consideration at the hands of most readers of fiction; and among
those Americans who have never made the forfeiture I would have no
hesitation in naming Irvin S. Cobb. The award of the O. Henry Memorial
Prize for 1922 to the title story in Cobb’s _Snake Doctor and Other
Stories_ seems to me more or less of an irrelevance; Cobb has written
so many capital stories and the award, if it had then existed, might
so easily have gone to him years ago. The tales collected in _Snake
Doctor and Other Stories_ exhibit, perhaps, a greater variety than
some of the earlier collections, and there is a Judge Priest story
without which, I am certain, a majority of Cobb’s readers would
consider the book incomplete. “Snake Doctor” itself has been criticised
as being altogether mechanical. My suggestion to those who advance
that criticism would be conveyed in the form of a question, or two
questions: Did they get no thrill from reading the story? And if they
did, was that thrill a purely mechanical effect? For the point is not
whether the thing producing an effect is a mechanism, but the nature
of the effect itself. Nothing is more mechanical than the theatre, but
a good play is not made the less art thereby. Actors, you may say, or
acting; but a scene has been “made” or destroyed more than once by that
utterly mechanical detail, the stage setting.... If as has sometimes
been predicted, a machine will be invented to produce upon us all the
effects of good fiction, we shall none of us quarrel with the inventor
nor will anyone try to destroy the device unless it be our fictioners.
In the meantime, I advise no one to neglect them, lest the day of the
obvious and unconcealed machine never arrive.
iv
To blaze a trail for the reader through the rich forest of books
educational, philosophical, scientific, and withal “popular” is no easy
task. I have not attempted to do more than put down the titles of some
new and recent “general” books, with the authors, and sometimes a note
upon the volume. But should these not be classified? Dear reader, if
you will give me the classification of the things you are interested
in, I will classify the books....
_Christ or Mars?_ by WILL IRWIN. A passionate but documented
indictment. Mr. Irwin says we do not want peace hard enough; the mood
of man must be changed before peace can come about. He believes it can
be done. “We are trying to hide in squirrel-holes from God. And the
church, which purports to interpret to our world His intentions, is
hiding too.”
NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER’S _Building the American Nation_ is a series
of lectures on Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Washington, Hamilton,
Madison, Jefferson, John Marshall, Webster, Jackson and Lincoln.
_The Ideals of Theodore Roosevelt_, by EDWARD H. COTTON. The book
deals especially with Roosevelt’s religious beliefs and his creed as
expressed in a life of action. Theodore Roosevelt’s sister, Corinne
Roosevelt, writes the preface.
_The Spirit of Islam_, by SYED AMEER ALI. Recognised as the one
authoritative work in English for use in Moslem centres of instruction.
Of especial interest in connection with Lothrop Stoddard’s _The New
World of Islam_.
_Man and the Attainment of Immortality_, by JAMES Y. SIMPSON. After
a careful outline of biological evolution, the author interprets
Christianity as the most important stage in the evolution which,
from being physical, is tending more and more to become a mental and
spiritual process.
G. STANLEY HALL’S _Jesus, the Christ, in the Light of Psychology_, an
interpretation of what we know of Christ in the light of present-day
psychological knowledge, is now procurable in one volume.
A new and useful introduction to the study of philosophy is JOSEPH A.
LEIGHTON’S _The Field of Philosophy_.
JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON’S _The Humanizing of Knowledge_, discussed above,
is one of the volumes of the Workers’ Bookshelf series, books primarily
planned for use in American trades union colleges but of varying
general interest. Other books in the series are _Joining in Public
Discussion_, _The Control of Wages_, _Women in the Labour Movement_,
etc. (by various authors).
_The Greek View of Life_, by G. LOWES DICKINSON, a book of charm and
permanence, should possibly rather be assigned to Chapter 15 of this
book.
_The Making of the Western Mind_, by F. MELIAN STAWELL and F. S.
MARVIN. A short survey of the leading elements of the European cultural
inheritance from the days of classical Greece to our own day.
_Suggestion and Mental Analysis_, by WILLIAM BROWN. Takes into account
Coué and Badouin and psychoanalysis, and culminates in an exposition of
Bergson’s philosophy.
_The Dominant Sex_, by MATHILDE and MATHIAS VAERTING, translated by
Eden and Cedar Paul. Argues that there are no distinctively “masculine”
traits but that the traits so-called have been characteristic of either
sex when dominant in a particular society; with evidence to support the
theory.
_The Mechanism and Physiology of Sex Determination_, by RICHARD
GOLDSCHMIDT, translated by W. J. Dakin. Remarkable breeding experiments
carried out with insects; intersexuality; a subsection deals with man.
A book of importance to biologists.
_How to Sing_, by LUISA TETRAZZINI. Practical advice by the great
coloratura singer.
_The Art of the Prima Donna_, by FREDERICK H. MARTENS. Discussions
by Bori, Calve, Easton, Farrar, Galli-Curci, Hempel, Homer, Jeritza,
Schumann-Heink and others are the feature of the book.
_Public Speaking_, by FRANK H. KIRKPATRICK. Those interested in this
subject will probably want also ALFRED DWIGHT SHEFFIELD’S _Joining in
Public Discussion_.
_The Process and Practice of Photo-Engraving_, by H. O. GROESBECK, JR.
There has hitherto been no handbook and manual.
_Construction of the Small House_, by H. VANDERVOORT WALSH. For the
architect and the layman alike.
As an example of the finest type of book in one of many special fields,
there may be mentioned ARTHUR T. BOLTON’S _The Architecture of Robert
and James Adam_, in two volumes with about 700 illustrations, folio
size, $60.00.
_The Book of Building and Interior Decorating_, edited by REGINALD T.
TOWNSEND. Practical advice from experts.
_Interior Decoration_, by FRANK ALVAH PARSONS. A standard work.
_The Psychology of Dress: Life Expressed in Clothes_, by FRANK ALVAH
PARSONS, is a history of costume made still more interesting by
illustrations.
The Amateur’s Book of the Garden Series, edited by LEONARD BARRON,
offers:
_The Vegetable Garden_, by ADOLPH KRUHM
_Planning Your Garden_, by W. S. ROGERS
_Lawns_, by LEONARD BARRON
_House Plants_, by PARKER T. BARNES
_The Flower Garden_, by IDA D. BENNETT
For the owner of the greenhouse there is _Gardening Under Glass_, by F.
F. ROCKWELL; SYDNEY MITCHELL’S _Gardening in California_ is a guide for
the amateur on the Pacific slope; and _Adventures in My Garden and Rock
Garden_, by LOUISE BEEBE WILDER (author of _My Garden_ and _Colour in
My Garden_) is the descriptive history of a piece of land hardly more
than an acre in size.
_The Plain Sailing Cook Book_, by SUSANNA SHANKLIN BROWNE. Simple
recipes for beginners.
_A Handbook of Cookery for a Small House_, by JESSIE CONRAD. With a
preface by her husband, Joseph Conrad. This was the meat on which our
Cæsar fed and grew so great.
_A Pocket Bridge Book_, by WALTER CAMP. For those who must have their
daily dummy.
_Modern Auction, 1923_, by GRACE G. MONTGOMERY. The new edition of a
standard work.
_Singles and Doubles_, by W. T. TILDEN, 2D., world’s tennis champion,
1920, 1921.
_The Gist of Golf_, by HARRY VARDON. Vardon writes most readably and
gives a chapter to each club. Pictures.
_Field Soccer and Hockey for Women_, by HELEN FROST and HAZEL J.
CUBBERLEY. Pictures and diagrams.
_Ski-ing Turns_, by VIVIAN CAULFIELD. With card diagrams that can be
removed from the book.
_How to Box_, by NORMAN CLARK. With 61 photographs.
_Training for Power and Leadership_, by GRENVILLE KLEISER.
_The Making of an Executive_, by A. HAMILTON CHURCH. Personal
qualifications and the special knowledge required.
_Creative Selling_, by CHARLES HENRY MACKINTOSH. Making and keeping
customers.
_The Law of Sales_, by JAMES BURTON READ. The law relating to the
transfer of personal property for considerations.
_Advertising for the Retailer_, by LLOYD DALLAS HERROLD. Complete
information on every type of advertising used by the retailer.
Illustrations of layouts, window decorations, show cards, letters, etc.
_The Leadership of Advertised Brands_, by GEORGE BURTON HOTCHKISS and
RICHARD B. FRANKEN. Successful advertising and marketing methods.
EDWARD H. SCHULZE’S _Making Letters Pay_ covers business letters from
the viewpoint of “better results, in less time, at lower cost”; while
CARL A. NAETHER’S _The Business Letter_ offers thoroughgoing practice
in making good business letters a habit. SALLIE B. TANNAHILL’S _Ps and
Qs: A Book on the Art of Letter Arrangement_ is concerned with personal
letters.
_Funds and Their Uses_, by FREDERICK A. CLEVELAND. Now available in
a revised edition. Methods, instruments and institutions of modern
financial transactions. The revision adds chapters on the United
States Treasury, commercial banks, the Federal Reserve system, trust
companies, investment bankers and agricultural credit institutions.
_Cotton and the Cotton Market_, by W. HUSTACE HUBBARD. Production,
marketing, the future contract system, the speculative factor; a pretty
complete survey.
_Reminiscences of a Stock Operator_, by EDWIN LEFEVRE. The chief appeal
of this book is the appeal of fiction, although it is obviously founded
on the facts of one or more Wall Street careers. Much market wisdom.
_Co-operative Marketing_, by HERMAN STEEN.
_Historic Textile Fabrics_, by RICHARD GLAZIER. More than 200 varieties
are illustrated.
_The Business of Writing_, by ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY and ALEXANDER VAN
RENSSELAER. A trustworthy book on marketing the writer’s product.
_Writing to Sell_, by EDWIN WILDMAN. What will be marketable and why,
from short pieces for household periodicals to special feature articles
for monthly magazines.
_The Community Newspaper_, by EMERSON P. HARRIS and FLORENCE HARRIS
HOOKE. Developing the newspaper to the community’s benefit and the
owners’ profit.
Readers interested in the subject of JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON’S _The
Humanizing of Knowledge_ will be interested in ABRAHAM FLEXNER’S new
book, _A Modern College and a Modern School_.
_Modern Industrialism_, by FRANK L. MCVEY, presents in very full
outline and from the examples of many countries present-day industrial
organisation.
_Trade Unionism in the United States_, by ROBERT F. HOXIE. A revised
edition is ready.
_Everybody’s Business_, by FLOYD PARSONS. A readable survey of
America’s natural resources and the story of the development of our
major industries.
_The Great Game of Politics_, by FRANK R. KENT.
_Too Much Government--Too Much Taxation_, by CHARLES NORMAN FAY.
* * * * *
NOTE: The list of every publishing house has its special
characteristics and the reader of books will naturally associate
certain types of books with certain imprints; it is desirable that
he should, aiding the bookseller, when possible, in the quest for
publications of a special sort. I have tried to name below, as a
general guide supplementing the fragmentary list above, the chief types
of publications of the four houses associated in the production of this
book:
D. Appleton & Company, whose long history has given them the honour of
publishing important works by Charles Darwin, Haeckel, Froebel, Thomas
Huxley, John Stuart Mill, Max Nordau, G. Stanley Hall, Muensterberg,
Flammarion, Florence Nightingale and L. Emmett Holt, publish many
scientific, business, educational, technical and industrial books,
military and naval textbooks; books on the Spanish language and many
translations into Spanish from English, including fiction; medical
books; fiction by Zona Gale, Joseph C. Lincoln, Harold Bell Wright,
Edith Wharton, Brand Whitlock, etc., and general literature.
George H. Doran Company publish many books of historical importance,
memoirs, biographies, etc.; contemporary politics; travel; sport;
belles lettres; a very large list of religious books; spiritualistic
books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and others; poetry; plays; and a
remarkable fiction list including Walpole, Mary Roberts Rinehart, W.
Somerset Maugham, Arnold Bennett, etc.
Doubleday, Page & Company are noted as the publishers of many garden
and nature books; of important biographies and historical works;
travel; poetry; belles lettres; general literature and fiction by
Joseph Conrad, Booth Tarkington, Gene Stratton-Porter, Edna Ferber,
Kathleen Norris, etc. They publish the works of Rudyard Kipling (except
the Outward Bound Edition: Scribner).
Charles Scribner’s Sons publish works on architecture; historical
and biographical books and memoirs; letters; belles lettres; books
dealing with problems of race and society; sociological works; poetry;
plays; books on sports; works on art and decoration, philosophy and
religion; many books illustrated in colour; and fiction. In a long
career the house has had the distinction of publishing the works of J.
M. Barrie, Thomas Carlyle, Edmund Gosse, W. E. Henley, Maurice Hewlett,
James Huneker, Henrik Ibsen, Henry James, George Meredith, Theodore
Roosevelt, George Santayana, Robert Louis Stevenson, etc.
All four houses publish books for boys and girls.
Fiction.
In addition to the fiction already discussed attention may be invited
to the following new and recent books (for new fiction by Galsworthy,
Conrad, V. Sackville West, Arthur Train, Harold Bell Wright, Ralph
Connor, Booth Tarkington, Zona Gale, Gene Stratton-Porter, Joseph C.
Lincoln, Edith Wharton, Christopher Morley see respective chapters on
these authors; also see Chapters 3, 15, and 18):
_Cross-Sections_, by JULIAN STREET. Short stories.
_Butterfly_, by KATHLEEN NORRIS.
_Rufus_, by GRACE S. RICHMOND.
_Miss Bracegirdle and Others_, by STACY AUMONIER. Short stories.
_The Motherless_, by BENGT BERG, translated by Charles Wharton Stork.
The story of a motherless boy and a motherless bear cub.
_The Shadowy Third_, by ELLEN GLASGOW. Short stories.
_The Middle Father_, by ANTHONY M. RUD. Norwegian settlers in the
Middle West.
_Conquistador_, by KATHARINE FULLERTON Gerould.
_The Orissers_, by L. H. MYERS.
_Four of a Kind_, by J. P. MARQUAND. Four little novels.
_The Love Legend_, by WOODWARD BOYD.
_The Marriage Verdict_, by FRANK H. SPEARMAN.
_The Really Romantic Age_, by L. ALLEN HARKER.
_Broken Barriers_, by MEREDITH NICHOLSON.
_Timber Wolf_, by JACKSON GREGORY.
_Colin_, by E. F. BENSON.
_Eris_, by ROBERT W. CHAMBERS.
_Pandora Lifts the Lid_, by CHRISTOPHER MORLEY and DON MARQUIS.
_The House of Helen_, by CORRA HARRIS.
_The Gay Year_, by DOROTHY SPEARE.
_The Middle of the Road_, by SIR PHILIP GIBBS.
_La Parcelle 32_, by ERNEST PEROCHON.
_North of 36_, by EMERSON HOUGH.
_Fires of Ambition_, by GEORGE GIBBS.
_Madame Claire_, by SUSAN ERTZ.
_Corduroy_, by RUTH COMFORT MITCHELL.
_The Public Square_, by WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT.
_The Ground Swell_, by ALFRED B. STANFORD.
_The Song of the Dragon_, by JOHN TAINTOR FOOTE. Short stories.
_12. Totalling Mr. Tarkington_
i
In the interesting procession of his work, Booth Tarkington has pretty
well paralleled the somewhat vacillating development of popular
literary taste in his country. This, there is every reason to believe,
has resulted from no conscious intention. The fashion, in considering
Mr. Tarkington, has usually been to contrast what are called his
two natures--the romanticist who wrote _Monsieur Beaucaire_ and the
realist (more or less) who wrote _The Gentleman From Indiana_ and _The
Turmoil_. Very sensibly has it been pointed out that the two strains
are manifest side by side in a number of his novels, such as _The
Conquest of Canaan_, where the realism of character is sadly impaled on
the rocks of plot. But, if I may advance the idea with due diffidence,
such as Tarkington always shows in any discussion of his work, the much
more instructive comparison lies deeper in the man and is the result of
an unrelenting pressure of environment on a personality endowed with
most exceptional talent and even unmistakable genius. One can say, I
think, although with a great deal of hesitation over its unavoidable
crudeness, that Mr. Tarkington in some sense repeats what Mr. Van Wyck
Brooks conceives to be the tragedy of Mark Twain, only in Tarkington’s
case it has no air of tragedy. The common view of the author of _Alice
Adams_ is that he is a lucky fellow who deserves all his luck. Only
in a narrow, godlike perspective would he appear tragic. And such
a conclusion might easily be premature. When _Monsieur Beaucaire_
appeared Mr. Frederic Taber Cooper declared it certain that we knew the
extent of the author’s capabilities, adding that it was unthinkable
that he should ever again essay the realism of _The Gentleman From
Indiana_. A couple of years ago plenty of persons qualified to have and
to express an opinion asserted that Tarkington would never overcome
his propensity toward a pulled-together and “happy” ending in a novel;
and in the same year appeared _Alice Adams_. As Mr. Tarkington is only
fifty-four, and may easily have a dozen years and a half a dozen prime
novels directly in front of him, to be dogmatic is to run a perfectly
unreasonable risk of stultification. I shall try to avoid that.
ii
“An unrelenting pressure of environment on a personality endowed with
most exceptional talent....”
[Illustration: BOOTH TARKINGTON]
Newton Booth Tarkington was born in Indianapolis, 29 July 1869,
the son of John Stevenson Tarkington (died 1922, aged ninety) and
Elizabeth (Booth) Tarkington. The father, a Civil War soldier and a
lawyer, was for some years in politics; the son was a member of the
Indiana Legislature in 1902-3. The mother’s family is not traceably
connected with those Booths celebrated as actors. In his study of
_Booth Tarkington_ which is and will for a long time remain the chief
resource and delight of those considering the novelist, Robert Cortes
Holliday points out that the Indianapolis of Booth Tarkington’s youth
was a town, and that B. T. is neither a city nor a country boy, but a
town boy. For a while in his childhood the boy was affected by nervous
disorders resembling St. Vitus attacks. At about the age of eleven,
he became a friend of James Whitcomb Riley, who was a neighbour.
In his teens, Tarkington had the behaviour of a normal boy and a
spirit of deviltry showed itself that was to last him until he was
thirty. He went to Phillips Exeter, then to Purdue University, and
finally to Princeton, where he “made” Ivy, than which, in the way of
social success, Princeton offers nothing more beautiful. Much on the
sentimental side is made to this day of Tarkington’s singing of “Danny
Deever” at class gatherings and reunions. After leaving Princeton,
Tarkington returned to Indianapolis and pursued the busy social life
possible to a young man of the town while at the same time he read a
good deal and tried various styles of writing. Mr. Holliday intimates
that, like Stevenson, Tarkington “played the sedulous ape” to a
succession of literary masters, to find out how the thing was done.
The interesting point is that the beginner kept this activity quite
strictly to himself. “It was probably a consciousness of the foolish
look which his unrewarded activities may have had outside that caused
Mr. Tarkington at that time modestly to describe the serious schooling
which he gave himself as ‘fussin’ with literachoor,’” Holliday tells
us. The fact that the young man earned only $22.50 gross, or $62.50,
or whatever it was, by his first five years of literary effort has
since been as widely published as Joseph Hergesheimer’s fourteen years
without a single acceptance.
The junior Tarkington was under no necessity of earning his living
and a notebook kept at that time by his father records the repeated
return by publishers of his first novel, _The Gentleman from Indiana_.
_Monsieur Beaucaire_ was a long time getting accepted. The whimsical
_Cherry_ was bought by Henry Mills Alden for Harper’s Magazine,
pigeon-holed as a mistake and then unearthed and printed when _Monsieur
Beaucaire_ had made Tarkington “valuable.” Forty thousand words of an
early draft of _The Gentleman from Indiana_ had had to be discarded
because, having got his hero out for a walk, Tarkington could carry
neither him nor the story any further. After an interruption of some
length, _The Two Vanrevels_ was resumed and wound up only with the
greatest difficulty.
Mr. Tarkington was married in 1902 and again in 1912. He lived for a
while in France and Italy (Capri). His summer home, at Kennebunkport,
Maine, is usually spoken of with some reference to the study, where
models of vessels of every rig, a valuable collection, are displayed.
This is sometimes spoken of as “the house that _Penrod_ built” and the
ship models are perhaps natural to a home overlooking a New England
harbour. It is also to be recollected that certain of Mr. Tarkington’s
ancestors hailed from Salem. Perhaps any other significance in those
ships is merely fanciful.
No one who meets Booth Tarkington is insensible to the personal charm
of the man. He is absolutely without affectation, and the perfect host,
the staunch friend, the sympathetic listener and the contained and
modest talker. Whatever the vicissitudes he has undergone, whatever the
pressures put upon him, he has weathered them all with a steady helm.
It seems an astonishing, unwarranted and probably an impudent thing to
suggest that this man has been to a deplorable extent the victim of
circumstances (largely comfortable circumstances); and that, with a
less winning personality--if some outward expression for the thing must
be sought--the chances are he would have been a much greater writer
than, on his record, he is today.
iii
You see, of course, how handicapped he was from the start by being
“a good fellow.” The extent of that handicap can only be realised, I
think, by knowing that to this day “nothing, apparently, so much gives
Mr. Tarkington the horrors as the idea of the ‘literary.’ He does
not want to be ‘caught,’ he declares, writing ‘prose.’” I quote Mr.
Holliday, who adds: “Some literary editor in New York told him that
some of the passages in _The Turmoil_, in particular (I think) the
cemetery scene, were noble English prose, worthy, I suppose, of the
author of _Urn Burial_. ‘He liked them,’ says Mr. Tarkington with a
wry face, as though, if he knew just how, he would cut those passages
out.” But why should Tarkington be horrified by the thought that he may
have written “literature”? What black curse lies upon “literature”?
The only one I know is the contempt of “good fellows” and other
philistines for an affair they know nothing of and self-defensively
profess to despise. And if Mr. Tarkington thinks, as perhaps he does,
that he spent painful years of reading and practise writing without the
secret hope that he would some day write a piece of literature, then,
I suspect, he is much mistaken. But what is it, this mental process?
Why should he be “very quick to insist” that none of his family have
been “offensively” literary? Who is offended by literature? “Good
fellows” have been known to be very much annoyed by the presence among
them of one whose possession of a taste they did not share seemed to
impugn their own completeness. There is more than a suspicion that
“Tark” has jekyllhyded others so long as to have concealed something
very precious to him from himself. There could be no greater contrast,
for example, than between Joseph Hergesheimer and Booth Tarkington (in
this matter). Both are persons of some taste and genius who follow the
profession of letters. I reveal nothing when I say that Hergesheimer,
of whom personally I am fond, is considered by many people to be
most conceited. Mr. Hergesheimer would be the first to uphold such a
statement. One of the universally-praised traits of Mr. Tarkington is
his utter lack of self-conceit. What is the explanation?