Los Angeles herald., 1910-09-18

short story which corresponds, tney accept IL WIN
ioy and pay good sums for it. This particular editor
believed that short story should be realistic. Let
lis have things as they dre!'' he accustomed to
cry to his best friend, the printer devil, or the
Office eat whichever happened to be the handiest
'Life is great enough to say things for itself, with
out having to be helped out by the mawkish sentl-
mentality of an idiot Permit us to see actual peo
pie living actual lives, in actual houses, and should
hope we have common sense enough to draw our own
morals!o He usually made these chaotic exclama
tions after reading through several pages OF very
neat manuscript in which the sentences were long
and involved and in which were employed polysyl
Liable adiectives of poetic connotation This editor
liked short, crisp sentences. He wanted his ad-
iectives served hot He despised poetic connotaton
Being only an editor his was Brown. If he
had been a writer, he would have had three names,
beginning with successive letters of the alphabet
Now one day, it happened that there appeared be-
fore this editor, Brown, a young man bearing roll
of manuscript. How he had gotten by the office boy
Brown could not conceive, and rolled manuscript
usually gave him spasms The youth, however, pre-
sented a letter of introduction from Brown s best
friend He said he had story to submit, and he
said it with certain appearance OF breathlessness
the end of the sentence, which showed Brown that
it was his first story. He begged the youth to take
seat As all the seats filed with unopened
papers and unbound books, the youth said he pre-
ferred to stand.
Brown asked the youth questions, in a perfunctory
manner not because he cared to know anything about
him, but because he liked the man who had written
the letter The youth S name proved to be Severne,
and he was the most serious minded youth who had
ever stepped from college into writing. He spoke OF
ideals Brown concluded that the youth story prob
ably dealt with the time of the Chadean astron-
omers, and contained deep symbocal TRUTH couched
in language of the school of Buwer Lytton or Marie
Coreli So after the youth had gone, he seized the
roll of manuscript, for the purpose OF glanclng
through it. If he had imagined the story of any
merit he would not have been in such haste; but as
his best friend had introduced the writer he thought
he would like to get disagreeabe task over at once
He glanced the story through. Then he read 1t
carefully Then he slammed it down hard on his
desk-to the vast confusion of some hundreds Of
loose memoranda, which didn t matter much any
way-and uttered a big, bad word. The sentences
in the story were short and crisp. The adJectves
were served very hot indeed There not a single
bit of poetic connotation 1t described life as it
really was.
Brown the editor, published the story, and paid a
good price for it. Severne, the author, wrote more
stories, and sold them to Brown. The two men got
to be very good friends, and Severne heard exactly
how Brown liked short stories and why, and how his
Severne s, stories just that kind.
All this would have been quite ali ideal condition
of affairs and an object lesson to a harsh world and
other editors, it not that Severne was serious
minded He had absolutely sense of humOr. Per-
spectves there for him, and due proper
tions did not exist. He took life hard. He looked
upon himself graveIy as a serious proposition, like
the Nebular Hypothesis Phonetic Reform. The
immediate consequence that, having achieved his
success through realism, he placed realism on ped
estal and worshped it the only true Qterary) god
Severne became reaiist of realists He ran it into
the ground. He would not describe single incident
that he had not viewed from start to finish with his
own eyes He did not have much to do with feelings
direct but such necessary to his story he in
sisted on experiencing-n his person; otherwise
the story remained unwritten And for emotions
such as anger or religion, fearhe would attempt
none whose SAVIOR he had not tasted for himself, I'm