The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-05-18
in THE LITERARY FIELD
SOME Personal RECoLLECTIoNs OF
PAUL LEICESTER FORD.
Literary Criticism and BOOk-Revievv-
ing Not Necessarily Synonymous
hooks and Authors.

and TO express toward him a very natural
sympathy. says Prof Henry Thurston Peck
In the Boston Transcript. An accident had
crippled him while but an infant, so that
when he reached manhood he was still in
appearance a mere child. His height was
considerably under five feet. his frame
was slender 10 the point of fragility, and
his small smooth face made the illusion
perfect; so that once at q crowded recep-
lion well-known clergyman. who had new
er before met him, IS said 10 have patted
him on the head remarking with that air
of bland patronage which makes many
clergymen obnoxious. well. well. my little
yellow aren't they letting you stay up
trife late this evening"" His very vivacity
eof manner enhanced his childish appear
ance. and his face wore an expression that
seemed TO many an expression of unhappi-
ness. Hence. as I have said. the first feel
ing which they experienced on meeting him
was one OF sympathy and Of regret for his
afiction.
AS a. matter of fact, never WIS sympathy
so misdirected. because so little needed.
For although Fords health was far from
robust. he seldom suffered from actual ill
ness and the amount OF hard work that
he managed TO accomplish with apparent
ease would have tagged out many strong
er man Indeed, the most striking thing
about Paul Leicester Ford was the fact
that he asked no odds from any one, that
he was a man among men, accepting
mans full share Of everything both of la
Dor and the rewards of labor. living always
In the world and of it. and never for mo-
ment seeking an exemption from response
bility. This always seemed TO me TO be
extremely fine in Ford. SO many other men
lind in physical infirmity a facile explana-
ton OF their lack of energy. Ford was at
one and the same time free from the neces-
sity OF toll and possessed of an entirely
valid reason for declining TO take any share
IN the world activities. Yet from his edrll-
est boyhOod, he set his face against any
yielding to temptations such these.
When. i'm his thirteenth year ne had
printed on his own handpTess a genealOgy
of the Webster family. with the annOta-
tons and corrections which he himself had
made, he had. without knowing it, already
begun a career of scholarly and literary
effort in which he was 10 win success by
his individual exertiOns.
One may readily infer from the facts al
ready cited that Ford was gifted with IN
usual force OF character and with eXcep-
tiOnal mental energy. Such was indeed the
case Studying at home and with none OF
the training that is in the lives of most men
impaired by the school and by the unver-
sity. Ford learned self-discipline and taught
hllnselt through experiment and ObSerNa-
ton the value of method, of scientific sys-
TEN, and of liberal culture. Inhertung
love of books ne learned TO use books in
the best way, % know them thoroughly,
and at last 10 write them. Part Df this I'M
conventional training came to him through
personal contact with men and women of
cultivated minds and high intellectual
standards. But first of all, il his
tive power that made him what he finally
became. His mind was singularly alert, Vi
VaciOus, ready, and, of course, we'll stored
with a great variety of information. He
talked well. and he almost always in any
hold
His reasoning was acute, his power of eX-
preston admiral BILE: and somehow or other,
his voice, which was high-pitched and rasp-
lnG, and IN itself by no means agreeable
seemed TO have a certain compelling quail
dty which fixed his listeners attention close
~ upon what he said. one rather unusual
thing in him was the fact that although he
had been bred among books. and although
his writings down 10 1894 had TO do entirely
with photography, he was not at all book
s~1sh man. but had a sane. intelligent interest
In unusually wide range of subjects, SO
that he was equally at home with the
scholar. the Itterateur and the man OF the
world. He was. withal, possessed of very
active business sense Had he been bred in
q counting house instead of in a library he
could not have been more shrewd. more
keen, or more acquisiuve. During the past
i've years i nave often heard publishers
grooming over the hard bargains which he
drove with them, and they found him al
ways a very difficult person with whom TO
deal. He screwed them up TO the very high
est possible terms; he studied carefully eV-
cry clause and every word Of "a contract
before signing il; and he always insisted
that every specification of the contra ct
should be carried out with the utmost rgOr.
Few if any contemporary authors have
done SO well as he did, in financial sense.
The fact that ne had wealth inherited from
his father. so far from making him indif-
1erent to the peCuniary results of his liter
airy work. actually seemed to render him
more eager for large returns, as it certainly
gave him the whiphand of publishers who
knew that he was quite Independent of
them. and who therefore. could not tempt
IN 90 nv off inc
him preliminary check on account of
future royalties. on every side, then, of
his versatile nature Ford was a perfect
type of the man who Is born with the sue
Cessful temperament. He won the respect
of historical students by those publications
OF his which involved original research; he
also pleased the nOvel-reading public and
wrote the "heSt-Selling book of the year
1879. and he likewise accumulated from his
writings "A sum of money which the aver
age author would regard as an ample for
tune.
How seriously Ford regarded his own lit
erary work 1 never could make out. He
often said in a testing way that of course
his writings were not literature but it
was not like him To set a low value upon
anything that he had done, and / fancy
that he very greatly priced the popular
success which he attained, and that he
thought well of the books through which
ne had attained il. That he gave a good
deal of attention 60 literary theories ] am
certain. He once spent the greater part OF
an evening IN eNpoundlng 10 me his views
upOn the relation of the short story to the
novel claiming that every novel is in real
ity only a series OF short stories more or
less congruOusly united by means of a
leading motive. In other words. he thought
that each episode OF the novel should be
wrought out as though il were a story in
itself and that its relation 10 the central
motive should be developed later. IIistorf-
Cally this notion has, Of course, a certain
amount of truth In it, and il the theory
were applied TO the ancient Greek ro-
Inances IL would stand the test of fact. But
since the art of fiction writing has become
elaborated in our times. there can be
no question that the differentiation of the
short story from the long novel is abso-
lutte and exclusive.
Even apart from the tragic circumstances
which attended IL. the death of Paul Leices-
Ter Ford Is most deplorable lie had won 50
much from life by diHt OF courage. energy,
persistence and ability, and life had still
50 much TO give him i'm the immediate
future: he enjoyed his work much and
so many others also liked il, that this sud
den end affects at once the sympathy and
the imagination OF all who knew the man
or who had read his books.
Criticism and Literature.
New York Times.
Ii is a mistake to suppose that because a
few words commencing an authors i'm