Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1921-03-22
articles printed In tho daily press.
Comes another article which. IL II wan
written as the climax 10 n Harold Me-
Grath thriller. would he declared absurd.
improbable. and untrue 10 life.
Itoad the following. which appeared
yesterday:

I
Rond the following. which appeared
yesterday:
Columbus. ohio, March 2o---Lem-
uol Gary, district superintendent of
large life insurance company, yea
terday sat In "A meeting of under
writer's. listening To n male chorus
composed of convicts from the Ohio
penitentiary. In the prison uni
form was young man named
William Gary. Friends of the In
surance man began commenting on
the likeness of his name with that
of the convict, They called the
convict down from tho stage.
There was an instant recognition
by the insurance man. of a son; by
tho convict. of "a father. Rising tn
his feet, the father introduced tho
convict To the audience. Hayiug he
had not seen hls son for fourteen
years.
AZ n closing number young Gary.
with his arm linked in that of his
father, sang Dear old Daddy" and
there was not dry eye in tho audi
enco. This ia the happiest day of
my life.' said the father.
Young Gary, sentenced from
Cleveland for automobile theft. viii
be released from prisbn I'm April
The truth is that many of our most
popular writer's. whose novels we read
and whose plays we soc. gain their plots
from the life. Perhaps that is why we
are inclined 10 say that their stories
are untrue, because truth In stranger
than fiction. Jack London admitted,
several years before his death that bis
beat plots had been gained from read
ing the daily newspapers Charles
Klein. who wrote THE Lion and the
Mouse" and other popular plays, had
a method Of his own I'm securing plots.
which proved very efficient.
Day after day Klein would clip news
"storiea." like the above. and pin them
on the wall of his study. Then he
would stand before the clippings, and
muse for hours. trying to get an oriRi
nal idea based on one of the true hap
penings. Eventually the dav would
come when he would secure full
fedged plot from one of the idea g.
posted He would place that ono on his
desk. brush the others from the wall.
and hegtn work. In Few months, AZ
the most. he would have completed one
Of his thrilling plays founded on the
life.
Emile yoia had system which was
somewhat eimilar, which he used In
writing hia novels. He was an avid
reader of the newspapers. and when
they chronicled. say. the suicide Of
Young woman In the Seine, he would
make an investigation cf her life. Boon
or or later another woman would com
n,lt suicide In the same way. lie would
Investigate her ufe when he had done
thss nv. or sir timer he would evolve.
for his heroine In the novel to-he,
philosophy baaed on the actions of those
persons He would reason that under
given net Of circumstances. a woman or
a man Of a certain calihre could b~ do
pended upon 20 do given thinH. He
claimed that his metbcd was the spoth
COSTS Of realism.
The trouble with our novel'Hta and
playvriEhts is not that they write i'm
probable things. but that tho majority
Of them lack the power 20 make the
truth convincing. Take a rlot. such aa
the one used in Conrad's The Arrow
Of Gold" which ia known TO he based
on an actual incident In Conrad'H
hands. the nelodrama Of II seems
natural Nothing is improbable. But tho
same plot. handled hy ono Of our best
Saturday Evening Post writer's. would
no doubt seem "a wild and fantastic as
a lovers day dream When art
mirrors nature without distortion we
must admit that truth 10 stranger than
fiction.