture of nationalities made possible a little quaint phrasing. Over it all drooped the folds of Old Glory, threatened with the loss of all the Southern stars from its azure field.

So easily did this story sell, that I decided story-writing to be the especial branch of literature in which fame and fortune awaited me. Still I was conscious that I could not think stories. I was continually haunted by the fear that I should not be able to write another. But suggestions would come to me, in newspaper paragraphs, in stories told me by friends, in the ordinary course of conversation.

Sometimes these would give merely the suggestion of a character, or a scene; and it is a peculiar fact that when I am strongly impressed by a scene I rarely have difficulty in building a story into it. An instance of this may be found

in some half-dozen stories of the Southwest that I have written. When I first found my way into the great American desert, it im

pressed me as no other country ever had done. It seemed a land made for dreary, tragic lives. Suggestions crowded into my brain, and yet I could not think them out. But as soon as I had written out the scene, the characters dropped into place, and the stories told themselves.

I have often wondered whether other story writers have had a like experience. I have seen many statements from writers that their stories are thought out in every detail before

the first sentence is put upon paper. It is true that practice makes one more proficient in any art, and I do now, at times, have before my mind's eye at the start a sketchy, misty idea of what my whole story will be. But the details are never worked in, and often in the writing my pen departs so wholly from the track marked out, that even I cannot discern the relationship between the completed story and the child of my conception. FRANKLIN, Ohio.

James Knapp Reeve.

The announcement was made in the newspapers some time ago that the owners of the signature "Clara Bell," which for several years, more or less, has been attached to syndicated gossip letters of varying interest, had sold it for $6,000. If that was true, the fact would seem to be proof positive that there's more in a name than sweet William, of Avon fame, would have us believe.

There can be no doubt at all about the fact that many "pot-boilers" of writers of established reputation would be unable to keep up a flame if it were not for the assisting bellows of a staunch pen name.

It is interesting, also, to observe the change which has come over the pen names, particularly of women, as literature has developed.. A comparison of those of the women writers of the present day and of a generation ago shows a growth of strength and character corresponding to the development of these characteristics in women's writings.

and authoresses. Imagine George Eliot signing some of her creations with the name of "Fanny Fern," which in its time was valuable, as such things went in those days.

Many women have taken the names of men, not because of any desire to be known as men, but that their work might be criticised without allowance being made for the sex of the writer, - something which a generation ago was impossible to the gallant, patronizing critics of the stronger sex. In only a few instances have men taken the names of women. The most famous of such pseudonyms was "Mrs. Partington," who in private life was B. P. Shillaber. Benjamin Franklin was at one time in print as "Mrs. Silence Dogood"; Theodore Edward Hook was "Mrs. Ramsbotham"; Douglas Jerrold was "Mrs. Margaret Caudle"; Alphonse Daudet sometimes signed his work "Marie Gaston."

The women who have climbed to fame with the assistance of a masculine pen name are more numerous. One of the first was "George Sand," who was to her friends Mme. Dudevant. Marian Evans Lewes Cross took her name of "George Eliot" because it was " mouth-filling and easily pronounced." "Charles Egbert Craddock" and "Ralph Iron" were christened Mary N. Murfree and Olive Schreiner.

"John Strange Winter," author of "Bootles' Baby," is Mrs. Henrietta Eliza Vaughn Stannard; "Howard Glyndon" is Mrs. Laura C. Dearing, who is well known in journalism, in spite of being deaf and dumb; "Julien Gordon" is Mrs. Van Rensselaer Cruger; "Henry Gréville," Alice Marie Celeste Durand. Charlotte Brontë and her two sisters disguised themselves under ambiguous names, Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, which, while not distinctly masculine, were certainly not feminine, from a sort of conscientious scruple against assuming Christian names distinctively masculine.

Some amusing stories are recorded of the ludicrous plight of critics and publishers upon discovering the sex of the writers masquerading under masculine names. When Charles Egbert Craddock's Southern mountain stories appeared, John Boyle O'Reilly became a strong admirer, as he said in an editorial criticism, of "the keen-eyed young man who must have lived among the mountaineers and shared in the moonshining and other wild adventures of the breezy dialect character sketches." Miss Murfree writes a heavy masculine hand, and even her publishers were unaware that she was a woman. Once upon a time she came up to town on business, and from her hotel informed her publisher of her presence. He promptly responded with an invitation to breakfast, and upon calling for his guest was paralyzed to behold a very womanly woman, with nothing of the mountains about her.

When "Adam Bede was published, it estab lished the reputation of George Eliot, who was said to be a Mr. Liggia, of Nuneaton. This announcement caused George Eliot to come ⚫forward with a letter asking if the act of pub. lishing a book deprived a man of all claim to the courtesies usual among gentlemen - thus adding to the mystery and keeping up the fiction of a masculine writer.

Some of the most famous writers have distributed the credit of their work over many names before attaining the fame which led them to appear in their family names. Thackeray was prolific in pen names. He was variously known as "Michael Angelo Titmarsh," "Swellmore," Alonzo Spec," "Adolphus Simcol," Punch's Commissioner," "One of Them

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selves," "Goliah Muff," "T. T.," "A Lady of Fashion," Leonidas Androcles Huggleston," "Folkstone Canterbury," "Mr. Jeames," "John Corks," "Growley Byles," "Under Petty," Benighted Irishman," "Our Own Bashi Bazouk," "Frederick Haltemont de Montmorency," "A Gentleman of the Force," "Charles Yellowplush, Esq.," "Theophile Wag. staff," "Policeman X.," "Launcelot Wagstaff,

Jr.," ," "Our Fat Contributor," "The Contributor at Paris," "Fitzroy Clarence," "Fitzboodle," and "Mr. Brown."

Charles Dickens comes in a slow second with seven pen names to Thackeray's twenty-eight or more. "Boz" is the most widely known of Dickens' disguises. It was suggested by a little brother's odd efforts to pronounce Moses. "Geoffry Sparks," "Timothy Sparks," "Tibbs," "The Uncommercial Traveller," "A Subscriber," "Your Constant Reader," were the other signatures he used.

Sir Walter Scott was at times "The Wizard of the North," "The Visionary," "Captain Clutterbuck," "Jedediah Cleishbotham."

Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton wrote over his initials and sometimes appeared as "Pisistratus Caxton."

Victor Hugo signed himself "Paul Focher," "Aristide," and "Hierro."

Balzac was at different times "Lord Rhoone," "Alfred Coudeux," "Henri B.," and "Horace de Saint Ruben."

Washington Irving called himself "A Sentimental Philosopher," "Diedrich Knickerbocker," "Jonathan Oldstyle," "Launcelot Longstaff," which was used by all the contributors to Salmagundi; "Geoffrey Crayon," and "Fray Antonio Agapido."

Hawthorne wrote for the Salem Gazette and New England Magazine over the pen names of "Royce,' 99.66 'Allen,” and “ Ashley"; and Longfellow speaks of his having been called "Oberon" at school.

Jonathan Swift was another whose pen names were numerous. At various times he was known to the public as "Tom Ashe, Esq.," "T. Fribble," "Simon Wagstaff, Esq.," "Isaac Bickerstaff," "Jack Frenchman," "Lemuel Gulliver," "Student in Astrology," "The Injured Lady," "A Person of Quality," "Tristram

Thomas Carlyle was "The Censor of the Age," "Dr. Pessimist Anticant," and "Teufelsdroch."

Those who are better known by their assumed than their real names are legion. Sometimes it happens that a euphonious name catches the ear of the public, and it reads the works of the pen name, when it would pass unheeded those under the more commonplace real name of the author. Miss Emily Chubbuck was one of those who discovered this. She complained to N. P. Willis that the public did not appreciate her, and Mr. Willis is said to have replied: “How can you expect any better? Who would read a poem signed 'Chubbuck'? Try Fanny Forrester' and see the change." And she did. "Mark Twain" is another to whom the public, which turns a dull ear to Samuel L. Clemens, listens appreciatively. Mr. Clemens says the name "Mark Twain longed originally to one Captain Isaiah Sellers, who used to write river news over it for the

"" be

New Orleans Picayune. He died in 1863, and Mr. Clemens, feeling that Captain Sellers could not object, appropriated the pseudonym without asking permission of the original

bearer.

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Among others whose pseudonyms are better known than their real names are "Lewis Carroll," author of "Alice in Wonderland," who is an English clergyman, Rev. Charles L. Dodg son; Hugh Conway," of " Called Back "fame, who in real life was Frederick John Fargus; "M. Quad," who is Charles B. Lewis; "Bill Nye," Edgar W. Nye; "Max O'Rell," Paul Blouet; "Uncle Remus," Joel Chandler Harris; "Mrs. Alexander," Mrs. Annie F. Hector; "Josh Billings," who was Henry F. Shaw; "Bret Harte," who is Francis Bret Harte; "Jenny June," Mrs. J. C. Croly; Artemus Ward," who was Charles F. Browne; "Pierre Loti," who is Julien Viaud; "Sidney Luska," who is Henry Harland; and "Gail Hamilton," who is Mary Abigail Dodge in every-day life. The list might be extended indefinitely.

NEW YORK, N. Y.

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Mary E. J. Kelley.

Nowhere, unless it be at a summer-hotel table, does a man so shamelessly display himself as in writing his own biography. Some time ago, I was editorially associated with a cyclopædia of biography, for which biographical data, with regard to the living, were supplied by the subjects themselves. No one was supposed to be interrogated, unless he was something of a national as well as a local celebrity; but when once the news of the enterprise got abroad, every tiny village was found to have its "Tartarin" craving notoriety. Bear in mind, please, that a biographical cyclopædia of a limited number of volumes is precluded by the very laws of space from giving a complete Boswellian life of every person admitted between its covers,

and you will understand how the results of the observation of human nature, for which I had such exceptional opportunities, were not flattering to its morality, good sense, or literary ability. The moral aspect I shall not present here. It is too appalling to be in any way amusing. When a dandy falls down in a mud puddle, it is quite natural and excusable to laugh at the incongruity; but when the same dandy falls into the same puddle directly before a locomotive at full speed, horror takes the place of mirth. So, when moral obliquity is brought to the notice of the editor, he feels himself in the presence of a human tragedy; whereas, the purely intellectual vagaries he meets with are for the most part too egregiously absurd to be in any degree