The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-06-16
A New Essayist.

literary stage, to the exclusion of nearly
all else. Even the serial story, unless the
author is fortunate enough to get syndi-
GATE to bring it out, falls fat in almost
every instance. The reading world wants
notion, and wants it straight to the point,
ana with that brevity that is often the
soul Of incompleteness.
But the essay, although fallen upon hard
hnes IN this country, and relegated to out
of-the-way corners in the bookcases of
those old-fashioned people who, while
they do not themselves read essays, still
hold the ancient faith that they are needed
to complete library, is still occasionally
read in England.
This IS the reason, possibly. why vol
ume of essays published in this country at
one OF the literary centers of this country,
should be almost unknown, even at that
center, the while it is making a very con-
siderable stir in literary London.
II is said that literary London has all
along been at loss to understand the sue
cess in America of "Trilby." Literary Bos-
ton can now retaliate by kindred wonder
over London's appreciation of Walter
Blackburn Hartes "Meditations in Mot
ley'
Judging from the reviewers, however, and
the reports of the booksellers, this
thoroughly readable volume is not only
better known in London. but even in San
Francisco, than it is in Boston, where it
first saw the light.
"Meditations in Motley is a volume of
essays that appeal very directly to the lit
erary mind. Although he has been for
years working journalist, and has given
his best thought and strength to appease
the ceaSelesS demands of newspaper work,
Mr.. Harte is more distinctly a literary
man than almost any of the younger men
IN the country whose names suggest them
selves in connection with literature. He
has called his 'meditationS" "a bundle of
papers imbued with the sobriety of mid
night" and they have been written, for
the most part, in those wee small hours
when the journalists working day has
ended and that of the milkman and the
market purveyor is just beginning. From
the audaclous whlmsicality of the dedica-
ton ito the Devil and Dame Chance" to the
last meditation, ''Rhapsodyof Music,
the book bristles from cover to cover with
good things. There is a delicious sense of
leisure and ease about these meditatiOns
IN snatch moments of time. 1t is difficult
to imagine this genial, unhurried, rather
bookish, little prejudiced and old-fash-
Toned dreamer hustling after a SCOOP at
the behest of a city editor, or getting up
copy in the rush and hurry that are con-
comltants OF newspaper life.
Walter Blackburn Harte is only by
adoption an American. He was born in
England, in Bedfordtown, where John
Bunyan lived. and received his early edu-
cation in one of the public schools of that
place. 1t must have been his very early
education, for he was a mere lad-hardly
in his teens-when business reverses in
the family forced him to leave school and
begin life in earnest in a law Office in one
of the old inns OF court in London. He
taught himself sho1 thand and continued !
his education in evening schools. At Is |
he gave up work and secured a year and a |
half of regular schooling, after which he
went to work as a reporter on one of the |
minor London papers. His work was not |
of much account, but it took him into |
Fleet street and gave the literary passion ,
that had consumed him from childhood |
something to feed upon. But few months |
OF this life showed him its limitations as |
to opportunities, and, as his face had long J
been turned toward America, the boy-for |
he was but a boy-decided 20 come here. |
il was some ten years ago that he landed
in Montreal, with q few pounds in his
pocket and after several temporary en-
gagements in various lines again plunged
into newspaper work.
provincial journalism, he says, "affords
some intimate acquaintance with real life,
but it is distinctly inimical to the Cultiva-
ton OF any literary aims or graCes." He
went from Montreal to Toronto and other
Canadian cities, and while engaged in the
press gallery of the House of Commons in
Il
American magazines on the Canadian Par
Lament and various social and political
themes. Finally, however, he drifted to
New York and later went to Boston. In
1891 he became assistant editor of the New
England Magazine, and the same year be-
gan the series OF literary causeries under
the caption of "In Corner at Dodsley's''
that were so long one of the most attrac-
tive features of that magazine. He saws of
them: 81 first took down the shutters at
Dodsley's in October, 1891, IN the darkest.
poorest, dismalest alleyway in all Grub
street, and for over two years | was to be
found there by ali those who cared to ad-
venture in the literary Sums. | chose the
name partially out of a contradictory hui
NOR, my shop being situated so very far
away from Pail Mall, where Robert
Dodsley's smart bookshop stood in Pope's
and Dr. Johnson's day, and partly because
obscurity and squalor are forever associated
with the attractions of antiquariansm,
and | could only hope in such a quarter to
attract the curious"
So many were inclined to adventure
thus. however, that the Dodsley papers
have served to connect Mr.. Hartes name
permanently with bellies lettres. and have
caused such critics as Hamilton w. Mabie,
Israel Zangwill and Richard LIE Gallienne
to hail him as one of America coming es-
sayists.
A year or so ago Mr.. Harte had re-
lapse INTO lOuIHdlISll, Dul Is now on the
staff of the Arena. He has lately pub
lished in different magazines a number of
striking short stories, and expects in time
to bring out volume of these. 1t will be
a pity, however, if this should mean that
we are to have no more essays from his
pen. The appetite awakened in this direc-
ton by "Meditations in Motley decidedly
calls for more. the papers are full of
quaint humor and wisdom and sufficiently
savored with an occasional judicious pinch
of attic salt to be suggestively stimulating.
They bristle with extravagances, and Mr..
Harte is by no means always to be taken
seriously; but his extravaganza is of
wholesome sort. His constant protest
against the utilitarian spirit of the age is
timely and the literary flavor of his
thought is delicate and appetizing. He is
thoroughly independent thinker, with
an insight that renders independence of
value. Nor is the cup of humorous raillery
he offers the world none the less enjoyable !
for the tang of bitterness sometimes to be |
discerned therein.
Just here, however, lies one OF Mr. |
Harte's dangers. The most of US have Bit