THE LITERARY SHOP
AND OTHER TALES
BY
JAMES L. FORD
AUTHOR of “HYPNOTIC TALES,” “DR. DODD’S SCHOOL,”
“THE THIRD ALARM,” ETC.
_NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION_
[Illustration]
NEW-YORK
THE CHELSEA COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1894,
By GEO. H. RICHMOND & CO.
Copyright, 1899,
BY THE CHELSEA COMPANY.
PREFACE TO NEW EDITION.
_The Literary Shop_ was first printed in book form in the fall of
1894, nearly five years ago. Some of its constituent papers had
already appeared in the pages of _Truth_ and _Puck_. To the present
edition have been added the sketches that deal with life and letters
in the McClure village of Syndicate. This model literary community was
established about four years ago, on a convenient and healthful rise
of ground overlooking the Hackensack River, which is navigable at that
point. It has a population of several hundred poets and prose hands,
all of whom are regularly employed on the magazine and the newspaper
syndicate controlled by Mr. S. S. McClure. These sketches are reprinted
by permission from the _New York Journal_ and the _Criterion_.
NEW YORK, March 8, 1899. J. L. F.
AUTHOR’S NOTE.
Many of these papers are new. Others are reprinted by permission from
_Puck_ and _Truth_.
CONTENTS.
THE LITERARY SHOP.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
IN AN OLD GARRET 1
CHAPTER II.
THE “LEDGER” PERIOD OF LETTERS 11
CHAPTER III.
SOMETHING ABOUT “GOOD BAD STUFF” 24
CHAPTER IV.
THE EARLY HOLLAND PERIOD 34
CHAPTER V.
MENDACITY DURING THE HOLLAND PERIOD OF LETTERS 47
CHAPTER VI.
THE DAWN OF THE JOHNSONIAN PERIOD 62
CHAPTER VII.
WOMAN’S INFLUENCE IN THE JOHNSONIAN PERIOD 78
CHAPTER VIII.
LITERATURE--PAWED AND UNPAWED; AND THE CROWN-PRINCE THEREOF 99
CHAPTER IX.
CERTAIN THINGS WHICH A CONSCIENTIOUS LITERARY WORKER MAY FIND
IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK 118
CHAPTER X.
“HE TRUN UP BOTE HANDS!” 139
CHAPTER XI.
THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER. 160
AND OTHER TALES.
THE POETS’ STRIKE 183
ANCIENT FORMS OF AMUSEMENT 194
THE SOBER, INDUSTRIOUS POET, AND HOW HE FARED AT EASTER-TIME 199
THE TWO BROTHERS; OR, PLUCKED FROM THE BURNING 208
THE STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN OF TALENT 223
THE SOCIETY REPORTER’S CHRISTMAS 231
THE DYING GAG 245
“ONLY A TYPE-WRITER” 251
THE CULTURE BUBBLE IN OURTOWN 260
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE CONSTRUCTION AND PRESERVATION OF JOKES 275
MCCLURE’S MODEL VILLAGE FOR LITERARY TOILERS 299
ARRIVAL OF THE SCOTCH AUTHORS AT MCCLURE’S LITERARY COLONY 307
THE CANNING OF PERISHABLE LITERATURE 316
LITERARY LEAVES BY MANACLED HANDS 323
MCCLURE’S BIRTHDAY AT SYNDICATE VILLAGE 331
LITERATURE BY PRISON CONTRACT LABOR 340
CHRISTMAS EVE AT THE SYNDICATE VILLAGE 351
THE LITERARY SHOP
CHAPTER I.
IN AN OLD GARRET.
I am lying at full length on a broken-down haircloth sofa that has
been placed near the cobwebby window of an old garret in a country
farm-house. It is near the close of a rainy day, and all the afternoon
I have listened to the pattering of the heavy drops on the shingled
roof, the rustling of the slender locust-trees and the creaking of
their branches as the wind moves them.
There are pop-corn ears drying on the floor of this old garret; its
solid rafters are festooned with dried apples and white onions. Odd
bits of furniture, and two or three hair trunks bearing initials made
with brass-headed nails, are scattered about the room, and from where
I lie I can see a Franklin stove, a pair of brass andirons, and one of
those queer wooden-wheeled clocks that used to be made in Connecticut
years ago, and which are a fitting monument to the ingenuity of the
Yankee race.
Every article in the room is carefully treasured, and none is held in
more tender regard than are certain square, dust-covered packages of
what might be old newspapers that are piled up in big heaps beside the
old chairs and tables. One of these bundles lies on the floor beside
my sofa, with its string untied and its contents scattered carelessly
about. Look down and you will see that it contains copies of the _New
York Ledger_, of a year that was one of the early seventies, and which
have been religiously preserved, together with fully twoscore of other
similar bundles, by the excellent people who dwell in the house.
The number which I hold in my hand contains instalments of four
serials, as many complete stories, half a dozen poems, contributions by
Henry Ward Beecher, James Parton, and Mary Kyle Dallas, and a number of
short editorials and paragraphs, besides two solid nonpareil columns of
“Notices to Correspondents.” One of the serials is called “The Haunted
Husband; or, Lady Chetwynde’s Specter,” and deals exclusively with
that superior class of mortals who go to make up what a great many of
the old _Ledger_ readers would have called “carriage trade.” Another
story, “Unknown; or, The Mystery of Raven Rocks,” bears the signature
of Mrs. E. D. N. Southworth, a name venerated in every household in
which a red-plush photograph-album is treasured as a precious _objet
d’art_. The short stories are simple and innocuous enough to suit the
most primitive of brain-cells. The fiction is embellished with three
pictures, which are interesting as specimens of a simple and now
happily obsolete school of art.
The “Notices to Correspondents” are a joy forever, and reflect with
charming simplicity and candor the minds of the thousands of anxious
inquirers who were wont to lay all their doubts and troubles at Robert
Bonner’s feet.
It is here that the secrets of the maiden heart are laid bare to the
gaze of the whole world. It is here that we read of the young man who
is “waiting on” a young widow and formerly “kept company with” a lady
friend who is the cashier of the laundry which he patronizes. Not
knowing which of the two he ought to marry, he pours out his soul in
this free-for-all arena of thought and discussion. “Mary X.” writes
from Xenia, O., to inquire if she is a flirt because she has a new beau
every two weeks, and is solemnly warned by Mr. Bonner that if she goes
on in that way she “will soon have no beaux at all.” “L. L. D.” is a
young girl of eighteen, whose parents are addicted to drink. She wishes
to know if it is proper for her to correspond with a young gentleman
friend who is a telegraph-operator in Buffalo and has made her a
present of a backgammon-board last Christmas. That these letters are
genuine is proved by their tone of artless simplicity, and by the fact
that no single mind or score of minds could invent the extraordinary
questions that were propounded from week to week.
Careful perusal of the _Ledger_ lyrics reveals a leaning on the part of
the poets of that period toward such homely themes as “The Children’s
Photographs,” “The Mother’s Blessing,” and “Down by the Old Orchard
Wall.” They are all written on the same plane of inanity, and are
admirably well suited to the tastes of the admirers of Mrs. Southworth
and Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.
It is growing dark in the old garret--too dark to read--and I arise
from the horsehair sofa, filled with memories of the past which have
been awakened by perusal of the yellow sheet of twenty years ago. As
I tie up the bundle and place it on the dust-covered heap with its
fellows, my eye falls upon a dozen packages, different in shape from
these and containing copies of the _Century Magazine_ for the past
decade, which are preserved with the same tender care that was once
bestowed upon the _Ledger_ alone.
But as I slowly descend the staircase my mind is full of the favorite
old story-paper, and of the enormous influence which its Scotch
proprietor, Robert Bonner, exerted over the literature of his day and
generation--an influence which is still potent in the offices of the
great magazines which now supply us with reading matter. I doubt if
there has ever been, in this country, a better edited paper than the
_Ledger_ was in the days when its destinies were shaped by the hand of
its canny proprietor. No editor ever understood his audience better,
or, knowing his readers, was more successful in giving them what they
wanted, than was Robert Bonner, whose dollars accumulated in his own
coffers even as the files of his paper accumulated in country garrets
in all parts of this broad land.
“Well, where do you find evidences of such careful editing in that
hotch-potch which you describe so carefully?” I hear some carping
critic ask, and as I run my eye over what I have written I realize
that I have utterly failed in my attempt to convey an idea of the
glories of that particular number of the _Ledger_. I would say,
however, to my critical friend that the paper is well edited because
it does not contain a line of prose or a stanza of verse that is not
aimed directly at the hearts and minds of the vast army of farmers,
midwives, gas-fitters’ daughters, and the blood-relations of janitors
who constituted its peculiar _clientèle_. And I would add that if the
critical one desires to get at the very bone and sinew of _Ledger_
literature he should make a careful study of the poems which were an
important feature of it, and in which may be found the very essence of
the great principles by which the paper was guided.
Indeed, Mr. Bonner used to be more particular about his poetry than
about his prose, and always read himself every line of verse submitted
to him for publication. Some of the poems were written by women of
simple, serious habits of thought; but a great many of the highly moral
and instructive effusions that were an important feature of the paper
were prepared by ungodly and happy-go-lucky Bohemians, who were glad to
eke out the livelihood earned by reporting with an occasional “tenner”
from Mr. Bonner’s treasury. These poets studied the great editor’s
peculiarities and personal tastes as carefully as the most successful
magazine contributors of to-day study those of the various Gilders,
Johnsons, Burlingames, and Aldens who dominate American letters in
the present year. For example, no horses in _Ledger_ poems were ever
permitted to trot faster than a mile in eight minutes, and it was
considered sagacious to name them Dobbin or Old Bess. Poems in praise
of stepmothers or life-insurance were supposed to be distasteful to
the great editor, but he was believed to have an absolute passion for
lyrics which extolled the charm of country life and the homely virtues
of rural folk. If a poet wrote more than one rhyme to the quatrain he
was warned by his fellows not to ruin the common market.
And now I hear from the carping critic again: “But you don’t mean to
tell me that any good poetry was produced by such a process? Why,
suppose one of our great magazines--”
“Who said anything about good poetry? It was good poetry for
the _Ledger_ subscribers to read, and as to the great modern
magazines--haven’t I told you already that I stumbled over a heap of
them just as I was leaving the old garret where the pop-corn and the
wreaths of dried apples and the bundles of _Ledgers_ are kept?”