Evening star., 1918-06-16

@TEvENsoN was still alive when
( says, stories, novels, poems and
- dramas. The master who sat at
fhe big desk facing the big school
4oom, to watch, to correct. had moth
ing to do with the matter. He was
but the master OF earthly things,
whereas the mastership that Steven
Son had over John Paul was of the
fpirit. That Stevenson was the great
est fighter of the century had already
leaked into the world from his sick
toom. And it was well known that
when the doctors gave him but a
week to live he was ready to begin a
folio.
John Paul, being Of prodigiously
tough body and enterprising diges-
: tion, could not hope to emulate his
pnaster's grim struggles with disease,
but the lesson. after all, was no richer
for the sick than for the healthy. It
Is as hard to sit still and compose
when you want to play as to sit up
blind with pain and weakness.
John Paul was fourteen years old
when he resolved to be writer and
began his long imitation of Stevenson.
But John Paul's was a virtuous tmi.
tation. 1t was never his ambition to
steady application Of stevensonian
methods and courage to arrive some
day at style of his own. To subject
matter he barely cast a thought in
those early days of his apprentice
ship. 1t was style that he was after,
M nd ha
coordination of parts. He would
swallow a book as completely and al
most as quickly as you may swallow
an oyster, and thereafter for innu-
merable hours and over innumerable
sheets Of paper would set down innu-
and aptnesses in which his author
scanned most to excel He learned to
mimic Thackeray and Dickens with
laughable neatness and dispatch: the
less eonvincingly the elusive Haw.
thorne; his own good master, Steven.
SON: Poe, Bret Harte and French De
Maupassant.
/ do not wish to advance that John
Paurs imitation possessed more than
naas. They were exercises. like the
finger work which your virtuoso must
go through with in his teens il ever
he Is to make his instrument sing like
a bird or roar like a storm.
John Paul was never going to be
virtuoso Of letters "a little bird, not OF
the singing kind, often whispered as
much in his ear), but he was going to
be lively imitation of one, or die for
it. 1t might be that only the most
carefully chosen in the highest places
would know the difference, or even
critic, would be the first to find him
ont. Il will do" wrote John Paul in
his teens, "the very best that is in me
to do. Who cares if the monument
that shall erect tumble? Not !. For
I shall have done a mans work in a
world that is often clamorously con-
tented with less"
Stif words for a boy of seventeen
with an enterprising digestion.
When John Paul passed his exami-
nations for college he returned thanks
to his great gift for swallowing books
studied, except that which for a pre-
ternaturally serious and humorless
year or two he was pleased to call
(to himself alone) his art" Nor did
the broader appeal Of the college en-
tice him. He swallowed little Greek.
a little mathematics, a little philoso-
ply, because he was a natural-born
swallower; but. for the most part, he
kept steadily. almost virtuously, along
the narrow, up-climbing path of let
ters which he had chosen. In class and
out he wrote and he read.
The profound disinclinatien Of John
Paul for study and the attending of
classes was presently brought to the
notice of the dean. He sent for John
Paul, and. after reading the young
mans character (from Aaron to
Xerxes, as ]. p. himself said after
ward), with one of those swift upward
glances for which he was famous,
showed a set of teeth surprisingly
white and even to be in the midst of
SO time-worn face.
II have your word for it," said the
really working at something"
"You shall have proof of IT," said
John Paul.
'I shall be obliged" ..
But the dean was not obiiged-at
first. Indeed, certain dangerous fires
flashed from his eyes, when, on re-
turning to his modest house.. he found
his neat front hall completely disor-
dered by the presence of three -four
barrels. filled to the brim with manu-
scripts in John Paufs neat, illegible
hand. But the dean ran out Of fuel;
the fires died in his eyes. He showed
his teeth. he smiled. and then he
laughed a great roaring Homeric
laugh, and. dining that night with the
emeritus dean of the law-school, he
told the story and the story spread.
In his professors John Paul detected
q new and gratifying twinkle Of ap-
probation One day crossing the cam
pus fSR came faco to face with the
president and the professor of COM
Darative biology. This one. who knew
John Paul. whispered to the other.
Hats were not being worn that winter
and, in order to salute the great men,