The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-11-11
THE MAKING OF A NOVELIST.
How David Christie Murray Has Ac.
cumuIated Material.
IFrom the Boston Herald.


"You call your first lecture, Mr.. Muir
ray for SO the conversation began
&c The Making of a Novelist? -
at do"
"WeI, there is a good deal of specula-
ton as to what it is going to be-
''Indeed?"
yes. For example. there is an i'm
preston abroad that in this first lecture
of yours you are going to give a kind
of summary of the automatical, physio-
logical, psychological and pathological
characters that are essential to the
makeup of any man or woman who as
| pireS to be a teller of stories. And there
seems to be a pretty general expectation
that you will also drop few hints as to
the way in which novel ought to be
| constructed
Mr.. Murray smiled. what I shall
really try to do he said. lis to show
own novels-some thirty of then1-have
| been made
Your experiences, of course, have been
very Vdried?"
Exceedingly so. A man of an observ-
ant turn of mind-a man the business
of whose life is observatio can not
have spent all his years in travel with
| out picking up many instructive and in
| teresting experiences. l know
EVERY CAPITAL OF EUROPE
except ST. Petersburg, and 1 know every
part of the Australian colonies. And
now that l have touched America, 1 can
say that | have been in every quarter
the cream of those experiences. Of
course, my lectures vary from time to
| time. just as the mood and the hour
guide. me, and 1 select what seems to
me at the moment either the drollest or
the most pathetic or the most dramatic
experiences of my life"
| Gould you not refer to those expert
enceS little more in detail?"
well, these are the "reminiscences of
| my lie as reporter in parliament. 1t
is owing to these that 1 am acknowledged
to be tolerably good imitator in voice
| and l have one or two funny stories
about him. 1 believe I am not very I'M
like Gladstone when 1 try to be like him.
/ also have an imitation of Bright, in a
rhetorical passion. All this viii form a
part of my first lecture. In this [ am
| largely anecdotic. One of my stories is
| that of mine on fire at Black Lake,
in South Staffordshire, in the year 1872,
| where l saw man after man go down
| into the blazing mine to the salvation of
thirty-two boys and men below This
story L find extremely popular with Eng
| lish audiences
Then l, went on tramp for seven
weeks under the alias of David Vane,
compositor.' l was determined to inves-
tigate at first hand the working of the
| English poor law system. For this pur-
pose
LIVED IN POOR HOUSES
and cheap lodging houses; broke stones
and picked oakum and consorted with
the scum of the earth. The revelations
made We're said at the time to be very
Startling, but they led to nothing. The
same ridiculous old system is in force to-
day. Out of this experience | got the
best of my comic stories. The thing hap
pened when, returning in my rags, /
went to the swell hotel in Hereford. to
which had sent my portmanteau before
1 started on my journey.
In my second lecture l have a good
deal to say about my war experiences
not of war as war, for that has been
overdone by litterateurs, but simply
from the human nature side. In this
second lecture / deal with forms OF
pathos and forms of humor. L have a
story to illustrate almost every form OF
humor, and l have excerpts from great
| pathoS.
i do you tell dialect stories?''
II use dialect very largely in the course
of my stories. We have in Great Brit
miliar with nearly every one of them
OF course l take care never to use dia-
lect in so broad form as to obscure my
meaning for a moment"
"And what is your method, Mr.. Muir.
ray, as a lecturer"
There be rules" replied the novel
list, citing from "Idylls of the King,
Il know but one-to dash against my
enemy and to win The only rule for q
public speaker is to be from the first il
absolute sympathetic be completely er
rdpDOrC-WllH his duuleuCS. II pup
lie speaker can not establish that i'm
mediate
MAGNETIC COMMUNICATION
between himself and his house which /:
essential to success, he is no good as &
public speaker. He may be crammec
with matter of the most interesting anC
delightful sort, but it will all grow colo
without sympathy.
ST have not of course, the faintest ides
of instructing anybody in anything. DR.
Johnson defines the verb ito lecture a:
to instruct dogmatically.' 1 won't allow
anybody to instruct me dogmatically L
can help it, and I won't infiict tina
misery on other people: My business az
a public talker at this particular mo
. ment is wholly and solely to amuse,
"Do you find addressing the public al
: enjoyable thing?"
For my part l don't know anything