The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1918-08-25
Our Poet at the Front.

4 \ has a poet at the front In the person or Fri
waite CHARLES DIVINE, author of City Ways and
Company Streets. We are rather proud Of this.
Any one can have a reporter at the front, and
most every does but to have poet at the front
is something else again. DIVINE is, however, a most
excellent reporter also the got his training on The
SUM and We expect his letters from the other side,
publication Of which will begin in Books and the
Book World on September Is, to attract the widest
attention.
On September 8, week before the first Of
DrvINE's letters, We shall publish his first three
poems from overseas. And next Sunday shall
give you on this page isautobiography-the Who's
Who, but of course not the Who's Where.
Konore Willsie
NOTHING is so satisfactory to write about
! novelist with ideas; but in writing about
Mrs HONoRE WnIsIE we shall not discuss her ideas.
1t will be enough to try faithfully to set them be-
fore her thousands of readers and the thousands
who ought tobe her readers, to try to picture Mrs.
WnLsIE herself To discuss intelligently Mrs.
WuIsE's ideas would require a book and an
amount of exact knowledge on certain subjects
immigration and Americanization, for example
that is no part of our reporters equipment.
The spring of 1919 will see the publication of
new novel by Mrs. WnIsIE, The Forbidden Trail,
an exciting story of the Still Jim country, Arizona,
and the irrigable West The novel deals with the
clever efforts of German spies and sympathzers to
appropriate for Germany the discoveries and i'm
provements made by the sturdy Americans OF our
United States Reclamation Service. This theme is
not so completely derived from the war as might
appear at first glance. Readers Of Still Jim will
recall in the closing chapters the visit of Herr
GIUCK to the Cabillo dam and his effort to get JIM
M fbo ne no
ernment-in legitimate way, however. Of the
illegtimate ways in which Germany was then work
ing among American engineers Mrs. WuLsIE is now
free to speak and may be trusted to speak out of
exact knowledge For her husband, HENRY ELMER
WnISE of New York, was an inventor and consult
ing engineer when she was married to him, and with
him she spent two years in the deserts of Arizona
A Transplanted New Highlander.
HoNoRE Wu1sE was born in Ottumwa, Iowa, the
daughter of WILLIAM DUNBAR McCUE and LILLY
BRYANT HEAD MCCUE and descendant of old
New Englanders who went West, the people who
form the important background of Still Jim and
L,,dia of the Pines She is bachelor of arts of the
University of Wisconsin and was married soon
after her graduation. The two years in the West
followed, and then husband and wife came to New
York, where Mrs. WnLsE devoted herself to the
now:
"A plan, and always keeping your eye on what
you want to be doing in three years or in five years
that is what makes for success for writer.
~ came to New York with the intention of being
a writer l did not want to work on. magazine
or a newspaper And 1 wanted to write what
wanted to write.
81 had sold BOB DAVIS [RoBERT Fl. DAVIS editor
of Munsey's Magasinel little love story called
Beatrice and the Rose. So after few weeks in New
Work went to see him with bundle of stories
wanted him to buy. He looked them over and shook
his head.
"'Do me something else like Beatrice and the
Rose and / IL take it., he said.
al don I want to 90 on writing stuff like that,
explained If that 8 the best can do I'll give
up writing altogether
'''But nobody wants TO read about these deserts
and glowing sunsets. There is only one man in
New York who will read about deserts-THEoDoRE
DRESSER
"'An right, decided, Il will go to see THEo