Life — August 26, 1915 — page 47: what you’re looking at

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

Thoughts on LIFE’S Short Story Contest (By One of the Readers) l HAVE been reading from this huge pile of manuscripts now for over an hour and suddenly find myself stopping short, unable to go on. My mind has become deadlocked. My sensations are so numerous that I begin to discover amusement and relief in secking to analyze them. My first dominant feeling is one of astonishment and hopelessness that so many of the contestants should have so utterly misconceived the object of the contest. Many stories are crude at- tempts at facetiousness. A tavorite seems to be the phrase “and they lived happily ever afte! Another is the one word “Life,” some accompanying this contribution with the explanation that life is the shortest short story they know anything about. Numerous others send in jokes, epigrams and verses. Still others adopt the telegraphic method, sceming to think that a long string of detached words must be a short story. My next feeling is also one of as- tonishment. It lies in the fact that such a large number of manuscripts are so carelessly written, not the slightest attempt being made, appar- ently, cither to work out a well-con- structed plot or to achieve even a modest measure of literary art. Mis- spelled words, sprawling, illegible hand- writing, the ingenuous slipshodness of the most primitive minds—all this fills me with almost a sense of shame that there should be so many careless people about. Then the platitudinous ones, whose characters “fleck” their ashes from their cigarettes, who “ awake on beauti- ful spring days when all nature re- sponds "—these poor, innocent souls, groping their way through endless platitudes, assembling their contribu- tions from parts of all the other short stories they have read—what can be done about them? But, after all, there is another feel- ing, which is perhaps worth more than all the others, and that is the feeling Thave of intense interest in the search. I am possessed of a wild curiosity which does not abate. Who knows but that the next manuscript may be agem? For just at the moment when T have given up hope the miracle hap- pens. My eye lights upon the opening Here is the sure touch, the c of a true artist, whose method s itself, based on toil, thought, experience and infinite pains. This males all the rest worth while. OSS sense don’t come in th’ colt stage any more than tobacco mildness comes in the raw product. Age-mellowing is best for man an’ tobacco. il” « ATURE alone can bring tobacco to its full hearty ma- turity. And only in her own way, by time. VELVET is the best Kentucky Burley leaf, matured in Nature’s way by ageing for not less than two years. VELVET comes to you —not too young and not too old—but in its pime— cool, mellow, rich, fragrant. Panama - Pacific International Exposi- tion’s highest award—The Grand Prize —has been awarded to VELVET as the best smoking tobacco. Liggalte MyersTebacco Cx 10c Tins Se Metal-lined Bags One Pound Glass Humidors PETER J. CAREY, PRINTER comicbooks.com