Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1904-02-10


stalk the Strand, their hard, lined faces
and bold eyes proclaiming them mem
bers of 1.-The profession" as they ar
rogantly style their art; the inconse-
quent cackle of literary Eat homes"
or the shamelessness of the self-adverS
Using scribbler, touting, bagmanlike,
for reviews-al this I found and find
insufferable. But, taking one thing
with another-and since some amount
Of "shop" there appears to be in
every professional seems to me that
the craft of letters has, or should have,
a tolerably wide lookout The
shop of literature is, or ought to be-,
the world. 1t is because life is more
fascinating than literature, that liter
allure is so fascinating a profession.
The man of letters is before all things
without resource, for all life interests
! him. He never loses the sense of
wonder. He can fold his hands de-
Voutly, and with bowed head repeat
! after Robert Louis Stevenson that
General Thanksgiving that breathes a
more childlike spirit of true and JOY
Gus gratitude to the God and Giver
of all than any Doxology:
THE world is so full of a number of
things
I think we should all be as happy As
kings
l had drifted into, rather than seri-
ously adopted, the profession of au-
thorship, but I was at all times ready
to lay aside my pen for any enter
! prise that promised adventure; and
here was adventure ready to hand,
and calling for me to make the most
OF what it afforded. To play the spy
upon such scoundrels, to "confound
their knavish tricks" and to be the
means ultimately of bringing them to
| justice, offered sport in plenty for nv
money, and would, moreover, give me
an opportunity of putting to the test
! a long cherished theory of mine.
This theory is that story-writer who
has attained some proficiency in his
art is in possession of several of the
qualities that go to make a good de-
tective. That shall be accused by
some persons of talking the very
shop" which profess to dislike is
quite possible, but submit that to
| discuss the principles of the novelist's
art is very different from discussing the
price per thousand words and the per-
| sonality of the artist.
l contend that the qualities of mind
| which are necessary for the construc-
| ton of successful story are not very
different from those which are re-
quired for the planning of success
| full crime. The novelist makes a
rough draft of his story, just as the
criminal maps out his lines of action,
and both fill in details and fit them to-
gether in similar way. The novelist
has, on the first blush of it, the easier
task, for he has only himself and his
own characters to manage, whereas
the, criminal has other people to reckon
with; but am not sure that the novel
list does not find his imaginary charac-
tiers quite as difficult to deal with as
the criminal finds his actual folks.
And the novelist is no less liable to
discover himself lin corner by rea-
son of some unexpected development
than is his fellow artist; and both are
apt to court failure by neglecting to
take probabilities into account, or by
overlooking some unexpected and i'm
portant factor. 49,. .,.y....-..... ~ -
8. Fortunately for the welfare of So
ciety,e the average perpetrator Of q
crime is as wanting in originality as
is the average perpetrator Of q book;
and if crimes were reviewed in the
same way as stories, q critic might
"slate" the two offenses in almost iden-
tical words. For the commonplace
misdoer only commonplace methods
! Of detection are necessary. But for
the more unusual criminal more unu-
xual methods are required.
And If my theory holds good, q novel
Isl other things being equal -is 81