The New York herald., 1922-09-17

lavish on commonplace people time which
should be spent in writing"
VARIOUS anecdotes. One day w. S.
Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan fame
was talking to some friends at the Gar
rick Club, and the eternal discussion
came up as to who wrote Shakespeare.
"I'll tell you how to prove the authorship
of the plays" said Gilbert. "If Tree re-
cited Hamlet at the graves of Bacon al d
Shakespeare, the one who tur- in h..
grave would be the author of the PLAYS"
Many years ago Coventry Patmore wrote
The Angel in the House." in which was
related an incident where the young
bridegroom sees his wife's shoestring
unfastened and is too shy to tie it for
her. No less parsonage than Swinburne
wrote parody of 1.-The Angel in the
House. in which the husband is pre-
sented with son and, on being informed
of 1t blythe nurse, hesitates on the thresh-
old of his wife's room. Then the young
mothers voice is heard happily exclaim-
ing: "Confound your modesty! Come in.
|nNE chapter in Mr.. Burgin's book is
~ entitled How Well Known Authors
Began to Write" which is made up of
contributions from various scribes. Mr..
Leonard Merrick tells that the first
money that he earned with his pen came
from Tit-Bits-16 shillings and 4 pence
for paragraph called What Do Women
Eat?" He estimated that Tit.Bits would
be worth about f40 year to him after
that He began to feel himself really
and truly literary man when he con-
tributed 5000 word story to another
paper for shillings and pence. 1t was
proud day when the editor sponta-
neously raised him to 10 shillings for
other stories. Conan Doyle began to
write at school, editing magazine of
Bolshevist tendency. Then he wrote the
prize poem. His first money earned was
I'll for translating an article about gas
meters for some Scotch technical paper
Then he received three guineas from
Chdmbers's Journal for the story called
THE Sassassa Valley"
THAT was in 1879, and Conan Doyle
L continues: "There was hiatus then
but | wrote lot which, happily, never
appeared. Then l had four or five short
stories, also very crude, in London So
ciety, which was edited by Mr.. Hogg.
He claimed the whole copyright, and
brought out a book of these later, much
to my horror, but it has, | hope. died
from its own internal defects l also got
into Temple Bar, All the Year Round and
finally Cornhill, but during eight or nine
years of work | never, at my best, made
ESQ in any year. Then | wrote my prem
lice novel, The Firm of Girdlestone,' very
melodramatic, but no one would touch it.
Then Micah Clarke accepted by Andrew
Lang after much turning down. Then
two short books on Sherlock Holmes,
which made no mark at all at the time.
Finally The White Company which
really cleared the road for me. l was 30
when | wrote it. After that came the
Sherlock Holmes stories"
| Jeffrey FARNOL believes that his
- ambition to write began when as a
very small boy he used to listen for
hours while his father read aloud, and
in that way absorbed Cooper, Thackeray,
Dickens, Scott, Dumas and Stevenson
At the age of II he was apprenticed to a
| firm of engineers in Birmingham and by
them returned to his parents with the
l cnmmant nNn onnd for wnrIz-a lwa vc