The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1918-09-22


from writing to make money was very wrong
thing for him to do. Far from having wicked
motive he had highly crcditabe motive which
docs not excuse him in the least. His praseworthy
purpose was TO write the best that in him for
the sake of giving pleasure to the widest possible
number of his readers There does not seem to be
much doubt that he has done it. those who most
disapprove of him will hardly deny that the vast
sales of his half hundred stories incontestabe
evidence Of his in his aim. But what is the
result' On every hand he is msjudged and con
demned. He is accused of acting on the right
motive which is called wrong He is not blamed,
as he should be, tor acting on wrong motive, which
would if understood have been called right! What
he should have done, of course. to write sanely
and consistently TO make money, as AMELIA BARR
has always written. Mrs BARR is not victim of
widespread contemporary injustice and Mr.. CHAM
BEERS is and will remain so.
Take another illustration Mr.. WINSTON
CHURCHILL. One of the ablest living American
novelists he has gone wrong that it cannot hon.
estly be supposed he will ever 60 right again. His
earlier novels were not only delightful but actually
important His later novels are intolerabe. In
such novel as The inside of the Cup Mr.. CHURCH
Ill. is not writing with the honorable and matter
course object of selling large number of copies
and getting an income from them; he is writing
with the dishonorablc and unavOwed object of set
ting certain ideas before you the contemplation of
which will in his opinion do you good. He wants
leading strings to his w"althie5t parshioner. As
fact there is no horror in such situation and Mr..
CHURCHILL cannot conjure up any There is no
horror, there only two fools. Now if man Is
a fool he's fool he cannot become anything else,
least of all "A sensible clergyman in thrall
TO a rich individual of his congregation is fool;
and to picture him as painfully emancipating him.
self and becoming not only sensible but, as 1T were,
heroic is to ask us to accept a contradiction IN
terms For fool is not a man who lacks sense, but
a man who cannot acquire sense. Not even mira
Gle can make him sensible; if it could there would
be no trouble with The Inside of the Cup for a
miracle, being as G. X CHEsTERToN says merely an
exceptional occurrence will always be acquiesced
in by the intelligent reader.
And Now for the Reasons Why.
1t would be possible to continue at great length
giving examples of authors who have gone wrong
and specifying the fifty seven varieties Of ways
they have erred. But the mere enumeration of
fallen authors is terribly depressing and quite use
less IL we are to accomplish any good end We must
try to find out why they have allowed themselves
to be deceived or betrayed and what can be done
in the shape of rescue work preventive effort in
the future. Perhaps we can reclaim some of them
and guide others Alright
After a consideration Of cases-we shall not clog
the discussion with statistics and shall confine our
selves to general results-we have been led by all
the evidence to the conclusion that the principal
trouble is with the authors. Little none of the
blame for the unfortunate situation rests on their
readers Indeed in the ma jority of eases the read
ers are the great and unyielding force making for