The San Francisco call., 1898-11-27

duly reported In thlS as III .nosI
 < other newspapers, was man 3f pronounced peculiarities of manner and character; but he had the power of inspiring some extraordinarily close attachments. When Stephen Crane made his first visit to London, a year or two ago. a great friendship sprang up, almost in a night, between him ana Frederic; and thenceforward one was never-failing in uttering the praises or the other. Their ardor in mutual ad- miration was at times a little amusing; and it might at times even have proved offensive but for the unquesuonabie sincerity of it.
 The eminent quality in Frederic's composition seems to have been his 1n- domitableness; he was man who never gave up; and the good rank ne attained as a journalist, and later as novelist, he attained largely by force or will This is shown in the way 1n which he wrote his first novel-that IS, the first undertaken, but, as it after wards proved, not the first finished. He told the story of this enterprise once to his friend, R. H. Sherard, and 1t has, l believe, never been published-cer- tainly not in this country. All the time that I was editing this paper, said he, the paper referred to being the Albany Journal, T was wanting to write my novel, Tn the Valley, my his torical novel, my Lorna Doone, than which I shall probably never write any thing better I started on it four or five. times whilst in Albany, but al ways tore up all that I had written be- cause 1 was not satisfied with it. 1 once wrote as much as twenty thou sand words and altogether l must have written fully fifty thousand words of this novel, all of which went into the fire"
 Here the work stopped until after Frederic went to London, to represent the New York Times. There, after some time," said he, T began once more upon Tn the Valley and during 1884 wrote about seventeen thousand words which 1 also threw away. then realized that I did not know how to make a book. how to cover a can vas. 1 had notions about how certain parts of the canvas had to be covered, but did not know how to complete the work as a whole. So, as an experi- ment, a literary preliminary canter, 1 wrote 'Seth's Brothers Wife I wrote it Off-hand and purely as an experi- ment, to see what it was like to write a book. When it was written 1 sent it to Scribner'S, ever believing that they WOulU accept IL. 10 my enormous surprise they wrote to tell me that they were starting a new magazine and that they would like to use my story as the first serial in that magazine. It was thus that 'Seths Brothers Wife appeared in Scribner's Magazine, where 1t made its point. Encouraged by this success I felt at liberty to set about my Tn the Valley the thing nearest to my heart, and in eight months in the year 1887, l wrote that book It was written as l say in eight months, but it represented eleven years of work and preparation"
 AS a novelist Frederic regarded him. self as the direct son of the famous French coIaborators, Erckmann and Chatrian. T hold myself more indebt- ed to these two men than to all other writers in any language, all put togeth- er,' was his positive way of putting it. Except The Damnation of Theron Ware" none of his novels can be said to have had great success. They have all had high cOmmendation; but, for the most part, moderate sales He had finished a new novel only a month or two before he died which will be pub lished serially in this country by the Saturday Evening Post of Philadel- Qhfa-, l have had the privilege of read ing 1t in manuscript and l can say that for immediate and sustained interest it is the equal of anything he ever wrote. It is the story of an immense speculatOr, who, after many disap- pointments, makes a mammoth fortune at single stroke, and then, having no further need of money, tries to adopt the life of a gentleman of leisure The diScOrd between such a life and his ac-