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But there is another side to the question, which, though it does not meet the point exactly, might be injected here. If it be true that Edmund Rostand benefited in any degree from a reading of The Merchant Prince, a word of acknowledgment would have done him no harm, and at the least would have been a courteous act. Not so many years ago an American writer, not widely known at the time, made a story out of certain data that scientists had assembled. The little book had only fair success. Another writer, of greater repute, took the idea and made a story that was widely popular. The first writer complained through the press; and the second, noting the protest, answered with bland effrontery, "Yes, I used the idea. It seemed to me too good a one to waste, so I made a better story out of it. If readers disapprove, let them refuse to read my book and read his.”

"A great poet may really borrow," wrote Landor: "he may condescend to an obligation at the hand of an equal or an inferior; but he forfeits his title if he borrows more than the amount of his own possessions . . . the lowlier of intellect may lay out a table in their field, at which table the highest one shall sometimes be disposed to partake; want does not compel him." "The man of genius," said Dumas, "does not steal, he conquers, and what he conquers he annexes to his empire. He makes laws for it, he peoples it with his subjects, and extends his golden sceptre over it. And where is the man who, on surveying his beautiful kingdom, shall dare to assert that this or that part of his land is no part of his property?"

The argument has been a lively one at times; and the burden of it seems to prove that literature would indeed be povertystricken if all the published thoughts and fancies of men in the past were not a part of the treasure of men's minds today. But there enter increasingly into the problem certain questions of equity. Society is more and more demanding that those who possess the power and skill of entertaining, or of stimulating our

minds through the printed word, shall lay aside other occupations and devote themselves to the task. So enters the question of a livelihood and of its protection by certain general understandings.

As to the right of the great to partake of food spread by the lowly, one thinks at once of certain obligations that attend true greatness. I should not want to lose Cyrano, but if some humbler artist had a share in its creation, however small, I am sure that a truly great artist should not hesitate to grant goodnaturedly a small share of the distinction. The greatness of Charles Reade and of Sardou as authors would have been in nowise affected by a word of credit to the humbler ones who assisted and are now forgotten; but the record of their good sportsmanship would have been bettered.

I trust that I have offered a bit of kindling to start a small fire of discussion. But I fear that I have wandered somewhat from that lesser question of the distinguishing marks around a quotation. That question is quite a different one; because the essayist, for instance, who quotes usually does so for the very reason that he wishes the voice of another to be heard. He likes to bring to bear upon his subject, comment from another mind; and preferably one greater than his own. For he gains a certain satisfaction from an interruption that proves the two minds can run for a moment in the same channel.

As to whether or not his readers will recognize the quotation is a question for his own good judgment to decide. If they do, he has been subtly the gainer; if they do not, he has lost his only excuse for quoting, and he would better do without.

I have lately come across some comments upon this very matter by the god-father of essayists, Montaigne. Let me append them here in the hope that they may furnish any who have never read them the enjoyment they brought me.

"The Philosopher Chrisippus was wont to foist-in amongst his bookes, not only whole sentences and other long-long discourses, but whole bookes of other Authors, as in one, he brought in Euripides his Medea. And Opollodorus was wont to say of him, that if one should draw from out his bookes what he had stolne from others, his paper would remaine blanke. Whereas Epicurus cleane contrarie to him in three hundred volumes he left behind him, had not made use of one allegation. . . . To reprove mine owne faults in others, seemes to me no more unsufferable than to reprehend (as I doe often) those of others in my selfe. They ought to be accused every where, and have all places of sanctuarie taken from them: yet do I know how over boldly, at all times I adventure to equall my selfe unto my filchings, and to mach hand in hand with them; not without a fond hardie hope, that I may perhaps be able to bleare the eyes of the Judges from discerning them. But it is as much for the benefit of my application, as for the good of mine invention and force. And I doe not furiously front, and bodie to bodie wrestle with those old champions: it is but by flights, advantages, and false offers I seek to come within them, and if I can, to give them a fall. I do not rashly take them about the necke, I doe but touch them, nor doe I go so far as by my bargaine I would seeme to doe; could I but keepe even with them, I

should then be an honest man; for I seeke not to venture on them, but where they are strongest. To doe as I have seen some, that is, to shroud themselves under other armes, not daring so much as to show their finger ends unarmed, and to botch up all their works (as it is an easie matter in a common subject, namely for the wiser sort) with ancient inventions, here and there hudled up together. And in those who endeavoured to hide what they have filced from others, and make it their owne, it is first a minifest note of injustice, then a plaine argument of cowardlinesse; who having nothing of any worth in themselves to make show of, will yet under the countenance of others sufficiencie goe about to make a faire offer: Moreover (oh great foolishnesse) to seek by such cosening tricks to forestall the ignorant approbation of the common sort, nothing fearing to discover their ignorance to men of understanding (whose praise only is of value) who will soone trace out such borrowed ware. As for me, there is nothing I will doe lesse. I never speake of others, but that I may the more speake of my selfe. . . . For, howsoever, these are but my humors and opinions, and I deliver them but to show what my conceit is, and not what ought to be beleeved. Wherein I ayme at nothing but to display my selfe, who peradventure (if a new prentiship change me) shall be another tomorrow."

WIS

By JEAN LUCILLE BONHAM

BURGES JOHNSON's suggestion that valuable training in
improving style may be gained by writing essays without
the use of adjectives has created wide-spread comment.
Here is an "adjectiveless" bit by a Louisiana writer from
which even "a" and "the" have been omitted. The sug-
gestion has been made that THE WRITER Conduct a prize
contest for similar short essays in which the use of adjec-
tives is forbidden. If it is found that the idea has the
support of readers, terms and rules will be announced in a
later issue.

ISDOM and Experience, who had lost their youth, once kept shop, trafficking in dreams and thoughts. They stood about, saying (to prove their honesty),

thoughts for him. He kissed them because she gave them, but they withered when he touched them, and he threw them away.

One passed holding something closely as if

"We measure thoughts by words and he dreamed it in love and tenderness, and pages. We count dreams by days."

And people who made dreams came in to sell them. And those who could not dream, bought thoughts.

Madonna, who played with dolls yesterday, made dreams of babies. She came in happily today, making one, and when Wisdom spoke to her roughly, she shrank away to shield it. But women and men who walked with her turned to laugh, and she held it off to look at it again. It had faded, so she came into the shop to sell it.

There came one with eyes that could not see, and he had dreamed of colors. Then Wisdom brought out dreams of music and fitted them with colors. And he did not have to pay again.

Another came to buy dreams of purity, but she who had given him birth had come to buy dreams of scarlet.

Beloved, who loved Belovedest, bought

Wisdom and Experience clamored to buy. It stirred against him, and he hurried away with it.

Then came one wearily, asking for dreams, naming one he wanted. They told him it would cost life, so he consented, and they gave it to him; but when he died, Experience, who knew values, took it back to sell again.

Children paid for thoughts with laughter, and girls bought dreams with songs and smiles. One who had grown to manhood wanted dreams, but he could not touch them because he had hands with grime on them. Wisdom and Experience stood about, crying of wares in stock.

"Buy thoughts to bring you happiness. Buy dreams to bring you youth."

Wisdom looked at Experience sadly, saying,

"If only we had some for ourselves."

AN AUTHORS' MONTHLY FORUM

WILLIAM DORSEY KENNEDY, Editor

WILLIAM H. HILLS, Consulting Editor

MARGARET GORDON BERTHA W. SMITH

JOHN GALLISHAW ROBERT HILLYER BURGES JOHNSON

"I

Editorial and Business Offices at 1430 MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. Entered at the Boston Postoffice as Second Class Mail Matter.

Subscription postpaid, $3.00 per year; foreign, $3.36. Advertising Rates on Request.

HAVE stopped giving advice to young writers," a well known author told me the other day. He was a genial, friendly sort; his statement did not seem to be characteristic, and I pressed him for a reason.

"In the first place, there is the danger of accusation of plagiarism, which is almost as bad for the writer's reputation as proof of it. There are a limited number of plots and situations to be treated in fiction. If I read a large number of manuscripts, inevitably I should write something resembling one of them in some respect, and what a howl would go up from the youngster who felt that I had copied his idea! I have a good reputation to protect and I can't be blamed for exercising due care that it be not placed in jeopardy. But there is a more personal reason. Almost all young writers these days seem to be money-grubbers. They all try to appear sophisticated and blasé about their work. They assume that writing is only a bag of tricks; that a knowledge of boiler-plate technique, rather than having something to say, is the chief attribute of a successful

writer. What on earth is the use of trying to find a short cut to say something effectively when you have nothing to say? I tell them that writing is primarily moving the emotions of readers; it can't be done if the writer has none himself, or if he covers what he has with false cynicism."

He is absolutely right, of course. The successful writer is always a strong individualist and usually a fearless one. A man who hasn't anything in himself that he wants to bring to the world will profit more by hiring himself out to someone who has. He belongs in advertising. Yet, even there, he will find himself appealing to emotion; he will discover that he needs a certain genuine fervor even to persuade people to buy what they need. If an advertising copy writer finds it difficult to be blasé in his attitude towards his copy, what of the fiction writer who is selling not automobiles or soap but his own individuality?

Too many writers want to eat at the officers' mess, but shudder at the thought of going into the field with troops. Vanity and cupidity are often the propelling motives be

hind writers. They are destructive of any opportunity for substantial success. Honest, passionate striving for leadership is the most important requirement for creative literary work that will reach a large enough group of people regularly enough to provide a fair living to the writer.

There is a foolish opinion abroad that a man cannot do his best work in writing for the large-circulation media. It is based on a fundamental misunderstanding. About the best way to get a line on the quality of the ambition of a writer is to find out what he really thinks of The Saturday Evening Post. Of course, those who write from motives of vanity and cupidity have set it as their goal. They would rather appear there than anywhere else. It pays the top of the market for stories and it carries the names of its authors to more people than any other magazine. But others say, "There are not three million intelligent people in the country. A writer must have to write down to his readers to reach that number. I will not degrade my talents by writing anything but the best of which I am capable." What utter bosh and nonsense!

If they had said: "The Saturday Evening Post is deliberately trying to reach a low order of intelligence," I should have disagreed with them, but I should have considered that they were entitled to their own opinion. The broad statement that a writer may expect to reach a large number of readers by giving anything but the best that is in him is a plain fallacy. Do we not give to millions of children of adolescent age and immature mental development the great classics of the past, enjoyed as well by the most mature and intelligent minds? Either the whole world system of education is wrong or such a tenet is false.

Of course, this much is true: each day has its own familiar vocabulary. A writer schooled in the classics may be forced to go through some mental agony to find expression for his message in words that carry clearly to the modern reader, but that is only a matter of

vocabulary. Would you wail because your novel, printed in English, has no sale in France? From one point of view, all writing is only translation of thought. Generally speaking, any thought which cannot be translated into language understood by the millions is faddist, lacking the essential quality of permanence.

Of course, the writing enjoyed by the millions is not all worthy of preservation or necessarily great, yet it has far more chance of permanence than that written alone for the elite. What bestrides the divisions of interest among millions of present day writers probably has in it some of the qualities which will enable it to bestride the divisions of interest between our generation and the next.

Contrary to the prevalent belief, the successful writer for the millions is definitely "writing up" to his readers. He is trying just as hard to get breadth of interest as another sort of writer is striving for the bizarre. Which of the two objects is more worth striving for is a matter of personal opinion, but there is no doubt that the first is more lucrative. Most writers who have successfully expanded the appeal of their work have arrived at their success by a gradual promotion and they have not been ashamed to appeal in the beginning to readers of lesser sophistication. If a man is honestly striving for leadership, he need not be ashamed to attempt to command the interest of any type of reader whatever. A certain number of writers believe it beneath them to attempt to write for any but a few of the most sophisticated magazines. Even though they are told that this market is badly oversold, they refuse to try any other media. Their ideas are too precious for the mob. They are perfectly willing to swap stories at the officers' mess, but take command of a bunch of raw rookies of inferior intelligence- never! But nothing will probably ever be said to persuade them that their arrogant assumption of virtue is quite as unpleasant as the frank commercialism of the money-grubbers.

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