FAME: A STORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
$10,000!
IN PRIZES FOR SHORT STORIES!
_You_ have a story. We want to read it. Every human life has one
great story in it. Every man, every woman, has at least one story
to tell.
THIS MEANS YOU!
From your experience, from your own heart history, you can draw a
tale. You may not know that you can write. But you never know what
you can do until you try. We believe there are thousands of
unwritten little masterpieces, waiting only for the right
encouragement to be produced. Here is our offer----
BENJAMIN KEYESER drew a long breath. "This means you"--there was no
doubt about that. These printed words had read his heart. He felt that
deep was answering unto deep.
A brief résumé of his life passed through Keyes's mind. And he was
touched, as never before, by the romance of destiny. He had not
contrived to be called up to public charges or employments of dignity or
power in the world. When Ol' Necessity had tapped him on the shoulder he
had cut his scholastic pursuits short of college, and a family friend,
Dr. Nevens, had got him a fifth-rate job in a third-rate business
concern. Here it seemed extremely probable that he would spend a good
many of his days. By the continued exercise of steadiness of character,
diligence, and application, he might hope, as Dr. Nevens by way of
encouragement occasionally pointed out, to advance at the rate of a
couple of dollars or so every couple of years. Clerkdom hedged him about
as divinity doth a king.
The city directory rated him, "B. C. Keyes, Clerk." Should he be killed
in a railway accident, chosen as a juror, or arrested for homicide, the
newspapers would report that B. C. Keyes, a clerk, of 1120 Meredith
Street,--etc. There was, he felt when he looked at it fairly, no way
out. In the "Americans of Today" magazine articles, men rise from
bootblacks to multi-millionaires, but these legends, Keyes felt numbly,
had about as much relation to his own life as the hero tales of ancient
Greece. His lot was cast in the bottom of a well.
And yet,--Keyes had been considered a bright youngster at school; he
regarded himself as a rather bright young man now; and sometimes even
yet, in wayward, impractical moments, he saw in his mind a picture of
himself breaking away from the field (so to say) and coming rounding
into the home stretch to bear down on a grandstand wild with applause.
He bore about within him a subconscious premonition, as it were, which
apparently would not die, that something remarkable was to happen to him
sooner or later. An unpleasant circumstance was that it was getting
later now all the time. Still the estimate of his worth returned to him
by life did not rid him of the belief that he had been originally
intended by his Maker for higher things than he had found.
When, occasionally, the gloomy contrast of his life as it was with his
career as he conceived it had been meant to be depressed him too
untowardly, a young lady whom Keyes called Louise would administer
spiritual stimulants.
Louise was a very clever person, and she knew a superior young man when
she saw one. She did not care for your common men at all. She was
intellectual. She read everything, her friends said. She often told
Keyes that he ought to write. She knew, she declared, that he could
write better than most of the people who did write.
This idea of writing had, now and then, occurred to Keyes himself. He
was rather fond, in his odd hours, of reading periodical fiction, which
he liked to discuss with serious people like Louise. Sometimes with the
exhilaration occasioned by the reading of a particularly good story, a
romantic impulse to express himself welled up in him, and then
evaporated. Generally in these instances he wanted to write a kind of
story he had just read. He felt the glamour of the life of adventurous
tales. He thrilled in response to the note struck in that sort of
romance best exemplified, perhaps, in one of his favorites, "The Man Who
Would Be King." Or he longed to be like O. Henry, wise with the wisdom
of the Town. But there was one sort of story which always ignited in his
mind the thought that he really did know a story of his own. This he
sometimes positively yearned to tell. This the advertisement had put its
finger upon. "Every human life has one great story in it." It was even
so. "From your own heart history ..."--Benjamin Keyes felt that emotion
which is the conception of a work of art.
* * * * *
He was pregnant with his idea. He rose from his bed betimes. He breathed
a strangely fragrant air. He looked at the beautiful world. He wrote. He
mentioned his little employment to no one: he felt rather ashamed of it,
in fact; but it infatuated him. He encountered some awful tough spots,
and at times he almost despaired--but he could not give up. Something
within him, which he himself was conscious he did not understand,
tortured him to go on. All day long, while at his business, his meals,
his shaving, his story turned and twisted and talked in the back of his
head. Despair alternated with exultation. At hours there came a gusto to
his work; words that he had heard or read, forgotten and never used,
came back to him from heaven knows where, and sprang to his pen at the
felicitous instance. He felt that his mind was more alert than he
remembered it to have ever been; he felt that his eyes were brighter;
his hands, his whole right arm, felt strong. He knew as he worked that
this was character, and this was sentiment, and this was humor. He was
shaken by the respiration of a heady drama. He felt that this--was
almost genius! And he was aghast that he had lived such a dull life
hitherto when this capacity had been in him.
He possessed little theoretic knowledge of writing; his story grew
naturally, like a tree: he was intelligent, and he had a story to tell
which must be told. In the matter of technical construction he followed
in a general way, intuitively, unconsciously for the most part, without
elaborate examination, the form of a short story as he was acquainted
with it through his reading of stories. He wandered alone at night,
oblivious of anything else, thinking, thinking his story over; and he
felt good in his brain and in his heart and in his stomach. He felt
virile, elated, full of power, and strangely happy. The joy of creating
a thing of art was upon him. Thrills ran down his spine and into his
legs; he would grin to himself in the dark streets; and sometimes he
laughed aloud. Everything else he neglected. He could not even read the
newspapers; he stayed at home two days from business; he worked early
and late, and walked up and down, throbbing, meantimes.
The story was almost finished. The story _was finished_. What would
Louise say? Would she think that he ought not to have written, ought not
to make public, so intimate a history? Then in the story he had carried
things further than they were in fact: the artistic instinct had
formally plighted the lovers' troth. He thought of submitting his
manuscript without showing it to Louise. Would it not be fine for her to
discover the story in print! But Keyes had to read that story to someone
or blow up.
* * * * *
His evening with Louise began awkwardly. The pleasant interchange of
being did not, as usually so happily it did with Louise, flow naturally
along. Keyes was accustomed to feel that with Louise he talked better
than before anyone else. He now and then wished that certain other
people, upon whom he felt he had not made so favorable an impression as
he deserved, could overhear him sometime with Louise. Now, curiously,
with her he felt as he had with them: he could not somehow get his real
machinery started. Three or four times he determined to embark upon the
subject in his mind, and as many times the rising fulness in his chest
and the sudden quivering of his heart daunted him. As he looked now at
Louise, sitting there before him, the dignity of her as a young woman
struck him, and it occurred to him as extraordinary that he could have
been so intimate with her. He about concluded to put off his story until
another time, at which immediately he felt much relieved.
His gaze wandered about among the familiar objects of the little
parlor--the ordinary articles of the family furniture, the photographs
on the mantel, the hand-painted plate on the wall,--then rested upon the
framed Maxfield Parrish, which Keyes knew, with a glow of pride, to
express the superior refinement of Louise's own taste. Keyes shared
Louise's interest in art; he knew, and very much admired, the work of
Dulac, James Montgomery Flagg, N. C. Wyeth, Arthur Keller, and many
others; this was one of the fascinating bonds which united them, in
division from a frivolous, material, and unsympathetic world. He glanced
again now at the sumptuous Rackham book on the table, which it had been
such a delight to him to give her at Christmas; and the revived
discussion of æsthetics led him fairly comfortably into the subject of
his own entrance into work in that field. His manuscript came out of
his pocket; and, straightening up on the edge of his chair, a little
nervous again in the still pause that ensued, he cleared his throat,
and, in a rather diffident voice, began to read. As he proceeded and
knew that his effort found favor, his want of confidence left him. He
fell into the swing and color of his work; and the heart of it he tasted
like fine wine as he read. In the more moving passages his voice shook a
trifle, and tears very nearly came into his eyes; it was all, he felt,
so beautiful. When he had concluded there was in Louise's eyes--as he
looked up, and saw her sitting, leaning forward with her chin on the
back of her hand, her elbow on her knee,--a strange light. It occurred
to Keyes that he did not remember ever to have seen a woman's face look
exactly that way before. Probably not. This was a light some men never
find on land or sea. It does not shine for any man more than once or
twice. They sat awhile, these two in the little parlor, and happiness
roared through their veins. Louise told Keyes that she had always known
that he "had it in him."
Then they arose, and they were near to each other, and their hearts
were filled, and beneath the chandelier he moved his arms about her. His
lips clasped hers. It was thus as it was in the story.
Keyes emerged from the brightly lighted doorway with Louise beaming
tenderly after him. In his blissful abstraction of mind he neglected, on
the dark porchway, to turn the corner of the house to the steps; but
walked instead, straight ahead, until the world gave way beneath him,
and he collapsed with a crash among the young vines.
The next week Louise, who held a position in the "Nickel's Weekly"
Circulation Branch office in the Middle West, neatly typed the
manuscript on one of the firm's machines. One evening they went together
to post the story.... The ancient, imperturbable moon observed this
momentous deed.
* * * * *
When Keyes put that manuscript into the mail box, he _knew_ that it
would be accepted. He felt this in his bones. He felt it in the soles of
his feet and in the hair on his head.
For several days succeeding, a sensuous complacency pervaded young
Keyes. In a rich haze he saw himself acclaimed, famous, adored. His
nature was ardent, and he had always craved the warmth of approbation;
but he had not had it, except from Louise. Now there were moments when,
in a picture in his mind, he saw an attractive figure, which he
recognized as himself somewhat altered, come jauntily along, amiably
smiling, swinging a cane. He had always secretly desired very much to
carry a cane, but he had felt uncomfortably that the humbleness of his
position in life would make this ridiculous. In his moments of ambition
he had hoped, sometimes, that walking-sticks would not go out (to put it
so) before he came in. In the background of his mental picture Keyes
recognized among the doting multitude the faces of about all of his
acquaintances, some brought for the occasion from rather remote places.
Keyes felt a slight wrench of conscience in winking at this poetic
liberty taken with realistic probability. When a name occurred to him
the physiognomy of whose person was absent, Keyes's sense of probity was
smothered, with a slight twinge of pain, by the ardor of his
imagination; and place in the press was found for this person, very
kindly well up in front, where a good view could be had by him of the
celebrity--at this point the celebrity in the delectable vision was
observed gaily to light a cigarette. Discernible in the throng, too,
were some few whose mean and envious natures writhed, the psychologist
in Keyes perceived, at this handsome recognition of the worth of a young
man it had once been their wont to snub.
In this balmy temper of mind Keyes got down to business one morning a
little late. The humdrum of a business life had begun to be somewhat
more irksome than hitherto to Keyes's swelling spirit. He ruminated this
morning, as he stood before his tall stool at his ledger, on the curious
ill-adjustment of a universe so arranged that one of his capacity for
finer things could remain so unsuspected of the world about him, and the
rich value of his life to some unmeaning task-work be allowed to give. A
sudden electric buzzing beneath his high desk signalled him that his
presence was desired by his chief. "What now?" he thought, a little
tremulously and a little irritably, as he went: he had been caught up on
several slips lately. He paused respectfully in the private office
doorway. Mr. Winder, from his swivel-chair, flashed up his white
moustache very straight at Keyes. "Sit down," he directed. The suavity
which was his habit was quite absent. Keyes felt the presence in the air
of a good deal of masculine firmness.
"This," said Mr. Winder, his eye steadily on Keyes, "is a place of
business. It is not a gentleman's club. Now, I want you to take a brace.
That will do."
As Keyes took up his pen again and began to write, "By merchandise," his
breast was full with resentment: a sense of the real integrity of his
nature welled up in him. His mind rapidly generated the divers manly
replies he wished, with an intensity amounting to pain, he had thought
of a moment before. He saw himself, now exasperatingly too late, saying
with frank honesty to Mr. Winder:
"I realize that I have of late been a little delinquent. But (with some
eloquence) it has always been my intention to be, and I believe in the
main I have been, a faithful and conscientious employee. I shall not be
found wanting again."
But here he was a rebuked culprit. He felt the degradation of servitude.
He experienced sharply that violent yearning so familiar to all that
are employed everywhere, to be able to go in and tell Mr. Winder to go
to the devil. And though he felt at bottom the legitimacy, in the
business ethic, of Mr. Winder's attitude, he also felt forlornly the
coldness of the business relation, the brutal authority of worldly
power, and its conception of his insignificance. And he was stung at the
moral criminality, as he felt it to be, of a situation which placed such
a man as Mr. Winder over such a nature as his own; Mr. Winder he did not
suppose had read a book within the last ten years.
As, at that hour which sets the weary toiler free, in the gathering dusk
Keyes stood on the curb amid the hurrying throng homeward bound,--oh!
how he longed for that establishment in the eyes of men which the
success of his story would bring him. Oh, when would he hear! As he
bowled along in the crowded trolley the thought stole through him, until
it amounted almost to a conviction, that the great letter awaited him at
home now. He could hardly bear the tedium of the short journey.
Restlessly he turned his evening paper.
In him had developed of late a great interest in authors; he peered
between the pages, a little sheepishly, at the column, "Books and Their
Makers." He read that Mr. So and So, the author of "This and That," was
a young man thirty years of age. Instantly he reflected that he himself
was but twenty-seven. This was encouraging! He had formed a habit
recently of contrasting at once any writer's age with his own. If he
learned that Mr. Galsworthy, whose books were much advertised but which
he had not read, was forty-something, he wanted to know how old he had
been when he wrote his first book. Then he counted up the number of
books between that time--comparing his age at that time with his
own--and now. He was absorbed in the literary gossip of the day. That
Myra Kelly had been a schoolteacher, that Gertrude Atherton lived in
California, that Mr. Bennett had turned thirty before he published his
first book, that such a writer was in Rome, or that some other one was
engaged on a new work said to be about the Russian Jews,--he found very
interesting. He read in his newspaper the publishers' declaration that
Maurice Hewlett's new creation recalled Don Quixote, Cyrano, d'Artagnan,
Falstaff, Bombastes Furioso, Tartarin, Gil Blas. His notions concerning
the characters of this company were somewhat vague; but he was stirred
with an ambition to create some such character, too.
On leaving the car whom should he see but Dr. Nevens. They walked along
together. Dr. Nevens inquired about the business. A bad year, he
surmised, for trade. Trade! Keyes felt his heart thumping with the
temptation to confide the adventures of his literary life; which,
indeed, he had found exceedingly difficult to keep so much to himself.
But his position gave him clairvoyance: he divined that no sort of
ambition receives from people in general so little respect, by some
curious idiosyncrasy of the human mind, as literary aspiration. With
what coarse and withering scorn had an intimation--which had escaped
him--that he had sought to give some artistic articulation to his ideas
been met by Pimpkins the other day at the office!
The personality of Dr. Nevens, however, suggested a more sympathetic
attitude, by reason of the dentist's cultivation. Dr. Nevens was spoken
of as a "booklover." He had a "library"--it was, he implied, his
bachelor foible--the cornerstone of which was a set of the Thistle
edition of Stevenson that he had bought by subscription from an agent.
(Keyes had thought it odd one day that Dr. Nevens had not cut the
leaves.) And "the doctor" was fond of speaking familiarly of Dickens,
and gained much admiration by his often saying that he should like--had
he time--to read through "Esmond" once every year. Here, Keyes felt,
would be spiritual succor.
But Keyes quickly learned that he was quite in a different case from the
author of "Esmond." Dr. Nevens was kind, but pitying.
"Only one out of hundreds, thousands," he said, "ever comes to
anything."
It did not occur to him, Keyes thought, as within the range of remotest
possibility that he, Keyes, _might_ be one of these. Then came the
doctor's reason.
"You do not know anything," he said paternally, "anything at all."
Keyes realized, with some bitterness, that this world is not an
institution existing for the purpose of detecting and rewarding inner
worth. He had known enough to write his story, he guessed. With some
flare of rage, he felt that simply unsupported merit is rather frowned
upon, as tending by comparison to cast others possibly not possessing so
much of it somewhat into the shade. He had a savage thought that when
he was Dr. Nevens's age he would not be a country dentist. He saw the
intense egoism of mankind.
Dr. Nevens was determined to show a young man who had betrayed a
consciousness of superiority of grain, his place--economically and
socially. The selfish jealousy of the world!
* * * * *
His letter had not come. There was only a package from Louise--a copy of
"Book Talk," containing a marked article on "Representative American
Story Tellers"; from this, after dinner, Keyes imbibed most of the
purported facts about Booth Tarkington. Then he went to bed to sleep
through the hours until the return of the postman.
The next evening still there was no letter. Keyes's spirit was troubled.
He sought the solace of solitude in the quiet, shadowed streets. A
reaction was succeeding his rosy complacency! Doubts pierced his
dissolving confidence. Was his story so good, after all? Somehow, as he
looked back at it now, it seemed much less strong than it had before. He
felt a sort of sinking in his stomach. A sickening suspicion came to
him that, perhaps, it was absurd. Maybe it was very silly. In a
disconnected way certain remarks and passages in it came back to him now
as quite questionable. Yes, they sounded pretty maudlin. He squirmed
within with mortification as a recollection of these passages passed
through his mind. He hoped his story would never get into print. A fear
that it might nauseated him. Then he was suffused with a sensation of
how little he amounted to. He felt, with a sense of great weakness, the
precariousness of his job. A horror came over him that he might lose it.
He wished he did not know Louise, who expected things of him. He felt
how awkward it was so to fail her. In the position he had got himself
into with her, how he had laid himself open to humiliating exposure! Oh,
why had he ever sought her? He wished he did not know anybody well. He
was an ass and he would never come to anything. He felt the futility of
his life. Why could he not slink away somewhere and live out his feeble
existence unobserved? As he got into bed he felt that very easily he
could cry.
* * * * *
The August
FAVORITE MAGAZINE
This number contains
The Great Prize Story
by
BENJAMIN CECIL KEYES
GET IT!!
* * * * *
... Keyes stood before a downtown news-stand. Hurrying pedestrians
bumped into him. An irascible character or two, thus impeded, glared
back at him--what was the matter with the fellow! Did he think there was
nobody but himself in the world?
B. C. Keyes walked home to the sound of a great orchestra reverberating
through him. He could not tolerate the thought of subduing himself to
the confinement of a car. He needed movement and air.
It had come, his great letter, a few weeks before. At his sitting down
to dinner his mother had given him the envelope. _The Favorite
Magazine_--these words had seemed to him to be printed in the upper
left-hand corner; it had struck him that perhaps the strain on his
nerves of late had so deranged his mind that he now saw, as in a
mirage, what was not. "Benjamin C. Keyes, Esq."--so ran the address.
Keyes in his dizziness noted this point: people had not customarily
addressed him as _esquire_. Then, for the first time in his life, he
held in his hand a substantial check payable to his own name--wealth!
Courteous and laudatory typewritten words danced before his burning
eyes.
He felt, though in a degree an hundred times intensified, as though he
had smoked so much tobacco, and drunk so much coffee, he could not
compose himself to eat, or read a paper, or go to bed, or stay where he
was; but must rush off somewhere else and talk hysterically. He got
through his meal blindly. He could not explain--just yet--to his mother:
he felt he could not control the patience necessary to begin at the
beginning and construct a coherent narrative.... He must go to Louise
who already understood the preliminary situation.
It had occurred to Keyes on his hurried, stumbling way thither that the
whole thing was unbelievable, and that he must be quite insane. After he
had pushed the bell, an interminable time seemed to elapse before his
ring was answered. As he stood there on the porch he felt his flesh
palpitating. A terrible fear came over him that Louise might not be at
home.... Louise said, when her frenzy had somewhat abated, that she had
always known that he "had it in him." She told him there was now "a
future" before him.... Keyes had determined to go on about his business
as though nothing unusual had occurred; then when the story appeared, to
accept congratulations with retiring modesty. Before noon the next day
he had told three people; by night, seven.
So, going over it all again, Keyes arrived at home, to learn that--"What
do you think?" His mother said "a reporter" had been at the house; an
occurrence--quite unprecedented in Mrs. Keyes's experience--which had
thrown her into considerable agitation. This public official she had
associated in her confusion with a policeman. He had, however, treated
her as a personage of great interest. He told her "there was nothing to
be ashamed of." He drew from her trembling lips some account of her
son's life, and requested a photograph.
Next day the dean of local newspapers, vigilant in patriotism, printed
an extended article on the "state's new writer." And in an editorial
entitled "The Modern Athens" (which referred to Keyes only by
implication) the paper affirmed again that Andiena was "by general
consent the present chief centre of letters in America." It
recapitulated the names of those of her sons and daughters whose works
were on the counters of every department store in the land. It concluded
by saying: "The hope of a people is in its writers, its chosen ones of
lofty thought, its poets and prophets, who shall dream and sing for it,
who shall gather up its tendencies and formulate its ideals and voice
its spirit, proclaiming its duties and awakening its enthusiasm." Keyes
read this, as he took it to be, moving and eloquent tribute to his prize
story with feelings akin to those experienced, very probably, by Isaiah.
Keyes received an ovation at "the office." The humility of Pimpkins's
admiration was abject. Keyes perceived the commanding quality of
ambition--when successful. Miss Wimble, the hollow-breasted cashieress,
regarded him with sheep's-eyes. Even Mr. Winder, in passing,
congratulated him upon his "stroke of luck."
Wonders once begun, it seemed, poured. Two letters awaited him that
evening. One from the editor of _The Monocle Magazine_. _The Monocle
Magazine_, as Louis said, "think of it!" The editor of this
distinguished institution spoke of his "pleasure" in reading Mr. Keyes's
"compelling" story; he begged to request the favor of the "offer" of
some of Keyes's "other work." By way of a fraternal insinuation he
mentioned that he was a native of Andiena, himself. "Most of us are,"
was his sportive comment. The "Consolidated Sunday Magazines, Inc.,"
wrote with much business directness to solicit "manuscript," at
"immediate payment on acceptance at your regular rates for fiction of
the first class."
* * * * *
The extraordinary turn of events in Keyes's life brought him visitors as
well as letters. Dr. Nevens called, benignly smiling appreciation. His
impression appeared to be that he had not been mistaken in giving Keyes
his support. Of more constructive importance, however, was the turning
up of Mr. Tate, who had been Keyes's instructor in "English" at the
Longridge High School. A slender, pale, young man, with a bald, domed
forehead "rising in its white mass like a tower of mind," Mr. Tate was
understood to nourish a deep respect for literature. He had contributed
one or two very serious and painstaking "papers" on the English of
Chaucer (not very well understood by Keyes at the time), to "Poet-Lore";
and had edited, with notes, several "texts"--one of "The Lady of the
Lake," with an "introduction," for school use. He reverenced, he now
made evident, the "creative gift," as he designated it; which, he
realized, had been denied him. He had come to pay homage to a vessel of
this gift, his former pupil, now illustrious.
With the hand of destiny Mr. Tate touched a vital chord. Self-assertion;
to be no longer an unregarded atom in the mass of those born only to
labor for others; to find play for the mind and the passion which, by no
choice of his own, distinguished him from the time slave: this was now
Keyes's smouldering thought. Mr. Tate, from his conversancy with the
literary situation, reported that there never was in the history of the
world such a demand for fiction as now, and that "the publishers"
declared there was not an overproduction of good fiction. Editors, Mr.
Tate said, were eager to welcome new talent. He strongly encouraged
Keyes to adopt what he spoke of as the "literary life." In fact, he
seemed to consider that there was no alternative. And, indeed, already
in Keyes's own idea of his future he saw himself eventually settled
somewhere amid the Irvin-Cobbs, the Julian-Streets, the
Joseph-Hergesheimers, and other clever people whose society would be
congenial to him.
For the present he cultivated his ego, as became a literary light; and
now, with Mr. Tate's assistance, he began to devote the time at his
command to preparation for his life's work, to study. Mr. Tate was
ardent to be of service; he felt that he had here connected himself with
literary history in the making. The great need for Keyes, he felt, was
education. The creative genius, Mr. Tate said, could not be implanted;
but he felt that this other he could supply. He recommended the patient
study of men and books. He thought that what Keyes needed in especial
was "technical" knowledge; so he went at that strong. Maupassant, Mr.
Tate said, was the great master of the short story. Keyes began his
evening studies in English translations of Maupassant.
The galling yoke of his business life was becoming well-nigh unbearable.
His soul was in ferment. If only he did not have to get up to hurry
every morning down to that penitentiary, there to waste his days, he
could get something done. That sapped his vitals. And he was tortured by
a flame--to do, to read, study, create, grow, accomplish! He was
expanding against the walls of his environment. God! could he but burst
them asunder, and leap out!
Mr. Tate had a high idea of a thing which he spoke of as "style." In
elucidation of this theme he suggested perusal of essays and treatises
by DeQuincey, Walter Pater, and Professor Raleigh, He felt also that the
"art of fiction" should be mastered by his protégé. So Keyes pitched
into examinations of this recondite subject by Sir Walter Besant, Marion
Crawford, R. L. Stevenson, and Anthony Trollope. Keyes realized that he
had _not_ realized before what a lot there was _to_ writing. Mr. Tate
purchased out of his slender means as a present, "Success in
Literature," by G. H. Lewes. He unearthed a rich collection in titles of
books the consumption of which literature would be invaluable to one in
training for the literary profession. An admirable bibliography, this
list, of the genre which was Keyes's specialty:--"The Art of Short
Story Writing," "Practical Short Story Writing," "The Art of the Short
Story," "The Short Story," "Book of the Short Story," "How to Write a
Short Story," "Writing of the Short Story," "Short Story Writing,"
"Philosophy of the Short Story," "The Story-Teller's Art," "The Short
Story in English," "Selections from the World's Greatest Short Stories,"
"American Short Stories," "Great English Short-Story Writers." In the
reading room of the public library Keyes followed a series of articles
in "Book Talk" on the "Craftsmanship of Writing." He advanced in
literary culture, under Mr. Tate's zealous lead, to consideration of
"the novel," its history and development. And, too, to the drama, its
law and technique. His head was filled with the theory of dénouements,
"moments," rising actions, climaxes, suspended actions, and
catastrophes. At times he had an uneasy feeling that all these things
did not much help him to think up any new stories of his own. But Mr.
Tate said "that" would "come."
* * * * *
And wealth and fame were even now at hand. The promoters of the great
prize contest advertising dodge had not been at fault in business
acumen; the winning story returned ample evidence of its popular appeal.
It was akin to the minds of the "peepul." _The Favorite Magazine_ was
sold during August by enterprising newsboys _on trolley cars_. That
great public whose literature is exclusively contemporaneous,--whose
world of letters is the current _Saturday Mail-Coach_, the _All-people's
Magazine_, the _Purple Book_, the _Nothing-But-Stories_, the _Modiste,
The Swift Set, Jones's--the Magazine that Entertains, Brisk Stories,
Popularity_, and the _Tip-Top_,--discussed the big features on front
porches. Keyes's story even attracted the interest of those _who seldom
read anything_. A number of letters from persons of that impulsive class
which communicates its inward feelings to authors personally unknown
were forwarded to Keyes from his publishers. A young lady resident in
St. Joe, Michigan, wrote to say that she thought the scene where the
boat upsets was the "_grandest thing_ ever written."
Imagine a man like Keyes sitting his days away on an office stool. His
mother, however, could not "see" his resigning his position. His
"father had always" ... and so forth. Keyes foamed within. What a
thing--woman's maddening narrowness! At the office Keyes's situation
grew, in subtle ways, more and more oppressive. His position appeared to
become equivocal. Mr. Winder seemed to make a point of increasing
exactness. Keyes felt a disposition in authority to put down any
subordinate uppishness of feeling possibly occasioned by doings outside
the line of business. And he became conscious, too, of a curious
estrangement from his associates there. They, on their side, Pimpkins in
especial, seemed to feel that he felt he was too good for them. And, in
truth, he did. The mundane aims of those around him got on his nerves.
Their commonplace thoughts irritated him. They were _common_ natures.
But, with fierce secret joy, Keyes knew that an event was approaching
which promised, would command, deliverance from it all.
Fall came. And the Favorite Publishing Company bound up the prize story
as a "gift book" for the holiday trade. Claud Clarence Chamberlain, the
well-known illustrator and creator of the famous "Picture-Hat Girl," was
commissioned to make the decorations. These were done with much dash in
highly colored crayon and popular sentiment. One was printed on the
paper jacket of the book, with the title in embossed letters. The
advertisement pronounced the work altogether "an exquisite piece of
book-making." It declared the production the "daintiest gift of the
season," and reminded "people of culture and refinement" that there was
"no present like a book."
Indeed a hero is not without fame in his own country. The
Stanton-Merritt bookstore on Capital Street arranged a window display of
about a ton of "Will Rockwell Makes Good," with one of Mr. Chamberlain's
original illustrations, framed, in the centre. A monster advertising
banner was flung across the front of the store above the entrance and
windows. Just inside, a pyramid breast-high was built of the books,
beneath an artistic piece of work--a hanging board upon which was burned
in old English letters: "'A good book is the precious life blood of a
Master Spirit'--Milton." A lady who informed the salesman that she
thought "books" were "just fine," bought twenty copies for holiday
distribution. She inquired if there was not a discount on that number
purchased.
Drugged with triumph, they returned together Saturday night from the
exhibition "down town"; and, in the now historic little parlor again,
Louise wept upon the shoulder of her affianced. Yes; they were formally
engaged. Keyes was not without a sensation that the situation was rather
chaotic. But destiny seemed to close in on him and bear him on.
The reviewers got on the job. And they were there with the goods.
Statements from a few typical press notices follow. "An absorbing
story," said the Topeka _Progressive_, "throbbing with optimism." "Mr.
Keyes strikes a new note in this unusual production; vivid,
dramatic,"--San Francisco _Lookout_. "A story of vivid and compelling
interest," one critic declared. "A delightful story, rich in heart
throbs," was one good one. One reviewer said, "Here we have a real love
story, a tale of love, tender and true, delightfully narrated. There are
so many fine, tender passages in the episode of these two, who live just
for each other, that reading the little book is like breathing strong,
refreshing air." "The creator of 'Will Rockwell," said one paper, "has
here written a new idyl of America." "An inspiring picture," said
another. One very fine critique said: "Once in awhile, possibly once in
a lifetime, there arises before us a writer of fiction whose genius is
undeniable the instant it greets us." When Keyes read this, quoted in
his publisher's latest newspaper advertisement, he knew that he had
found his work in the world. And reasoning from his experience, he saw
before him a calling that would be ever a noble intoxication of the
soul, a kind that would know naught of headaches or remorse.
But perhaps the best of all the critical dicta was this: "Written," it
declared, "with blood and tears and fire." Very impressive was the
number of times that were used such adjectives as "big," "vital,"
"absorbing," "compelling," "remarkable," "insistent," and "virile."
"Optimism," it developed too, was the supreme merit of fiction. One of
the arresting terms employed was "economy of means."
There were, it is true, a few dissenting voices from the chorus of
unrestrained praise, chiefly from certain notoriously dull,
conservative, killjoy journals. The New York _Evening Postman_ said:
"This somewhat amateurish little essay in fiction seems to be the
product of an untutored sincerity. In this, its sincerity, it is not
without a degree of vigor. We doubt, however, whether the author can
repeat the performance." And that irrepressibly ribald organ, the New
York _Beam_, could not forbear its customary jocular sport. Its smart
review of this little classic (as one bookseller already pronounced it)
began: "Hooray for 'Will'! Hooray also for 'Mabel'! They are the real
simegoozlia."
* * * * *
"Don't you think you could write something now, dear?" inquired Mrs.
Keyes, who did not see how scholarship pure and simple was, so to say,
to move the boat.
This idea of writing something now had indeed occurred to Keyes; but
somehow he had not been able to think of anything in particular to
write. So he went on with his studies, at the same time keeping an eye
open for available material, characters, and plots.
"Surely you can write something, Ben, that we could get some money for,"
said Louise. A wife, after all, is only a woman, with a mind fitted to
petty things, such as groceries, family washings, clothing, and divers
household bills. It is irritating to a man of lofty mind who night and
day is racking his brain for an idea, to be prodded on in this fashion.
Keyes ground his teeth and bore it; he reflected that an author's life
is frequently a battle with mediocrity. Perhaps he was mistaken as to
where lay the mediocrity with which he battled.
He fretted and worried and at length sat himself down to write without
an inspiration. He bethought himself of Trollope's example to literary
aspirants, and tried to grind out two hundred and fifty words every
fifteen minutes for three hours a day. He couldn't write twenty. He kept
doggedly on. He could not make his characters act or talk--the talk was
the most hopeless thing of all. He couldn't, as once he had done, cry
over them. Sometimes, in the stillness of the night with his clock
ticking before him, he almost thought that he had regained for a moment
a tithe of the power he once had; but in the morning when he reviewed
his work he admitted that he had been sadly mistaken. Now doubts haunted
his soul; even as he wrote another consciousness within not thus
employed whispered of his impotency. Fact is, Keyes had not at all the
creative gift.
He struggled through a number of stories, some better and some worse.
When he mailed these it was with a faltering, doubting heart. Something
with a weak action away in his interior told him that they would not be
accepted.
Keyes got thinner in flesh, more distressed in spirit, and poorer in
this world's goods as time went on. Sometimes he felt like an imposter
and was ashamed to face his wife; then he reread his press notices and a
fever to do something shook him. But a man cannot support himself and
his wife on a fever to do something. Benjamin Cecil Keyes could not
understand the thing: if he had literary genius why couldn't he write?
If he had not, how then had he written? To sit in full view of one's
wife day after day pretending to be interested in a book when the
bill-collector calls; and to be tormented all the time by a desire to do
something and not to be able to do it, or know when, if ever, one will
be able; and to be ashamed and afraid to tell one's wife this; but to be
compelled to be there, or to run away, or to hang one's self--this is a
situation more than uncomfortable.
A thousand times Keyes decided to roll up his sleeves and do something
else--engage in any profitable employment; and a thousand times he
decided not to--just yet. A man often exists in this way until he gets
quite to the end of the string where the wolf is.
"That was an accident, Louise," said Keyes sadly one day. "I find I
can't write."
Keyes was mistaken again. No fine thing ever was made by accident. Keyes
managed to write that story because its theme was the most interesting
incident in his life; because it appealed to him more strongly than
anything else had in his whole experience; because he was thoroughly
familiar with the life and the people he featured in his story; because
he was absolutely sincere in his sympathies, appreciation, and emotions
here; he had no ideals set way beyond his power, no aping tendencies
after an effective style, no attention distracted by an ill-digested
knowledge of mechanical construction. The structure, and the style
simply came, probably because--and finally he managed to write that
story because--he was keyed up to it.
A domestic woman often has a wretchedly unworshipful view of art and
fame. Keyes's confession did not kill Louise. I suppose he expected her
to go back to her parents in high dudgeon as one who had been grossly
swindled.
"Do you care if you can't write?" she said, after a moment's silence.
"Just think how nice you are--how much nicer you were before you tried
to write! And how it has worried you!"
Keyes got a job as a collector for a mercantile house. "My health
demands outdoor employment," he told his acquaintances.
* * * * *
Sometimes, alone with his lamp after the day's confounded drudgery,
Keyes got out the old magazine and reread his forgotten story.
THE END.
The following typographical errors have been corrected:
(note of etext transcriber)
seene=>scene
bibiographer=>bibliographer
Bandelaire=>Baudelaire
as you might saw her context=>as you might say her context
inquired aonther=>inquired another
End of Project Gutenberg's Turns about Town, by Robert Cortes Holliday