Although neither Joe Lincoln nor Irving S. Cobb will probably be
considered a major figure of American literature, the audience of each
was larger and more devoted than the followers of the most adroit of
our craftsmen. There was a pronounced difference between them and one
outstanding similarity. Lincoln had Cape Cod in his heart, soul and
mind. He portrayed the sandy, salty stretches and their inhabitants far
more appealingly than anyone else who has written about that section.
He did but one thing, but he did it in a way which endeared him to
millions and especially those who know “The Narrow Land” on the other
side of the Cape Cod Canal.
Cobb did for rugged Kentucky what Lincoln accomplished for the flat
Southeastern Massachusetts peninsula. The tobacco-chewing Judge Priest
of the Cobb detective stories is just as redolent of the border-state
mountains as the Lincoln figures are of the Cape. But Cobb was also a
journalist, a humorist, a wit, an essayist, a political writer, a war
correspondent, a sophisticated cosmopolite. Lincoln was satisfied to
cultivate his own country intensively. Cobb liked to plow all over the
world. He is said to have remarked that he had traveled in Pullman cars
so often that he couldn’t sleep at home without a cinder in his eye.
Neither Lincoln nor Cobb looked abroad for material. Each was a red
hot American and found no end of stuff under their noses here at home.
They visualized their own surroundings just as vividly as Herman
Melville told about his whaling days. Lincoln was probably the favorite
of women readers than of the men. Cobb, fat, lusty, go-as-you-please,
slopping over with zest at being alive, and fond of associating with
all kinds of folks, hit the men pretty hard; but his vivid imagination
and remarkable facility with words led him to the painting of canvases
more lurid and perhaps true than those of Lincoln. As each of them had
qualities which none of their contemporaries possessed in such richness
their passing left vacancies in the world of American letters which
will be hard to replace.
Joe Lincoln was at the peak of his career during an era in American
letters when such colorful names as O. Henry, Joyce Kilmer, Tarkington
and a host of other beloved American writers were also fellow
contributors to such magazines as The Saturday Evening Post, Ainslee’s
Magazine, and many other well known publications. During his winters
in New York Lincoln was fortunate enough to have for his friends other
writers like O. Henry, whose real name was Sidney Porter. Along with
magazine editors, and other writers in New York Lincoln often lingered
over the luncheon table talking of men, events, and books.
In a newspaper interview in 1926 Lincoln recalled that, “Porter
(O. Henry) was very popular with the crowd and in his very modest,
unostentatious way said many things which none of us could forget. He
loved the city and could hardly ever be persuaded to leave New York.
It was also hard to get him out anywhere--he shunned crowds. Then we
thought it was due a very peculiar sensitiveness. Later we realized
that although his love for the city was genuine, he was afraid someone
would recognize him and connect him with his unhappy past.
“Several times I asked him home to dinner, but he would not come.
Finally, I met him on the street one day and he told me he was coming
out that night.
“‘Well, it’s about time,’ I said. ‘I’ve asked you enough.’
“‘But there’s just one thing I want to know first,’ he said. ‘have you
got a butler at your house?’”
“‘No,’ I answered, ‘nothing like that.’
“‘Then I’ll come,’ he said. He did and we spent a delightful evening.
“Once a friend of his who had a big estate on Long Island got him to
come out for the week end. He had had many arguments with Porter about
the superiority of the country, and was anxious to show him the many
advantages of living out of town. He took him proudly around his place,
showed him the stables, etc., and finally wound up on the top of a high
hill where there was an excellent view. Porter followed him around
dutifully but saying little. After his friend had finished pointing out
the beauties of the scenery, he talked of the good train service, and
told him that one could obtain anything there which could be found in
the city.
“‘Anything you want,’ he wound up, ‘you can get here.’
“Porter rose to his feet and picked up his hat. ‘Can you get a ticket
to New York?’ he asked.”
Once Lincoln was trying to persuade Porter to do something or other
over the week end, and Porter protested that he was behind in his
work. At the time he was doing a series of Sunday stories in the NEW
YORK WORLD, stories that since have become famous and can be found in
thousands of libraries in his collected works.
While they were talking the telephone rang and the Sunday editor of THE
WORLD wanted to know when O. Henry was going to get his story in--it
was about Christmas time and a story dealing with Christmas was due for
the following Sunday. Porter had not even started it.
“Well, tell me what it is about,” said the editor, “so I can get the
artist busy with the illustration.”
O. Henry thought a minute and told the editor to have the artist draw a
picture of a girl in the living room of a cheap flat leaning against a
table, and a young man looking down at her.
“What is the story about?” asked Lincoln when O. Henry had finished his
instructions.
Porter replied that he had no more idea than Lincoln did, but he got
busy and dashed off a story in time for the paper. The story was “The
Gifts of the Magi,” the tale of the young wife who sold her hair to buy
her husband a fob for his watch, while he unknown to her pawned his
watch to buy her a comb for her beautiful hair.
Then there was the story of the halberdier, so well known to lovers of
O. Henry plots and people. “I had two endings to that story,” Porter
told Lincoln. “At first I thought I would have the man get mad at the
whole game and smash the showcase with his halberd, but then I thought
it would be better to have the girl come in and have a romantic ending
on the spot.”
“Porter hated to mix at big affairs,” Lincoln reminisced, “though he
loved the city and crowds of people. Once there was an excursion of
newspaper men and illustrators up the Hudson to Albany, and to the
great surprise of us all, Porter came along. There were four or five
hundred of us, and finally it got on his nerves, and he disappeared. He
left the boat at Poughkeepsie and went back.
“That man loved mankind and saw only the best in people. Those
qualities have been an inspiration to all of us who knew him. There are
writers today who apparently see only the evil and cynical things of
life--and call their work realism. We laugh at Pollyanna, but she is no
more unnatural than some of the cynical specimens we find in present
day novels,” Lincoln continued.
“Someone with whom I was talking recently summed it up this way: you
walk along a country road. There is mud in the middle, and spring
flowers growing by the roadside. Both are there, and the man who sees
the mud and not the flowers is not in the true sense of the word a
realist. A smile is just as real as a tear.”