Literature in the Making Part 13

"France is experiencing now realism of quite another sort from that propagated by Zola--a realism that is wringing the souls and turning the thoughts of a great and unhappy people back once more to the eternal verities; in these grossness never had a place.

"And if you don't want to think in grossness, don't read in it; if you don't want to act in grossness, don't think in it. To exploit it is to exaggerate its proper significance in the affairs of life.

"Twenty-five years ago an American writer set out as a Zola disciple to give us something American along Zola's lines. He made a failure of it--so complete that he was forced to complain that later efforts in which he returned to paths of decency were refused by editors and publishers. He had spoiled his name as an a.s.set. If you are curious to note how far the bars have been let down in his direction in twenty-five years, contemplate what pa.s.ses to-day among us with quite a footing of magazine and book popularity. It means simply that we are falling into those conditions of public indifference in which moral parasites may flourish. But if one were forced to-day to choose in France between the material taken up by Zola after his failure to cultivate successfully cleaner fields, and that chosen by Rene Bazin and the new and hopeful French school of spirituality, there could be no question that the latter would afford the better opportunity. And there can be no real question but that the exponents of grossness are likewise opportunists, looking first of all for a market for their names--as most men are doing. But some men, by reason of inclination or voluntary restraint, have restricted themselves in their choice of literary materials."

Mr. Spearman has recently given much of his time to moving-picture work, with the result that his name is nearly as familiar to the devotees of the flickering screen as to habitual magazine readers. I asked him how the development of the moving picture is likely to affect literature. He replied:

"What I can say on this point will perhaps be more directly of interest to writers themselves; the development of the moving picture broadens their market. It has, if you will let me put it in this way, increased the number of our theaters in their capacity for absorbing material for the drama a thousandfold. Inevitably a new industry developing with such amazing rapidity is still in the experimental stages, and those who know it best say its possibilities are but just beginning. What I note of interest to the literary worker is that men advanced and in authority in the production of pictures have reached this conclusion: Behind every good picture there must be a good story. The slogan to-day is 'The story is the thing.' And those close to the 'inside' of the industry say to-day to the fictionist: 'Hold on to your stories. Within a year or two they will command from the movies much higher prices than to-day, because the supply is fast becoming exhausted.'"

It was in the course of his remarks about the rewards of literature that Mr. Spearman told an interesting story concerning Henry James and George du Maurier. He said:

"The recent death of Henry James is bringing out many anecdotes concerning him. At the time of George du Maurier's death it was recalled that he had once given the material for _Trilby_ to Henry James with permission to use it; and the story ran that, resolving to use it himself, Mr. James returned the material to Du Maurier, who wrote the novel from it.

"But I don't think it has ever appeared that the real reason why Henry James did not attempt _Trilby_ was that he possessed no musical sense; Mr. James himself told me this, and without a sense of music the material was useless to any one. I discussed the incident with him some ten years ago and he added, in connection with _Trilby_ and Du Maurier, other interesting facts.

"_Trilby_ did not at first make a signal success in England. Its first big hit was made in _Harper's Magazine_. Not realizing the American possibilities, Mr. du Maurier, when offered by Harper & Brothers a choice between royalties and five thousand dollars outright for the book rights, took the lump sum as if it were descended straight from heaven.

When the news of the extraordinary success of the book in this country reached him, he realized his serious mistake, and in the family circle there was keen depression over it. But further surprises were in store for him. To their eternal credit, the house of Harper & Brothers--honorable then as now--in view of the unfortunate situation in which their author had placed himself, voluntarily canceled the first contract and restored Du Maurier to a royalty basis. The fear in the English home then was that this arrangement would come too late to bring in anything. Not only, however, did the book continue to sell, but the play came on, and together the rights afforded George du Maurier a competency that banished further worry from the home."

_THE NOVEL MUST GO_

WILL N. HARBEN

The novel is doomed. If the automobile, the aeroplane, and the moving picture continue to develop during the next ten years as they have developed during the last ten, people will cease almost entirely to take interest in fiction.

It was not Henry Ford who told me this. Neither was it Mr. Wright, nor M. Pathe. The man who made this ominous prophecy about the novel is himself a successful novelist. He is Will N. Harben, author of _Pole Baker_, _Ann Boyd_, _The Desired Woman_, and many other widely read tales of life in rural Georgia.

Although he is so closely a.s.sociated with the Southern scenes about which he has written, Mr. Harben spends most of his time in New York nowadays. He justifies this course interestingly--but before I tell his views on this subject I will repeat what he had to say about this possible extinction of the novel.

"You have read," he said, "of the tremendous vogue of _Pickwick Papers_ when it was first published. No work of fiction since that time has been received with such enthusiasm.

"In London at that time you would find statuettes of Pickwick, Mr.

Winkle, and Sam Weller in the shop windows. There were Pickwick punch-ladles, Pickwick teaspoons, Pickwick souvenirs of all sorts.

"Now, when you walk down Broadway, do you find any reminders of the popular novels of the day? You do not, except of course in the bookshops. But you do find things that remind you of contemporary taste.

In the windows of stationers and druggists you find statuettes not of characters in the fiction of the day, but of Charlie Chaplin.

"Of course the moving picture has not supplanted the novel. But people all over the country are becoming less and less interested in fiction.

The time which many people formerly gave to the latest novel they now give to the latest film.

"And the moving picture is by no means the only thing which is weaning us away from the novel. The automobile is a powerful influence in this direction.

"Take, for instance, the town from which I come--Dalton, Georgia. There the people who used to read novels spend their time which they used to give to that entertainment riding around in automobiles. Sometimes they go on long trips, sometimes they go to visit their friends in near-by towns. But automobiling is the way in which they nowadays are accustomed to spend their leisure.

"Naturally, this has its effect on their att.i.tude toward novels. Years ago, when Dalton had a population of about three thousand, it had two well-patronized bookshops. Now it has a population of about seven thousand and no bookshops at all!

"I suppose one of the reasons is that people live their adventures by means of the automobile, and therefore do not care so much about getting adventures from the printed page. But the chief reason is one of time--the fact is that people more and more prefer automobiling to reading.

"Now, if the aeroplane were to be perfected--as we have every reason to believe it will be--so that we could travel in it as we now do in the automobile, what possible interest would we have in reading dry novels?

It seems likely that in a hundred years we will be able to see clearly the surface of Mars--do you think that people will want to read novels when this wonderful new world is before their eyes?

"The authors themselves are beginning to realize this. They are becoming more and more nervous. They are not the placid creatures that they were in Sir Walter Scott's day. They feel that people are not as interested in them and their works as they used to be. I doubt very much if any publisher to-day would be interested, for example, in an author who produced a novel as long as _David Copperfield_ and of the same excellence."

"But do you think," I asked, "that the fault is entirely that of the public? Haven't the authors changed, too?"

"I think that the authors have changed," said Mr. Harben, reflectively.

"The authors do not live as they used to live.

"The authors no longer live with the people about whom they write.

Instead, they live with other authors.

"Nowadays, an author achieves success by writing, we will say, about the people of his home in the Far West. Then he comes to New York. And instead of living with the sort of people about whom he writes, he lives with artists. That must have its effect upon his work."

"But is not that what you yourself did?" I asked. "A New York apartment-house is certainly the last place in the world in which to look for the historian of _Pole Baker_!"

Mr. Harben smiled. "But I don't live with artists," he said. "I try to live with the kind of people I write about. I resolved a long time ago to try to avoid living with literary people and to live with all sorts of human beings--with people who didn't know or care whether or not I was a writer.

"So I have for my friends and acquaintances sailors, merchants--people of all sorts of professions and trade. And people of that sort--people who make no pretensions to be artists--are the best company for a writer, for they open their hearts to him. A writer can learn how to write about humanity by living with humanity, instead of with other people who are trying to write about humanity."

"But at any rate you have left the part of the country about which you write," I said. "And wasn't that one of the things for which you condemned our hypothetical writer of Western tales?"

"Not necessarily," said Mr. Harben. "It sometimes happens that an author can write about the scenes he knows best only after he has gone away from them. I know that this is true of myself.

"It's in line with the old saws about 'distance lends enchantment' and 'emotion remembered in tranquillity,' you know. I believe that Du Maurier was able to write his vivid descriptions of life in the Latin Quarter of Paris because he went to London to do it.

"You see, I absorbed life in Georgia for many years. And in New York I can remember it and get a perspective on it and write about it."

"Then," I said, "you would go to Georgia, I suppose, if you wanted to write a story about life in a New York apartment?"

Mr. Harben thought for a moment. "No," he said, slowly, "I don't think that I'd go to Georgia to write about New York. I think that a novel about New York must be written in New York--while a novel about Dalton, Georgia, must be written away from Dalton, Georgia."

"How do you account for that?" I asked.

"Well," said Mr. Harben, "for one thing there is something bracing about New York's atmosphere that makes it easier to write when one is here.

Once I tried to write a novel in Dalton, and I simply couldn't do it.

"And the reason why a novel about New York must be written in New York is because you can't absorb New York as you might absorb Georgia, so to speak, and then go away and express it. New York is so thoroughly artificial that there is nothing about it which a writer can absorb.

"New York hasn't the puzzles and adventures and surprises that Georgia has. Everybody knows about apartment-houses and skysc.r.a.pers and subways and elevators and dumb-waiters--there's nothing new to say about them.

"I sometimes think that the reason why the modern novel about New York City is so uninteresting is because everybody tries to write about New York City. And their novels are all of one pattern--necessarily, because life in New York City is all of one pattern.

"In bygone days this was not true of New York. For instance, Mr.

Howells's novels about New York City were about a community in which people lived in real houses and had families and friends. In those days life in New York had its problems and surprises and adventures; it was not lived mechanically and according to a set pattern.

"What I have said about the advisability of an author's leaving the scenes about which he is to write is not universally true. There are writers who do better work by staying in the place where the scenes of their stories are laid. For instance, Joel Chandler Harris did better work by staying in the South than he would have done if he had gone away."