Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1903-04-25
MR.. STACKS STORY.
nv A ADET.ER.

Some time ago a young maj named Etack
ssnt a serial story to the Morning Argus in
BUR village, ard after waiting awhile, and
hearing nothing about it, be concluded to
call upon the editor, Col. Bangs, ia order to
ascertain why that narrative had not at
tracted attention. When Stack mentioned
his errand, the colonel reached for the man
uscript, and, looking very solemn, he said:
"Mr. Stack, / don't think / can accept
this story. In some respects it is really
wonderful; but ! am afraid that If | pub
lished it, it would attract almost too much
attention. People would get too wild over
il. We have TO be careful. For instance,
here in the first chapter you mention the
death Of Mrs. MeGinnia, the hero's mother.
She dies; you inter Mrs. McGinnis 10 the
cemetery; you give an affecting scene at
the funeral; You run up o monument over
her, and plant honeyanckles upon her grave.
You create in the readers mind a strong i'm
preston that Mrs. McGinnis is thoroughly
dead And yet, over here in the twenty
second chapter you make a man named
Thompson fall in love with her, and she is
married to him, and she goes skipping around
through the rest of the story, as lively as a
grasshopper, and you all the time abiding
to Thompson as her second husband. You
stSy thdb 6lAO VI LbiIk WIN I AOs ~ ca
cites remark. Readers complain about it"
Thunder! you don't say | did that? Wei,
now, do You know / was thinking all the
time that it was Mr.. McGinnis that 1 bur.
led in the first chapter! / must have got
them mixed up somehow"
"And then" continued the colonel, when
you introduce the hero, you mention that he
has but one arm, having lost the other in
Ia4tta Pat - abar4ar 10 4Mtt r,,, ttxu
through a sawmill by an accident, and you
mention that he loses an arm there, too.
And yet in the nineteenth chapter you say.
'Adolph rushed up to Mary, threw his arms
about her, and clasped her to his BOSOM
and then you go on to relate how he sat
down at the piano, in the soft moonlight,
and played one Of Beethoven sonatas with
sweet, poetic fervor.' Now, the thing, You
see, don't hang. Adolph couldn't possibly
throw his arms around Mary, If one was
buried in the field Of battle and the other
was minced up in a sawmill and he canldn't
clasp her to his bosom unless lie + Few 9
lasso with his teeth, and hauled Der in BY
the slack Of the rope. As for the
piano, well, you know as well as do that an
mar can't aya Beethoven sonata IN
less he knows how to perform on the instru-
ment with his nose, and In that case you in
suit the popular intelligence when you talk
about sweet poetic feryor.' ! have my fin
gers on the public pulse, and know they
won't stand IT."
"Well, WELT" said Stack, ~ don't know
how ] ever came to-"
Let me direct your attention to another
incendiary matter" interrupted the colonel.
'In the first love scene between Adolph and
-and-let me see, what's her name?-Mary
you say that, her liquid blue eye rested
upon him as he poured forth the
story Of his love, and its azure was dlmmed
by a flood Of happy tears Well, sir, about
20 pages farther on, where the villain in
suits her, you observe that her black eye
lightning at him, and seemed to
him where he stood. Now, let me
direct attention to the fact that if the girls
eyes were blue, then they couldn't be black;
if you mean to convey the impression
that she had one blue eye and one black eye,
and that she only looked softly at Adolph
out of the off eye, while the near eye
roamed around, not doing anything in par
%ticular, Why she is too phenomenal for a
novel, and only suitable for a place in the
museum by the side of the fat woman. And
then you say that, although her eye was
liquid, let it scorched the villain People
WON'T put up with that kind OF thing. 1t
makes 'em delirious and murderous."
"Too badl" said Stack. 81 forgot what I'd
said about her eyes. when | wrote that
scene with the villain"
And here in the twentieth chapter, you
say that Magruder was stabbed with a
bowie knife in the hands of the Spaniard;
and in the next chapter you give an ac-
count of the ~post-mortem examination, and
make the doctors hunt for the bullet, and
find it imbedded in his liver. Even patient
readers can't remain calm under such cir
cumstances. They lose control of them
selves"
Its unfortunate" said Stack.
"Now, the way you manage the Browns
in the story is also exasperating. First, you
represent Mrs. Brown as taking her twins
around to church to be christened. In
the middle of the book you make Mrs. Brown
lament that she never had any children,
and you wind up the story by bringing Mrs.
Brown with her grandson in her arms, just
after having caused Mr., Brown to state
to the clergyman that the only child he
ever had died in its fourth year. just think
of the effect of such a thing on the public
mind! Why, this story would fill all the
insane asylums in the country"
'"Those Browns don't seem to be very
definite, somehow" said Stack, thought
fully.
"Worst of all" said the colonel, gin chap
ter 81 you make the lovers resolve upon sui
eide, and you put them in a boat and drift
them over Niagara falls. Twelve chapters
farther on you suddenly introduce them.
walking in the twilight in a leafy
lane, and, although afterward she goes
into a nunnery and takes the black
veil, because he has been killed by pi-
rates in the West Indies, in the next chap
ter to the last you nave a scene where she
goes to a surprise party at the Presbyterian
minister's, and finds him there making ar
engagements for the wedding as if nothing
had ever happened; and then, after you
disclose the fact that she is a boy in dis
guise, and not a woman at all, you marry
them to each other, and represent the boy
heroine as giving her blessing to her daugh-
ter. Oh, it's awful thinl 1t won't do. 1t
really won't. You'd better go into some