Life — December 27, 1906 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

K more to be deplored is the number of marital shipwrecks among the rising generation of literary folk. In each case the trouble seems to be that both husband and wife were afflicted with the artistic temperament. Both wrote, or one wrote and the other painted or played or went in for the art crafts. So long as one member of the firm is possessed of common sense and the domestic instinct there is every chance that the fire will continue to bum brightly on the family hearth. A certain clever young novelist has a lawyer for a husband. His fife is given over to hard work and adoration of his wife. She also works hard and cheerfully acceptshishomage. They are not domes- tic, but theyare busy and they are happy. ‘The situation is reversed in the case of a popular writer and lecturer whose society wife seems ever a little jealous of her husband’s fame. When he has done a book she insists on seeing it through the press and generally making the pub- lisher’s life a burden to him. When her husband lectures she likes to sit in the front row, and she has been known to interrupt him in the midst of his dis- course to a distinguished audience, triumphantly to make a small correction as to fact. This couple also are not domestic. They are both busy, as will have been seen, but one doubts if they are both happy. One expects to find eccentricities in men of genius, but it is deplorable to see the parental p» bilities of healthy men and women wasted on art with a small a, The Latest Ananias Club HE Roosevelt Ananias Club is an organization of states- men who have failed tointer- pret satisfactorily the Presi dential utterances, and who have vainly imagined their version and recollection of Roose- veltian hints, requests, commands, con- versations and other vocal memoranda had equal weight with those of the Exalted Rough Rider. The club is in- creasing rapidly, its latest addition being Bellamy Storer, who joins the body with reluctance, protest and publicity. Not every man is eligible for membership in this Senate of Prevarication. A proba- tionary period covering intense Presi- dential friendship, vows of devotion, pledges of loyalty and intimate corre- LDPE spondence is the first stage; discussion, declamation, denunciation, disruption and dismissal follow; and then—the club. If unwary the new member may seck documents; if wise, obscurity. The administration affidavit men, Cortelyou and Loeb, discourage pertinacity with press and pressure. Mr. Storer’s membership is based on Treland, the Vatican and a cardinal’s hat Treland and the red hat are as prolific of trouble as France and the bonnet-rouge. “A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair” R.S.WEIR MITCH- ELL is almost a well known as a specialist in nervy ous di sas he is as the author of the best historical novel this country has produced. Not long ago he had occasion to pass sentence upon a society woman suffering with nervous prostration. He talked with her a few moments, then scrawled a line to the head physician of a sanatorium, and dismissed her. His prescription was brutally brief. He had merely written, “Put ten pounds on this woman.” A light service it would seem for what was probably a heavy fe vet i meant everything. It meant a period of normal living, it meant utter detachment from all social life—eating the right thing and sleeping at the right time. It meant, in a word, relaxation of body and mind A pitiless diagnosis of the modem 819 novel too often reveals under the surface smartness of style its essential flabbiness. How well Dr. Mitchell's prescription fits the case! To give substance to his book the author must go through a period of d tachment and sustained effort. He must dwell on the heights of Parnassus in solitude and contemplation. But he doesn’t—not in th What the afternoon-tea habit is to the society woman the insidious short story is to the aspiring novelist. With the multiplication of machine-made maj zines there has been created an unlimited demand for machine-made stories. The siren voices of a host of editors softly caroling “We pay five cents a word— Have you heard, have you days! is enough to drown the plunk sweetest lyre a muse-inspired: man ever played upon. To the popular writer a short stor sold means a fur-lined « vercoat; and six of them, a six-cylinder motor-car. In these days only the financially inde pendent can afford the luxury of writin novels. There was a time when starving ina garret was considered proper prepara- tion for a work of genius. But that was before Grub Street was bitten with the microbe of Socialism. « A Charge to Keep He Has D. ought not to be criticized.” “10H Why not 2” “Hasn't he always been faithful to his trust 2” TAKING THE CONSEQC ENCES comicbooks.com