The Washington herald., 1920-06-26

" bama to write fiction. The
Southern papers had printed
eight Of his stories under an edi-
3torial caption Identifying the au-
thor as the son of ''the gallant
Maj Pettingill Petit. our former
county attorney and hero of the
battle of Lookout Mountain"
Petit was a rugged fellow. with
a kind of shame-faced culture.
and my good friend. His father
kept a general store In a little
town called Hosea. Petit had
been raised in the pine-woods and
broom sedge fields adjacent there
to. He had In his gripsack two
manuscript novels Of the adven-
lures in Picardy OF one CASTOR
Laboulaye, Vicompte de Montre-
pos. in the year 1929. That's moth
ing. We all do that. And some
day when we make q hit with the
little sketch about 4newsy and
his lame dog, the editor prints
,Ithe other one for us-or "on us"
as the saying is-and then-and
then we have to get a big valise
and peddle those patent air-draft
gas burners. At S1.25 everybody
should have 'em.
1 took Petit to the red-brick
house which was to appear in an
article entitled Literary Lana
marks of Old New York." some
day when we got through with II.
He engaged q room there, draw
ing on the general store for his
expenses. showed New York
to him, and he did not mention
- how much narrower Broadway Is
than Lee avenue in Hosea. This
seemed a good sign, so I put the
final test
Suppose you try your hand at
a descriptive article" I suggest
ed. giving your impressions OF
New York as seen from the
Brooklyn Bridge. The fresh point
of view. the
Don't be a fool" said Petit.
Let's go have some beer. On the
whole I rather like the city"
We discovered and enjoyed the
only true Bohemia. Every day
and night we repaired to one of
those palaces Of marble and glass
and tilework. where goes on .
tremendous and sounding epic OF
life. Valhalla itself could not be
more glorious and sonorous. The
classic marble on which we ate.
the great, light-fooded. vitreous
front. adorned with snow-white
scrolls; the grand Wagnerian din
of clanking cups and bowls, the
flashing staccato of brandishing
cutlery. the piercing recitative or
, the white-aproned grub-maidens
at the morgue-like banquet ia
bles; the recurrent lied-motif OF
the cash-register-it was gi-
gantic. triumphant welding of art
and sound, a deafening. soul-up-
lifting pageant of heroic and en-
blematic life. And the beans were
only ten cents. We wondered
why our fellow artists cared to
di-s at sad little tables in their
~ I'd Bohemian restaurants:
a. shuddered lest they should
seek out our resorts and make
! them conspicuous with their
presence.
Petit wrote many stories,
which the editors returned to him.
He wrote love stories, a thing I
have always kept free from. hold
. ing the belief that the WELL
known and popular sentiment is
: not properly a, matter for publi-
cation. but something to be pri-
= vately handled by the alienists
and florists But the editors had
told him that they wanted love
stories. because they said the
, women read them.
Now. the editors are wrong
about that. of course. Women do
not read the love stories in the
magazines. They read the poker
game stories and the recipes for
cucumber lotion. The love stories
are read by fat cigar drummers
and little ten-year-old girls. l
am not criticising the Judgment
Of editors. They are mostly very
fine smen. but a man can; be but
one man. with individual opinions
and tastes. 1 knew two associate
. editors of a magazine who were
wonderfully alike in almost ev-
erything. And yet one of them
was very fond of Flaubert, while
the other preferred gin.
Petit brought me his returned
. manuscripts and we looked them
: over together to find out why they
were not accepted. They seemed
to me pretty fair stories. written
in a good style. and ended. as
they should, at the bottom of the
. last page.
They were we'll constructed and
; the events were marshalled in or
derby and logical sequence. But
thought 1 detected a lack of liv-
ing substance-it was much as IL
L gazed at a symmetrical array
of presentable clamshells from
which the succulent and vital in
habitants had been removed
intimated that the author might
do we'll to get better acquainted
with his theme.
You sold story last week"
said Petit. about a gun fight in
an Arizona. mining town in which
the hero drew his Colts AS and
shot seven bandits as fast as
: they came in the door. Now, IL
a sfx-shooter could"
"Oh. WELL" said I. that's differ
ent. Arizona is long way from