The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-10-13
WHY COLLEGE WRITER'S FAIL


Views of Publisher to Whom Man,
Young Masterpieces Have Been Sub
mitted.
Many college men, who in their uni
versity days have been looked upon as
coming literary men" are grevousS
shocked on going out into the world tt
find that the earlier promise seems SC
unlikely of. fulfllment. A publisher
upon whom has rested the responsible
ty of frightening many a literary gent
us fresh from his Alma Mater gives
this criticism of the work submitted tc
him:
1.-THE principal weakness, I think, is
due to the superficial acquaintance
which undergraduates generally have
with the world and men. They have
seldom, if ever, met a Fol1er let us say,
or a Newcome, or a Parson Adams, or
q Clarissa, or a Signor Bruni; nor do
they seem capable of inventing such
characters Instead, they give us Tom
Dick and Harry, and bevy of charm
ing girls whose charm Is not always
apparent. These characters commonly
personify the ordinary vices and viz
tues of everyday life, chief among
which, as might have been expected, is
LoVe-sometimes a vice, especially to
disappointed Dick, and sometimes a
virtue.
IF the characters are commonplace,
| ha TO int
more so. The plot which comes first to
mind is the one adopted. Usually this
consists of a proposal Indeed, is is
consists Of a proposal Indeed, it is
not finding somebody popping the
question" Perhaps the designing cou-
pie go fishing. They drift @long under
| the willows, and by and by they be-
come a bit tin1orous and nervous. Fin
ally, Tom begins-and just then a fish
starts to nibble at his hook He fidgets
about, and after a struggle he pulls out
a monster bass. We'll, I've caught the
fish, he says Yes she answers, with
a blush or a smile, or a delicious little
shrug of her shoulders. Yes, you have
caught the fish, This method is as
tonshingly frequent. Some pretty lit
bolic, something suggestive, mere cpl
gram, in fact. is sufficient. To the I'M
dergraduate, love as subject of fiction
is a small enough matter; its complica-
tons are of little consequence, there Is
no pining away, and the afterwards is
always inexpressibly happy
But, proposals do not exhaust the
plots. Sometimes there are Opponents,
though these are rare, since they are
hard to manage. More often, when the
author is tragically inclined we find
some pretty creature married to a boor-
ish, but wealthy old man. The pretty
creature chafes and frets at her sur
roudnings, and she waits for a time
when her husband will go to a neigh
boring town to buy or sell horse. or
an organ, or load of hay Then she
slips on shawl and makes for the
edge of the meadow, where scandalous
Harry awaits her When the husband
returns he is surprised, but he soon un-
derstands and bows his head. This
story of incompatibility and relief, a
modern persion of ST. George and the
dragon, is attractive. Every other un-
dergraduate tries it, and generally does
it well. Only it is occasionally rather
rough on the dragon
"Side by side with the actual blot
itself there Is a great contributive ele-
ment. The bobolinks and the bees and
the crickets all play important parts.
The breeze invariably has some version
of what is going on, version which it
does not hesitate to blow through the
ot,o nj W., oft no ~, ..
and thence to the belfries, where the |
bells ring out sweetly as they always
do. If the author has any skill at all
he does not delay to set brooks babling
secrets and birds singing songs or in |
vitations to which there are always |
plenty of ears ready to listen.
Love, however, is not always sub !
ject of the fiction under discussion.
though it is more usual than any other
There are, for example, stories of col |
ege life. 1t might be supposed that
these would outnumbar by far their fell
ows in undergraduate literary produce
ion. This is not, however, the case.
are to pick up a college magazine and
20 those who live it; they become ac- !
to it and neglect to put it to
49, " i'Nii Ii'NS uo "iiec etpoul II, lIey
concern themselves with the extraord-
nary the untypical. Thus the describe
he visit of prince or duke; they tell
he story of a football game, which GER
ainly does not represent them as they
ire; they play tricks or hold long con-
yersations which ineffectively treat of
lothing at all; they give US crises;
'utbursts fetes not pictures or MARIA
ions of how they pass their time from
lay to day New York Evening Post
TpI7CT0RV OF EACT-T nv AMI !