an unknown quality to them, and their fiction is of the old-fashioned variety centering around queens and princesses and lovely ladies of high renown. Only by patiently wallowing through a mass of irrelevant matter extracts from the peerage; ravishing descriptions of ladies high-born or of high fame; democratic references to the Social Register; and splashy chronicling of the doings of the socially elect can one find the gist of many of the advertisements in these days.

Could even the most clever adept at solving cross word puzzles or guessing riddles find the missing link between this little rhapsody and the clasmic beautifier and cold cream that the advertisement sponsors:

"Oh, the glamour of New York in the purple dusk of twilight-what witcheries of the night as darkness falls, and midtown, this modern Bagdad, flashes to fairyland and splendor under the myriad lights of Broadway. Amid the throngs peopling the theatres and supper clubs are many women whose names appear in the Social Register of two continents."

No matter how skilful one may be in anticipating the end of baffling mystery stories, would he suspect that SOAP was to be the dénouement to a tale beginning in this fashion:

"The Italian ambassador arrives. Dinners, dances, bathing parties . . . The Brazilian envoy arrives. A lawn fete, a polo match, in honor of a distinguished Russian prince . . . Tennis week. The Horse Show. A wedding of international interest. Yachting, sailing, golf on the Ocean Links . . . the Newport

season!"

Or, in other words, PIFFLE!

Is the following drama, or melodrama:

THERE WAS A MOMENT OF SILENCE. A Princess incognito? Surely, the distinguished Lady must be that at least. For, to whom else would this royal tribute of silence be paid? And who but a lovely Princess could be so marvelously chic? The Lady refuses to tell her name, but the secret of her chic is out. She is dressed by the most famous couturier of Paris, and her perfume is (...)"

Chic, it seems, like murder will out. Would that the perpetrators of so chic an advertisement might be tried by jury and receive a

life sentence of banishment from the magazines.

Was this blurb, sprawling over a full page purchased by a soap advertiser, primarily intended to boost soap or royalty:

"Her Majesty, Victoria Eugenia, Queen of Spain, is granddaughter of Queen Victoria, niece of King Edward.

Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain embodies the English ideal of queenly beauty. Violet eyes, of a tall erect figure, wavy golden hair and that 'incomparable soft peach bloom English skin.' This gift of beauty foreordained her not only for a throne but for what is denied most queens -a love match.

For the King of Spain who beheld her first while on a visit to her uncle, the late King Edward VII of England, fell in love with her at sight and chose her from among many royal princesses.

And so on ad nauseam with her devotion

to her royal bridegroom, her domestic and artistic accomplishments, a description of her in state robes, in tennis garb, skating, dancing, and sitting on a horse.

All these gorgeous pageants, wherein we see royalty receiving her subjects in state when with "royal robes flowing from her snow white shoulders, her hair an aureole of gold beneath her crown, she is the incarnation of a queen," invariably degenerate into an anticlimax and close on a soapy ending — which can become as tiresome as the happy ending which the realists decry.

A Gargantua whose greed is insatiable; thus looms the modern advertising menace. Is it difficult to foresee the time when, not content with tweaking the editorial ear, it will demand the editorial chair? Then, doubtless, every story will be written around soap or tooth-paste; cures for baldness and panaceas for all the ills that flesh is heir to; Aunt Minerva's Pancake Flour and Uncle Joshua's Favorite Weed.

S Lucius neared the impressive portals of the Picayune, a residence hotel of refinement, he sensed an aristocratic atmosphere of pervading charm that is essentially "Picayune."

It was in a truly convenient location, near the shopping, theatrical and business locales - close to everything that counts!

Swiftly, surely, yet unhurriedly, the marvelously silent elevator conveyed him to his dwelling place - his castle!

The apartment, one of the finest of the fine, was replete with every modern accessory conducive to the comfort and well-being of its guest. It offered everything the fastidious fashionable could wish for-large windows, iceless refrigeration, spacious rooms, luxurious foyers all things, complete in every detail,

handsomely brocaded, silk-lined and handsewn throughout. In a jiffy he donned more formal habiliments reflecting character and dignity in keeping with the conservatism of the present-day executive.

She came! Lucius felt a glow of content a thrill of pleasure!

All was well! He just knew she would be wearing them!

Lucius sighed bewilderingly. There before his very eyes were the lips that he would love to crush.

He laid aside the clear crystal tumbler, exquisitely shaped and polished to perfection. "I'm sorry that you find me in this condition," he remarked.

"Oh, don't let it worry you for a moment," she answered, "I love to see a man drink milk!"

"Fact is," explained Lucius, "I need something stimulating — something that puts pep in my step, and enables me to start with a fresh outlook on life. I have just walked a mile for a

"How satisfying," she interrupted mildly, and continued, "Lucius dear, could you blow some my way?"

FOR

OR a man to write well, there are required three necessaries to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style. In style, to consider what ought to be written, and after what manner, he must first think and excogitate his matter, then choose his words, and examine the (1) importance, weight, consequence, of either. Then take care, in placing and (2) grouping, arranging, ranking both matter and words, that the composition be comely; and to do this with diligence and often. No matter how (3) slow, prosaic, uninteresting the style be at first, so it be laboured and accurate; seek the best, and be not glad of the forward (4) fancies, ideas, conceits, or first words, that offer themselves to us; but judge of what we invent, and order what we approve. Repeat often what we have formerly written; which beside that it helps the consequence, and makes the juncture better, it (5) stimulates, quickens, revives the beat of imagination, that often cools in the time of setting down, and gives it new strength, as if it grew lustier by the (6) going back, return, recession. As we see in the contention of leaping, they jump farthest that fetch their race largest; or, as in throwing a dart or javelin, we force back our arms to make our loose the stronger. Yet, if we have a fair gale of wind, I forbid not the steering out of our sail, so the favour of the gale deceive us not. For all that we invent doth please us in the conception of birth, else we

would never set it down. But the safest is to return to our judgment, and handle over again those things the (7) facility, ease, easiness of which might make them justly suspected. So did the best writers in their beginnings; they imposed upon themselves care and industry; they did nothing rashly; they obtained first to write well, and then custom made it easy and a habit. By little and little their matter showed itself to them more (8) plentifully, abundantly, fully; their words (9) responded, replied, answered, their composition followed; and all, as in a wellordered family, presented itself in the place. So that the sum of all is, ready writing makes not good writing, but good writing brings on ready writing. Yet, when we think we have got the faculty, it is even then (10) wise, good, desirable to (11) resist, oppose, withstand it, as to give a horse a check sometimes with a bit, which doth not so much stop his course as stir his mettle. Again, whither a man's genius is best able to reach, thither it should more and more contend, lift and dilate itself; as men of low stature raise themselves on their toes, and so ofttimes get even, if not (12) eminent, distinguished, celebrated. Besides, as it is fit for (13) developed, experienced, grown and (14) capable, able, qualified writers to stand of themselves, and work with their own strength, to trust and endeavour by their own (15) talents, endow ments, faculties, so it is fit for the beginner and learner to study others and the best. For

the mind and memory are more sharply (16) exercised, disciplined, trained in comprehending another man's (17) possessions, belongings, things than our own; and such as accustom themselves and are familiar with the best authors shall ever and anon find somewhat of them in themselves, and in the (18) expression, revelation, disclosure of their minds, even when they feel it not, be able to utter

something like theirs, which hath an authority above their own. Nay, sometimes it is the reward of a man's study, the praise of quoting another man fitly; and though a man be more prone and able for one kind of writing than another, yet ye must exercise all. For as in an instrument, so in style, there must be a (19) harmony, concord, unison in consent of parts.

WITH

WITH regard to writing dialect I will not, for fear of being convicted of inconsistency, go so far as to repeat Punch's laconic advice about marriage: "Don't"; but I will pass along our black Mammy's warning when she sees one about to use rouge: "Put on jess er smidgin, Honey. It'll show up bettah 'n er whole kalsomine."

As a writer I have used few idioms except that of the negro, which comes to me, alas! more readily than English pure and undefiled I, like Uncle Remus's Bre'r Rabbit, having been "bo'n an' bred in de briahpatch" of the South. Of course, I have now and then when under necessity of speech for some minor character, cribbed exclamations and assembled a few sentences which I hoped would pass muster for Irish, Jewish, or Swedish, as the case demanded. Haven't you?

However, as a reader I have suffered many things in the name of dialect, and roamed a wide range of patois. Huge hunks of queer jargons have choked my mental epiglottis, alienating me from some authors. I have, according to my mood and the density of the dialect, wrestled with, skimmed, skipped, or slung aside whole stories and even books of composed dialects fearfully and wonderfully constructed from the speech of many peoples. These were good of their kinds,

doubtless, but they were presented in too wholesale lots; irritating to the eye and discouraging to the brain to decipher. Dialect adds relish to a story, but one does n't care for a meal composed entirely of relishes.

There was a period when entire tales written in patois were popular, but the style soon passed. A baker's dozen exceptions survive, but survive only as the exceptions which prove the rule. Especially was this "wholehog or none" style adopted by Southern writers, probably because of the variety and abundance of such material all about them. I believe this massive, unalleviated use of negro and "po' white trash" dialect killed off many fine writers and delayed for a decade the entrance of others into the field of national magazines. Do you often begin to read a story which lurks behind a smoke-screen of mis-spelled words, further pock-marked with innumerable apostrophes? Neither do I. Because there is too much easily read, straight American for which I have n't time for me to cut down the precious margin by undertaking to decipher a solid wall of dialect. The same is true, doubtless, of many readers.

However, a dash of folk-speech here and there throughout a story laid in the Bowery, out West, among the Creoles, down East, or out where the Swedes hold sway, helps to

differentiate and locate the story, imparting life and raciness to the characters. I hasten to add the popular Cape Cod, lest you think me out of date! But all these speech-spices should be sprinkled lightly here and there throughout the story.

Common sense must be exercised also in the spelling or rather mis-spelling of dialect. Some writers appear to think that in dialect every possible word should be spelled differently from its correct way, no matter how it is pronounced. For instance, take the word "whole" in Mammy Tamzie's advice. . . . (Did n't I tell you her name? Well, it is Tamzie, and she wears an honest-to-goodness bandanna head-kerchief.) Why spell that "whole" "hole," as I have seen done in dialect? It is unnecessary, because all pronounce it the same, and the change may lead to confusion, especially if the story should develop a real hole. In like manner, I have seen Colonels demoted to Kernels, have n't you?

One might think that Mammy Tamzie would not be apt to employ the word "kalsomine." If so, that one simply is not familiar with the negro's insatiable eagerness for imposing words. It is a racial obsession. Does she call the refrigerator an ice-box? No indeed, she says "freeze-ater"; my friend's Kelvinator she marvels at as a "Hoodoo Selfinator." Occasionally for short periods Mammy Tamzie, whom I inherited, is left in charge of our high-school daughter. If during her administration the boys and girls get up a moonlight picnic or other jaunt, Mammy Tamzie with-holds fried chicken, beaten biscuit, and angel-food cake until they satisfy her demand: "Who 's gwine ter shampoo dis pahty?" A chaperone they must produce before she will release the lunch.

If writers who are not familiar with their speech wish to introduce negro or white Southerners into their work, they should not imagine they can achieve the effect by sprink

ling the conversation with indiscriminate "you-alls." Such seems to be a popular delusion. No Southerner, black or white, ever uses this idiom when addressing or referring to one person. It is always employed in the plural-eminent authors and Broadway comedians to the contrary notwithstanding. When these black-face comedians bring their synthetic monologues South their audiences often laugh at instead of with them because of this very mistake. It is a test of the genuineness of Southern dialect so don't youall commit that error again.

The error is imbedded and wide-spread, but it is error. I have heard and used "you-all" my entire life, but I have never heard it employed in the singular except by outsiders. To give authority to this statement, I condense from memory the gist of an article on this subject by the late Dr. C. Alphonso Smith, head of the English department at the University of Virginia, Exchange Roosevelt Professor at Berlin (before we exchanged scraps of paper), and afterward head of the English department at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. Dr. Smith wrote a "Defense of the Way Cultured Southerners Use You-All," in which he said, "Since 'Ye' was abandoned as the plural of 'you,' 'youall' is a finer distinction than otherwise can be obtained in English." He proved his contention by quotations from the Bible and Shakspere, and by examples of awkwardness and confusion often arising in modern English without it, and the clarity resulting from its proper use.

At present, few writers employ dialect of any kind for the main body of the story, or inject it in solid phalanx. But it is popular and effective when used in broken doses, to enhance characterization, or to deepen local color. "Put on jess er smidgin, Honey-writer. It'll show up bettah 'n er whole kalsomine, an' dat's de gawspul trufe!"