Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-03-25
LOUIS TRACY, AUTHOR
SOMETHING ABOUT THE MAN
WHO WROTE HEARTS ON FIRE"

The man who has leaped into fame az
the writer of two such romances The
Wings of the Morning" and THE Pillar of
Light is a youngster of forty. This is no
contradiction in terms. He does not look
his age. either in face or in figure he has
the high spirits of boy. and is never SO
happy as when. with cigar or pipe everlast-
ingly in evidence. he is tramping the moor
land coast of his beloved Yorkshire or sniff
ing the ocean I'm one of his rambles over
the world.
His life has been of that adventurous type
which, with few exceptions. seems to
the only school of literary romance. AS a
boy he went to college in France after run
ming away from home to join the navy. As
youth he took to journalism, and quickly
rose to distinguished place in profess
sion where the career Is open TO talent.
Appointed chief reporter and special cor
respondent 20 an important daily paper in
the English provinces. he saw men and
events beneath the microscope of the press.
He Travelled with Gladstone. was a friend
of the great Dean Vaughan. interviewed
celebrities of the stage and forum. de-
scrlbed famous crimes and their perpetra-
tors. and. through it all, laid in the stock
of critical, pleasantly epigrammatic obser-
walton which marks his work. Keep within
the bounds of humdrum existence ne could
not. In 1889 he went to India for three
years. In 1892 he returned to England to
help I. =. O'Connor 10 start the Sun. Later
he Joined Sir Alfred Harmsworth and others
IN the purchase of the London Evening
News, and in 1897 went back to India again
for another period Of three years.
During the fierce winter of lS9i-95 he or
ganized a fund for the poor of London, gave
away million and half free meals in six
weeks, and kept the starving people sup
piled with food when eminent contractors
FAILED IN the task. This Is perhaps the one
thing he is proud of having done II could
be achieved only by energy and unbounded
1-l aGrNa fagly l.s
ind these qualities in the forefront
Up To 1886 he had never visited the states.
but he then remedied this grave defect I'm
his education citizen of the world and
made the conventional tour from New
YORK TO Niagara. Toronto. Thousand
Islands. Lake ChampIain and the rest of
the favored region surrounding the Adiron-
dackS ana the White mountains. During the
following year he and his wife lived in the
states some months. They hied themselves
from London to far-off Colorado in ten
days. went to Florence and Cripple Creek.
localities endeared to them by the fact that
they mad lost some thousands OF pounds in
an English company formed To exploit a
Sold reduction process there, and made so
many friends between Canon City and Dem
yer thal they came away regretting their
departure far more than their vanished
money. Since then they have been fire.
qucnt visitors
1t is odd that a romancist Of worry, byoI,
rahK-comparable in certain aspects TO
dumas. with Steyensonian vein running
through thlS WOrk-Should be so devoted 10
Tact Yet II Is so. When he wrote THE
wings of the Morning" he checked every
statement as 10 climate. animal life prod
ucts, both vegetable and mineral. and all
conditions of wind and weather on the
smaller islands Of the China sea before
he put pen to paper.
Now, here we have a writer whose best
work lies before him He has in contem-
plation a story of the east which should
greatly enhance his reputation. For
Tracy does really know India. He writes
OF a wonderful country and little under
uousnesS of kipling or the strain of Mrs
Steel. He admires the work of BOTH but
dislikes the forced mysticism found there
IN. If 1.-THE colonels lady and Judy
OGrady are sisters under their skins" so
is mankind east and west actuated by the
same motives. The chief and outward diff
ferenceS are those of conventional morals
and observers who cling to such external
eXcrescenceS are not reliable guides in
studies of temperament. For instance, he
Will tell you that when he went to India
the first time he bought all manner of
books 10 find out what sort of land IL was
and how ii was peopled. Not one of them
attempted to give natural portraits Their
sketches were distorted. ranging from sto-
ries of impossible jugglers TO acclimatized
Britons VINO lived under conditions of wild
est melodrama. To beguile a tedious hot
weather he wrote in his paper a series of
sketches entitled what | Saw in India:
The Adventures of a Globe-Trotter." Pub
lished subsequently in book form. the vol
ume now commands a high premium. Why?
Residents wish to send 1t to their stay-at-