The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1910-11-11

mangled and lIfeless form of a ch a
from under the fender of street cat
and carry 1t in your arms and lay ~
down before the distracted mother.
Did you ever do that and listen to ,A.
word, of grief and despair as The.
flowed spontaneously from her lips
"I never did" said Dave. "DG
you?"
"well. no." said Editor Westbrock
with slight frown. But / can wei,
imagine what she would say"
$50 can l." said Dave.
And now the fitting time had come
for Editor Westbrook to play the ora
Gle and silence his opinionated contrib
utor.
"My dear Shack" said he, "if
know anything of life I know that ev-
cry sudden. deep and tragic emotion
In the human heart calls forth an ap-
poslte, concordant, conformable and
proportionate expression of feeling
How much Of this inevitable accord
between expression and feeling should
be attributed to nature and how much
to the influence of art II would be diff
ficult to say. The sublimely terrible
roar of the lioness that has been de-
prived of her cubs is dramatically as
far above her customary whine and
pur as the kingly and transcendent
utterances of Lear are above the level
Of his senile vaporings. But it is also
true that all men and women have
what may be called subconscious
dramatic sense that is awakened by a
sufficiently deep and powerful emotion
"A sense unconsciously acquired from
literature and the stage-that prompts
them to express those emotions in Ian
guage beftting their importance and
histrionic value"
"And, in the name of the seven sa-
cred saddle blankets of Sagittarius,
where did the stage and literature get
the stuntY' asked Dave.
From life" answered the editor tri-
umphantly.
The story writer rose from the bench
and gesticulated eloquently, but dumb
ly. He was beggared for words with
which to formulate adequately his dis
sent
Editor Westbrook looked at his
watch with an affected show of lei
sure.
Tell me-" asked Dave, with trucu-
lent anxiety, what especial faults in
The Alarum Of the Soul caused you
to throw it down"
"When Gabriel Murray" said West
brook, "goes to his telephone and is
told that his fiancee has been shot by
a burglar he says-I do not recall the
exact words, but
81 do" said Dave. "He says: Damn
central; she always cuts me OFF, (And
then to his friend) Say, Tommy, does
30 bullet make big hole? It's kind
Of hard luck, amt it? Could you get
me a drink from the sideboard, Tom
my? No; straight, nothing on the
side"
"And, again." continued the editor
without pausing for argument, "when
husband informing her that he has
fed with the manicure girl her words
are-let me see
"She says" interposed the author.
"'WelI. what do you think of that?'"
"Absurdly inappropriate words" said
Westbrook, presenting an anticlimax,
plunging the story into hopeless pa
thos. Worse yet, they mirror life false
ly. No human being ever uttered ba-
nal colloquialisms when confronted by
sudden tragedy"
Wrong" said Dave. closing his un-
shaven jaws doggedly. 81 say no man
or woman ever spouts highfalutin talk
when they go up against real eli.
max. They talk naturally and a I!ttle
worse"
The editor rose from the bench with
his air Of indulgence and inside infor-
nation.
Say, Westbrook," said Dave, pin
ming him by the lapel. ''would you
have accepted The Alarum of the
Soul If you had believed that the ac-