The sun., 1918-09-29


take perfectly fresh and perfectly illustrative
example of how not to write fiction We shall take
the case of Mr.. OWEN JOHNSON and his new novel,
Tirtuous Wives
Mr. JOHNSON will be suspected by the dense and
conventional censors of American literature of hav-
ing written VItu0us Wires TO make money Alack-
aday, no! If he had much better book might
have come from his typewriter. Mr.. JOHNSON was
not thinking primarily of money as he should have
been (prior to the actual writing of the story He
was filled with a moral and uplifting aim. He had
been shocked to the by the spectacle of the
lives led by some New York women--the kind ALICE
DUER MILLER writes discreetly about. The partic-
patton of America in the war had not begun. The
performances of an inconsiderable few were unduly
conspicuous Mr.. JOHNSON decided to write novel
that would hold up these disgusting trfers land
worse) to the scorn of sane and decent Americans
He set to work. He finished his book 1t was
serialized in one of the several magazines which
have displaced forever the old Sunday school
library in the field of Awful Warming literature
In these forums Mr.. GA1swoRTHY and GoUvERNEuR
MORRIS inscrbe our present day chronicles of the
ScHOENBERG- CoTTA family, and writ large over
their nstalments, as part of the editorial burb we
read the expression of fervcnt belief that Vice
has never been Powerfully, Brilliantly and Con-
vincngly Depicted in All It's Horror by ANY Pen
But we divagate
Mr.. JOHNSON S novel was printed serially and ap-
peared then as book with solemn preface-the
final indecent exhibition, outside of the story ITSELF
of his serious moral purpose And book it is
failing utterly of its purpose. 1t has sold and is
selling and Mr. JOHNSON is making and will make
money out Of (which is what he did not want.
What he did want he made impossible when he I'M
masked his great aim.
The world may be perverse, but you have to take
it as it is. The world may be childish but none
of will live to it grow up. If the world thinks
you write with the honest and understandable OBJ
jcct of making living it attributes no Interior
motive to you. The world says: John SMITH, the
butcher sells me beefsteak in order to buy Mrs.
SMITH new hat and the little SMITHS Shoes" The
world buys the steaks and relishes them. But if
JOHN SMITH tells the world and his wife every time
they come to his shop: 81 selling you this large
juicy steak to give you good red blood and make
you Fit then the world and his wife resentful
and say: 1--WE think we don't like your large,
juicy steaks. We are red blooded enough to have
own preferences. We will just go on down the
street to the delicateSSen-we mean the Liberty
food shop-and buy del ohenzollernized
frankfurters, the well known Liberty sausage. To
hell with the Kaiser.'' And so JOHN SMITH merely
makes money. Oh, yes, he makes money; large,
juicy steak is a large, juicy steak no matter how
deadly the good intent in selling it. But JOHN
SMITH is defeated in his real purpose. He does not
furnish the world and his wife with the red cor
puscles he yearned to give them.
Can Man Serve Two Masters?
At this juncture we seem to hear exasperated
cries of this character: What do you mean by
saying that an author must write for money first
and last and yet must have a stern moral purposeY
How can the two be reconciled? Why must he
think of money until he begins to write and never
after he begins to write? We understand why the
moral object must not obrude itself, but why need
il be there at all9''
Can man serve two masters? Can he serve
money and morality? Foolish question No. 1891
He not only can but he always does when his work
is good.
A painter-a good painter-is a man who burns
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