The Nome daily nugget., 1916-11-25

Of ten scare them all away especially in the sprlng tune when they are wild. and if the man had been so ravenous a he was described he would have aeten the first hirt he Elled h fact the man-cid eat a bind hnr not untl hs. bad -kalled nIns- Lo1don ruined c story otherwlse Hawkes. by making his hero do the impossible.
 AS We understand IL, fiction deals with characters that do not necessar- fly exist but could exist. They are humanly possible. And so with th, lhings the characters do in fiction: the things may not have been done bul they are possible of accomplishment. When the characters are unreal and the deeds impossible it is not fiction but just plain lying. The sea captain who told about his horse that could run forty miles in forty minutes was not story teller but liar and his tale was received with amusement: and ridicule instead of rapt attention
 In "The Barrier Rex Beach had one of his characters do something which so lar as We know has never been done but which could be done and all Alaskans will agree that the incident was described without 8 false note. One Of the characters wanted to pun ish the villain by in1hcting a horrible death so he led him bAndIoIded into d dense patch Of high willows oa the Yukon flats and stripped him naked and left hin for the mosquitoes 70 Kill. He must have had a horrible death, the author makes one feel Here was a thing that had never happened put II Was true nevertheless. The reader felt II was true. If Beach had left hlm there Tor snakes or :aran- tulas to ena hIs he u would have been untrue, for so such creatures Duncnes or bananas.
 The purpose of the fiction writer wIln lraI.s so real that the readers recognizes them as true. and to create the scenery, houses, animals and &C., ton so trutmuAy that they will be known a3 endrely possible. A very rIcn man mIgnt conceiyaoly live in a house oI gold. A story oealng with some maraJah of India might contain such house and no: strain the cred- ulty or the reaQer. But should on author describe q sultan palace as DeIng hewed out of q single pearl the story could not be chased as fiction. It might be a fairy tale or fable or just plain lie, but not fiction.
 For the last year or :wo one of the great American weeklies has been prInung from time to time tales ot Alaska The author came to Alaska to get material and the fairy tales he has written were accepted and i praised by the editor who sent him l ana are doubtless read by many peo- | pie. These stories are dashing stories ! about real men. The characters are action are nothing short of ridiculous | The unIortunate author Che will be | such il we ever get him in a smoking | room on a long voyage) simply took his characters from life and his ac- llon from hIs unlnstructed imagna- ton. Every story rings false to Al- sskans from beginning to end but to those not knowing the country they must seem to be excellent tales. An example of the uareality of this writ ers work may be gwen. A river steamer Is wrecked on the upper Yu- kon in the fall when the ice Is run ming heavily. The author wants to send three men up river a ways so he has them lash two matches to- gether and pole them against the cur rent of the Yukon which Is jammed from shore to shore with thick ice. Think of it. against the Yukon run of ice and In mid stream at thati And those two matches as well; The author had been reading sea tales probably where hatches were used as rafts for the hero and heroine. The Title matches on @ river boat wouldn't bstr up child. Nor could they be polad, lowed. pushed or in any other way conducted up stream against that flow of ice.
 Such impossibilities as this mar the pleasure derived from fiction. When the editors are coaversant wi:h the scenes portrayed such unrealities do not often get by. But Alaska Is ao