The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-03-30
THE
LITERARY
. Gu LOOK.
- Herbert RreMster.l

'A-S AaAN u It's cGmDiellon IS worthy or
note. Mr.. London has had a most in
teresting career for a man just .
years Old People insist on believing
thaI MS name is a nom-de-plume, but
ne says he can trace his family his
10Y back TO an American residence
PlioI TO the revolution and that the
L-oilUoIlS or those days were not I'M
~Vl my ancestors. Jack London was
porn IN San Francisco and lived on
california ranches until he was 10 AT
when young age he went upon the
streets as a newsboy At Is ne left
nome and went faring. as he saws.
among the scum population Of San
+ ( ahciseo bay and by the time he was
~ ne was able TO ship before the mast
az an able bodied seaman. In this
SapeelIy ne went to Japan, seal hunt
LHs up the Russian side of the Behring
sea' ana on various other trips At the
eAu OF year of this the boy began to
'dAe 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
Idcls OF real life, and, when he re-
turned 10 the west, he went to work
10 order 10 pay his way through a High
sShool course. In a little over a year
ne mad crowded two years of the
course IN and then he went to the
University of California, where he re-
NAMED not quite a year Necessity
forced him to hard labor again and
thus in various times and places he
mined ana camped. always looking for
ward to the time when he could finish
ms studies and take up writing. II
was IN the Klondike. he relates. that he
saw the world in a good perspective
and realized its attitude toward MIN
and his toward IT, The death of his
rather compelled his return to Cali
Iofnla 10 care for his mother 1t was
a case of many liabilities and no as
sets, but the young man was not dis
couraged. He took up writing with
great zeal and in the course of two
years, he had placed himself on his
feet.
I have long since learned" he
writes, that most money lies in fic-
ton but ! cannot refrain occasionally
from writing my economic hobby. No,
l am not a revOlutionaire. nor
Marxist; have read too much Spencer
Tor that. l study from four to six
hours daily (science and literature.
half and half and my aim is fiction. D"
g g g
He rescued from oblivion" is the
epitaph which should be laced over the
grave of Vel 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 ridicuI-
ously impossible in literature. Thus
has "Dithyramb Dick" furnished
amusement for many thousands out
side his native heath, HagerstoWn, Md
Who, in the east, at least. would
ever have heard of TOWNSVILLE Ind,
and its local pride in her poet, James
II. Elmore, but for the industrious
maker of fame2 Who might have
missed knowing the verses Of Blood
good Cutter, the Long Island farmer
poet, but for the same skHfuI pen!
Dithyramb Dick" was bathed per-
petually in the sunshine of spring: he
listened to birds and bees, heard music
in the running brooks and, if he read
sermons in stones. shis. sermons were
fiye-minute 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 famemaker. Henceforth his place
IS secure ElmOre and Cutter will like
wise go down to pOsterity as poets il
their own efforts count for anything.
Dir. Gilmore has taken to the lecture
platform to tell how he writes and why
why is the query most of them put
to him. Mr.. CUrter has an ingenious
method of circUlarizati0n. He is a man
of some wealth and whenever he pays
a bill or writes a business letter. a sort
of a handful containing some of his
verses, is inclOsed. Thus no one who
receives the verses can refuse 10 read
them. Who wouldn't read verses when
a comfortable check accompanies
them.
. q . q
It was said of S. S. Mcclure some
years ago that he knew more authors
personally than any other man. Prob
ably that record is still his. though he
is not actively emo. God II, T,-re5y,ae 3, ~