The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-08-14
ALL NOVELS STALE, SAYS WALT MASON New Treatment of Old Idea Secret of Success ONE OF FREQUENT USE Theme of Man and Woman Cast Ashore on Desert Isle Seems ]
 Never to Weary the
 Public
ONE OF FREQUENT USE

You pay a dollar and a quarter or a dollar and a half for nova (an out rageous price. by the way and take it home and read it. and as you lay it aside you remark to your wife, or your grandmother, that you have been stung again. writes Walt Mason, in the Kansas City Star.
 T have read 30 stories just like it." you say, with bitter scorn. Why don't the blamed splay-footed authors give us some thing new? Why do they work over the same old plots forever and forever?"
 Your wife-or your grandmother-re- plies that she never was good at conun- drum, and urges you to put your head to soak over night. There isn't much sympathy anywhere for the man who asks questions. But you are right about the novel. It is a chestnut. All novels are chestnuts. There are millions of novels in the world, but there are no new stories. They are all variations of the same old plots. and those plots don't number more than dozen altogether. You hear book reviewers speaking of ''an original plot" but there is no such thing, and there never will be. All the plots there are were used up by Boccaccio and he borrow ed them from earlier writers, and they borrow them from writers who had gone before. Mod ern men may invent wireless telegraphy and airships and self-actEg corlscrews. but they can't invent new plots for stories.
 Therefore. when you are buying novels. be reasonable. Have a heart Don't ex- pect too much of author. You may insist upon original treatment of old plots, but don't talk about original plots, or the bookseller will know you are an also ran in the world of literature.
 Ancient Plots the Best
 There are some ancient pets so seod, and so attractive. that they can be used over and over again. without wearing out the public patience. All you have to do. when you use one of them in the frame work of story, is 10 make the dialogue interesting and diverting. When Charles Reade, with tho assistance of Dion Bouc- cault. wrote Foul Play" he knew he was using a plot as old as the art of story telling, but he was a man ofxge- nius, and he made his story better than all other stories which used the same ma chinery. and that opportunity is open to you.
 The hero and heroine of Reades story were cast ashore upon an uninhabited is- land, where they lived a Robinson Cru shoe life for a long time.
 That idea never wears out Several books based upon it are issued every year. and they always sell, if they have any merit at all. They are as much alike as toys made in Germany. The heroine, who is assisted through the raging bi- lows. from wrecked ship, to the island, is beautiful young woman of patrician ancestry, who looks with scorn upon the ordinary run of mankind No homely or plebeian woman ever was washed ashore under such conditions. Women of that kind always are drowned. and perhaps it is just as well, everything considered The hero Is a man with a past. It is true that he was but ordinary seaman on the wrecked ship. but anybody can tell by observing his hawk-lilse face and square jaw that he is varsity man. and probably pulled the stroke oar, or was the hero of the football field. Upon land ing. the heroine regards him haughtily, as though he had taken liberty in say Ing her Whereupon he assumes the mas terful manner. and orders her around al though she were a domestic drawing 8 n week. with Thursday afternoons out. and, after the first flush of resentment she finds that she likes it, and rather admires the crust of the man who bosses her that way.
 Always Wreckage From Ships He finds cave in which she sleeps the first night, while he walks the beach, wondering what in blitzen the upshot of the adventure will be. Next morning he goes around to see what has been washed ashore from the wrecked ship. The list includes can opener. a stuffed pelican, volume of Pastor Russeil's sermons, pamphlet by Doctor Crumbine steel bootjack, bottle of barb wire liniment and several cans of baked beans.
 For several days they live on the baked beans and then the hero finds the girl weeping convulsively, her whole body racked by the violence of her sobs. When he has calmed her little she confessed that she is tired of living in cave ana eating baked beans. She wants a decent residence. and some ice cream.
 You shall have it," says the hero. and his square jaw bulges out until it looks like wooden awning in front of a gro cery
 The first thing to do is to build ner comfortable cottage, and the difficult ties confronting him would dismay a weaker man, but he takes few hitches Tn his square jaw and gets busy He cuts down lot of trees with the can opener, and this is dreary and dis couraging task Unless you have used a can opener for such a purpose you can't realize how tedious the work is But the hero keeps to it. day and night, and final " he has enough trees cut down. Then ne finds 1t necessary to rip them into blanks, and to accomplish this he grinds an edge on the steel bootjack by rubbing 1t against piece of flint he finds on the shore. The heroine stands around watching him. her heart full of pity. and pegs him to let up. She fairly hates her seif for having started him at his hercu- lean Job But he calls her attention to his jaw and also to his falcon brow. and goes ahead
 After weeks of arduous labor he has his lumber all ready. In the absence of nails he has to make twine out of CO., ooanut fiber. which Is another endless task. This done. he builds the house. tying the timbers together at the cor ners with his cocoanut string Pastor i;ussel1s sermons make an excellent door for the cottage, and it Is hung on hinges made of the baked beans can Here's Ingenuity Surprising The ingenuity of the hero is some thing astonishing, and the heroine is beginning to regard him with awe and admiration. When she moves into her rev house and realizes what it has cost i-him in toll and suffering. she feels that she Is not worthy to live on the same island with such man, and she makes up her mind to be useful, too. | She has noticed that there Is nothing left or his shirt but pair of sleeves, and a bone collar button. He ruined the garment rustling through the jungle l trying to find peanut tree, she hay | ing expressed desire for roasted pea : nuts.
 l Next morning she gets some of that
 cocoanut fiber and stays in her house