The Savannah morning news., 1902-03-30
THE LITERARY OUTLOOK.

NEst NONeI by Jack LondOn-An Ed
itor Who "Rescues From ObIiv-
lon"-Sketches of the Publishers
BoyhOOd of 5. :. Mcclure.
By Herbert Brewster.
JACK London, author of Son of the
Wolf" and The God of His Father"
both collections of short stories, has
written his first long novel. The work
is not yet published and it may not
appear before next fall, but the fact
of its completion is worthy of note. Mr..
London has had most interesting
career for man just twenty-five years
old. People insist on believing that
his name is a nom-de-plune, but he
says he can trace his family history
back to an American residence prior
to the Revolution and that the Londons
OF those days were not unworthy an
cestors. Jack London was born in San
francisco and lived on California
ranches until he was ten, at which
young age he went upon the streets as
a newsboy. At fifteen he left home
and went faring, as he says, among
the scum population of San Francisco
Bay and by the time he was seventeen
he was able to ship before the mast as
oil dDie DOuleQ seaman. IN InlS
capacity he went to Japan, seal hunt
ing up the Russian side of the Behring
Sea, and on various other trips. At the
end of year of this the boy began to
take an interest in economics and
sociology and his theories started him
out on a tramping tour of the United
States and Canada in search of more
facts of real life. and, when he re-
| turned to the West, he went to work
in order to pay his way through high
school course. In a little over a year
he had crowded two years of the
course in and then he went to the
| University of California, where he re-
| manned not quite a year. Necessity
| forced him to hard labor again and.
thus in various times and places, he
mined and camped, always looking for
ward to the time when he could finish
his studies and take up writing. 1t
was in the Klondike he relates, that he
saw the world in a good perspective
and realized its attitude toward him
and his toward it. The death of his
father compelled his return to Califor-
mia to care for his mother. 1t was a
| case of many liabilities and no assets,
| but the young man was not discour-
| aged. He took up writing with great
zeal and in the course of two. years,
he had placed himself on his feet.
Il have long since learned" he writes,
that most money lies in fiction. but
cannot refrain occasionally from
writing my economic hobby. No, l am
not a revolutionaire, nor a Marxist;
have read too much Spencer for that.
l study from four to six hours daily
(science and literature, half and half,)
and my aim is fiction.
He rescued from oblivion" is the
epitaph which should be placed over the
grave of we'll known editorial writer
of New York, when he dies, and if the
record is too brief the names of those
now famous literary personages whom
his able pen has assisted might be
added. In his lighter moments this
maker of mems names, for that power
has not yet departed from earth, sports
with the odd and unusual and ridicul-
ously impossible in literature. Thus
has 'Dithyramb Dick furnished
amusement for many thousands outside
his native heath, Hagerstown Md,
The citizens of the place are divided
as to whether the editorial writer is
making sport of them or really pay
ing them compliments.
Who, in the East, at least, would
ever have heard of TOWNSVILLE, Ind,
and its local pride in her poet, James
B. Gilmore, but for the industrious
IHdkeT VI lame WIN nave
missed knowing the verses OF Blood
good Cutter, the Long Island former
poet, but for the same skillful pen!
"Dithyramb Dick" was bathed per-
petually in the sunshine of spring; he
listened to birds and bees, heard mu-
sic in the running brooks and, if he
read sermons in stones, his sermons
were five minutes talks on the joy Of
living. An artist in word painting, he
might never have become known but
for the fact that he was discovered by
the New York fame maker. Henceforth
his place is secure. Elnore and Cutter
will likewise go down to posterity as
poets, if their own efforts count for
anything. Mr.. Elmore has taken to
the lecture platform to tell how he
writes and why-why is the query
most of them put to him. Mr.. Cutter
has an ingenious method of circuIari-
cation. He is a man of some wealth
and whenever he pays bill or writes
a business letter, a sort of a handbill
containing some of his verses, is en-
closed. Thus no one who receives the
verses can refuse to read them. Who
wouldn't read verses when a comfort
able check accompanies them.
1t was said of S. S. Mcclure some