Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-12-18


youth told him lay the green fields of wonderland.
Thither he would bend his quest, gain the laurel and
earn the right to return.
None but creature of wonderful personality, rare
magnetism and singular power could have
thus directed the conduct of Langtree. He did not
pause to consider the chances he taking of losing
the ground he had gained by calmly withdrawing from
the lists which than other youth, to his
tain knowledge had already entered for the rare prize
of beating girish heart He conscious only of the
mysterious power of her command, and vaguely
that her command carried with tacit promise
that he would in the end win her.
While Langtree had been in love before, never had he
known what it to bow at such shrine this. The
sweet cordially of strong friendship had made him
unfold every ambition to her, every hope, every in
choate yearnng and She with bursts of understanding
that amounted to genius had been enabled, somehow
to fathom his soul, to and know, and guess
that little which he did not tell her.
In London he StrOve to gain Abundance to the
turns of the editors But-aas-his training on the
saffron journals of his native land proved to be open
sesame into Grub Street. He skipped meals, haggled
ngs and wrote to the girl at home glowing letters which
contained rhine than AS for the girl she
sent him those vague, sprghty, evasive, meantokeep
epstles which girls OF twenty love to write
to youths they have sent forth to become wonderful
But always, despite heartbreak and hunger, vision of
dawn, and roses, and hazel eyes kept floating before
Langrees vision and always there rang in his the
command to 60 forth and become wonderful.
HE left London, sailing south as common seaman
- wind TANNER of early vintage, enduring the
wild tasks, the blows, the inelegant and unchurchly
language and for those before the mast
And so he pushed on and on, making now west, now
east driving north south, scorning the oppor
tunities at hand for those which gmmered magic
ally, auringly on far horizons.
On ostrich farms in remote ATTITUDES he worked.
Into the diamond fields he drifted and oversaw Kars
and later he furnished copy for writer's of nickel novels
while acting company detective and chasing illicit
diamond buyers.
Then followed the cowlike journey, already referred
to, back to England. Again Langtree struck London
for newspaper job, and by this time the current of
good fortune had borne yellow journalism the
Atlantic and newspaper jobs in London for Americans
were not so unattainable as before. So he became
London hack writer but not at Park Row salary. He
lived in dismal lodgings, smoked wretched tobacco and
thanked God that English wearing apparel not
taxed.
Months grew into years. Somehow he had begun to
temporize with the grand passion. Correspondence
with the girl had languished and finally its last dying
twtchings over Lacking the courage to tell her
the truth about his failure and weary of writing her
fasehoods, he sought respite in silence.
THEN something happened. Dame Fortune
along, chucked the hack writer under the chin, and
lifted him from obscurty into sudden fame. He had
ground out drama, peddled it vainly for months
the Strand and finally just he about to toss the
manuscript into the Thames. manager went wild