It

years of apprenticeship and practice. Now in seven years a novelist who has not mistaken his vocation ought to produce at least ten novels. And it will be a hard thing if an author with ten novels in his baggage cannot first and last clear £100 a year. will not be startling if he clears a great deal more. Of course, novel writing is a limited profession; but then the number of men who experience a genuine call to it is correspondingly limited. It differs in two ways from the more regular professions. Influence will not help progress in it. A rich or a powerful friend can enormously smooth the path of a young lawyer or doctor. He can do nothing for a young novelist. The novelist has to stand on his own feet with the public. Even a mighty editor cannot force a novelist on the public. I regard this as an advantage to the literary profession. The other point of difference is that for a novelist the conditions of labor are infinitely more agreeable than in the regular professions. He can work when and where he likes. He is tied to no place. He needs no office and no apparatus. - Arnold Bennett, in London T. P.'s Weekly.

Rules for Fiction Writers.-A writer in the New York Sun undertook to learn why young authors find it so difficult to obtain recognition from the magazines, and gathered a variety of information. Among other things, he was told that "no more common mistake is made by would-be magazine writers than to assume that a short story is a condensed novel. Some people," this editor went on, "do not seem to understand that the short story should be restricted to a single incident. If it is a story of adventure, there must be only one adventure. If it is a love affair, it must be only one episode in the courtship. If it is a character sketch, it rust deal with one trait of character only.”

This assertion is often made, but it is purely arbitrary. It is based, presumably, on the practice and theory of Maupassant, whose artistic skill as a short story writer is rather extravagantly rated. Facts do not sustain it. Many short stories that rank high are nothing less than condensed

66

novels; that is, the material they contain is equal to that given with greater amplification in novels. Many examples might be offered to prove this. Dickens' "Dr. Marigold" does not confine itself to a single incident or to one trait of character, nor does his Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings." Irving's legend, "Rip Van Winkle," covers the events of a life; so does Flaubert's "A Simple Heart." Stevenson's "Will o' the Mill" would not at all meet the requirements of the magazine editors of to-day in respect to the ground it covers, nor would his "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Kipling wrote many tales restricted to single episodes, but among those which made him famous are some that go beyond this. "Without Benefit of Clergy," to many minds one of the most finished of short stories, is the story of a life. Henry James has written one or two most dramatic short stories, one of them dealing with ghosts, which are more than detached episodes.

They

The truth is that the editors want a standard to guide them, and have fixed upon this, but in so doing they have not studied precedent or considered the fact that the chief thing, after all, is not conformity to any arbitrary rule, but the accuracy, vividness, and skill with which the writer of any production depicts life, either as a single incident or as a whole. Manuals on the art of short story writing are numerous, and lay down very rigid rules of procedure. are written by persons unknown to fame as writers of fiction, and are presumably editors or "Readers," thus seeking to establish themselves as authorities. So far as can be learned, popular authors of short stories have the ability - inborn, not learned from books to tell them effectively. Sometimes the tales they tell are but single incidents, sometimes they are more, and the latter may be the more artistic and the more impressive.

Magazine editors have the right to set their own standards and fix their own rules and regulations. Some of them frankly admit that they prefer a trivial incident artistically treated to a dramatic theme or striking plot less skilfully handled; while others

favor the latter. It is not to be assumed that their limitations are causing the rejection of any great amount of superior literature, but rather that they publish the best they can get, which is, for the most part, not very good. Nevertheless, by the adoption of such restrictive rules they do not impress themselves upon the public as literary purveyors who invariably know a good thing when they see it. Their standard in short fiction is in line with the oracular announcement that emanates now and then from publishing houses, to the effect that the public prefers novels of action or adventure rather than of romance; or that it wants swift movement, and will have none of the old-fashioned rambling style of fiction; or that it demands plot, and will refuse stories whose interest lies in their psychology - each ukase depending on the character of the "best sellers" of the moment. Then comes along some one with a sentimental romance that catches the popular fancy, or a Mrs. Wharton with a study of social life, or a Dr. Morgan, who digresses from his main narrative on every page, yet delights the novel-reading world, and all the theories are upset. The main thing in long or short fiction, as before remarked, is truth to life, whatever may be the technical rules laid down. Terre Haute Star.

The Poet's Work. - Writing of her own work, Mrs. Browning has said: "Poetry has been to me as serious a thing as life itself and life has been a very serious thing; there has been no playing at skittles for me in either. I never mistook pleasure for the final cause of poetry, nor leisure for the hour of the poet. I have done my work, so far, as work not as mere hand and head work, apart from the personal being, but as the completest expression of that being to which I could attain and as work I offer it to the public, feeling its shortcomings more deeply than any of my readers, because measured from the height of my aspiration; but feeling, also, that the reverence and sincerity with which the work was done should give it some protection from the reverent and sincere."

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The Record Price for Verse. -The London Chronicle mentions what it believes to be the most profitable verse on record. Victor Hugo, it says, was even more successful than Tennyson as regards money matters, and left over £200,000 at his death. A large proportion of this was derived from fiction, for "Les Miserables" alone brought him in £16,000; but even allowing for this, it seems probable that his poems and plays were more remunerative than those of his great English contemporary. Neither Tennyson nor Hugo, however, can equal the record of James Smith, of "Rejected Addresses" fame, who was better paid for a trifling effort of verse than any poet since

AN APPRECIATION OF LIFE. Illustrated. Ellis O. Jones. Bohemian (18 c.) for August.

THE CENTENARIES OF FAMOUS AMERICANS. Oliver Wendell Holmes. Illustrated. Clara E. Laughlin.

Ladies' World (13 c.) for August.

SARAH ORNE JEWETT. Outlook (8 c.) for July 3. GEORGE MEREDITH, THE POET. Harper's Weekly (13 c.) for July 10.

SARAH ORNE JEWETT. With portrait. Alice May Douglas. Zion's Herald (9 c.) for July 14.

THE TENNYSON CENTENARY. With portrait. Zion's Herald (9 c.) for July 28.

NEWS AND NOTES.

Lady Stanley has edited the "Autobiography of Henry M. Stanley," the American edition of which will be issued this fall by the Houghton Mifflin Company. A supplementary narrative, made up from his letters, will give the inner history of events and episodes never before made public.

A new volume in the Contemporary Men of Letters Series will be a study, by George Brandes, of Anatole France, an analysis of France's work and personality.

A "Literary History of Rome," covering the period from the origin to the end of the "golden age," by J. Wight Duff, M. A., has been imported by the Scribners.

Professor Cooper, of Cornell, with his forty collaborators, has completed his "Wordsworth Concordance." It contains some 200,000 entries.

A "Life of William Sharp" ("Fiona Macleod"), by Mrs. Sharp, will be published by Duffield & Co., probably in November.

Collier's Weekly is offering prizes for the best vacation stories sent in up to October 1. The first prize is $100, the second $50, and others that are accepted $25 each. The articles must be on vacation experiences and accompanied by photographs. They are limited to 1,200 words, and must be based on facts.

The Editorial Review, New York, is a new magazine, the first number of which is composed of half a dozen original articles, the rest of the magazine consisting of reprints from newspapers.

Uncle Remus's Home Magazine has absorbed the Midland Magazine, published at Cincinnati.

Beginning with the October number, the American Magazine will increase its size by forty pages of reading matter and illustrations. New departments will be included, and the scope of the magazine will be greatly enlarged.

The entire plant of the School News, published by C. M. Parker, at Taylorville, Ill., has been destroyed by fire. Mr. Parker is making strenuous efforts to resume operations as soon as possible.

Robert M. McBride has disposed of his entire interest in Yachting, and has taken over House and Garden from the John C. Winston Company, of Philadelphia, and will publish the magazine under the name of McBride, Winston Company, at 6 West Twenty-ninth street, New York City.

Dr. John W. Gunsaulus has become editor of Home Life, Chicago.

G. Herbert Henshaw has succeeded Frederick Mitchell Munroe as the editor of Brooklyn Life.

The National Printer-Journalist for August contains a full account of the convention of the National Editorial Association, with the text of all the addresses.

Apropos of John Walcott's paper in the August Putnam's rehearsing the story of the Baconian theory, it is interesting to recall that the Bacon-Shakspere controversy was started in a paper by Miss Bacon in Putnam's Monthly for January, 1856.

Professor Simon Newcomb died in Washington July 12, aged seventy-four.

Mrs. Susan Pierce Stephens ("Sheppard Stephens ") died July 18 at Little Rock, Ark., aged forty-eight.

Rosa Nouchette Carey died in London July 19. Her first story was published in 1868.

Rev. William Reed Huntington, D. D., died at Nahant July 26, aged seventy years. John B. Tait died in Baltimore July 29, aged seventy-four.

VOL. XXI.

No. 9.

from that is his wonderful power of characterization. Mystery, humor, love, and romance are so intertwined in his novels that the interest never flags. As far as structure goes, his stories may be regarded as almost flawless models for aspiring young writers. Perhaps "The Moonstone" may be named as the best of his works. At all events, I purpose, with due diffidence, to attempt an analysis of this novel in an endeavor to give some suggestion of how this fascinating work may have been constructed by its distinguished creator.

The plot of "The Moonstone" clusters about a yellow diamond, the largest in the world, and a famous gem in the native annals of India. The earliest known traditions describe the stone as having been set in the forehead of the four-handed Indian god who typifies the moon. At the storming of Seringapatam, in 1799, John Herncastle murders the Indian attendants, and steals the diamond, which, it is predicted, will bring misfortune to any of its posses

sors.

On the death of Herncastle, the gem is entrusted to Franklin Blake, who is to hand it to his cousin, Rachel Verinder, on her birthday. Blake, knowing the tragic history of the stone, is reluctant to give it to Rachel, whom he loves. But feeling that it is his duty to do so, he carries it from London to the country home of his aurt and cousin in Yorkshire. Three Indians follow him and lurk about the house, but he renches there safely, and tells the story to Rachel and her mother, Lady Verinder. It is decided that the diamond shall be placed in a cabinet in an apartment adjoining Rachel's