The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1912-03-09
WHY MRS. UPTON SINCLAIR
LEFT HER AFFINITY FOR a POET

~E"er-body Who reads newspapers
Knows Ipton Sinclair. the n!mble-
"i.,ed novelist. frec-!ovc writer. tn.
the tad wages of she Chicago stock
ards. n.ho gathered about himself 4
following ot "~highhrows' in Halcyon
hall III New J%ars"r. who suddenly
woke W 2 morning with an IDEA
that eating is not worth while. and
that the ~ 20 feed the brain is u
pUt nothing much into the stomach.
My. Sinclair Incidentally gathered 10
himself . wife i'll the person of Miss
Meta Fuller, rho tried U Keep pace
win MT. Sinclair's activities Of mind,
and followed him from r. fad 70 an
other.
pne day .lIr. Sinclair had the bad
judgment To invite 3 l~ong-faired poe;
named Iiarr" Kemp 10 join his house
hold. Harry 4 known 10 the
tramp poet IF Kansas" and ne could
Hr!te poems any time and anywhere
and on any subject.
il was just about q year ago that
Mrs. Sinclair and Harry discovered
that th"E we're real soulmates. The
news was broken TO SIR. Sinclair. and
he promptly: brought d divorce pro-
ceeding. and Meta moved out 10 d lit
- |S.-6ciD" al WV J'1s'. WIKI! .sT
lone-haired poet. a bungalow. as
defined by Weber and Fields, is q
house that has the cellar and the
attic ali N the same foor."l
With nothing 10 ca, but poems,
Meta concluded that Harry and the
Observation-Disclosures" idea WASH,
worth while. SO Mrs. Sinclair has
gone back to mamma and three square
meals a day. Harry, the poet. has
gone back to Kansas. travelling on
The bumpers Of a freight train. Up
ton Sinclair: liz wandering about Eu-
rope.
Geie,t Burgess. who is himself a
poet, a humorist, and a thinker, has
watched the exploits Of Mr.. Sinclair,
his wife Meta, and long-haired Har-
r., the poet. and gives us on this page
a vision Of life in the New Jersey
bungalow where the pair dined on
'~fresh-laid poems" warm sonnetg,"
and cold ballades."
tBy Gelett BurEess.)
Mind you. one hardly dares sag that
il wasn't all right. George Eliot did
it, George Sand did it.. and i, was quite
the fashion in mid Victorian times to
give away ones wife. II she didn't suit.
Even George Meredith was strong for
taking a woman on approval. instead
Of the ordinary c. o. d. method.
And so. when Upton Sinclair car
RED his ~ife's suit Ease to the station
and bought a ticket to New York for
Meta and Affinity, gently warning
them not to lose the train. he was
the footsteps Of celebrities In
the past. But the difference between
honest-to-goodness celebrities of adult
size and Upton sinclair's Is this: The
things don't advertise. U. S.,
is a practical psycholoRist,''
and If his books don't seel 1t isn't his
fault. or the fault Of modern methods.
Upton, o will remember. began
career where many leave OF, by
suicide as one Stirling"
whose body was supposed by newspa-
per readers to have been found, dead
Of sorrow. in the New jersey woods.
teaches that sculpture 10 but
an adornment to architecture-so q.
Sinclair appears to believe that Jour
nasilm II the slave Of literature, and
1t hard. The papers helped
him hugely in his story Of the Jun
gave plenty Of pure read
Ing matter" to his escapades o. a foot
man. when he published his story Of
he die rich. So now, when he wish
es TO lose Meta what more natural
that he should turn to the daily pa