Christopher Ward

“ VII Eight years Adam Larey dwelt in the desert, growing daily stronger, finer, purer in its illimitable wilds—the abode of purity, silence and tarantulas. Climbing inaccessible heights, striding over impassable plains, stalking the savage antelope, the impatient grizzly, the querulous bob-cat, he acquired the eye of a mountain-sheep, the ear of a deer, the nose of a wolf and many other trophies of the chase. ”

“ Why, we want to read about the things we know about and understand—about the things of home and business—about business, first and foremost.
“The kind of romance we want is not the romance of two knights in tin armor trying to punch holes in each other’s stomachs, if you will excuse the word, with spears or something or maybe making illicit love—I speak plainly for we must not blink these evils—to some countess, who was maybe already the wife of some lord or duke, as in the bygone days of chivalry, when knighthood was in flower, as the poet says. ”

“ III Adam Larey’s dull eyelids opened on the grim, dim dawn of the zanegrey desert. Before him a wide, barren, endless, bleak, lifeless, silent, desolate plateau—illimitable space and silence and solitude and desolation stretched illimitably to a illimitable horizon—wild and black and sharp—colossal buttresses, chocolate mountain ranges, bare and jagged peaks, silhouetted against the hazel dawn. ”

“ There are too many marriages. There should be many matings, free and frequent. But of marriages, few or none. This is the key to unlock the fetters of civilization. It is Sherwood Anderson’s answer to the riddle of existence, else this book, in which we live, has no meaning. ”

“ Pale, frightened, cowed, those wretched women, who had never had great thoughts, came in. There was John Webster, naked, seated on the top of a dresser, crosslegged, like an obscene Buddha, a lighted candle in each hand. They made for the bed and fell prostrate, burying their faces in the bed-clothes. ”

“ Every evening Maurice played solitaire on a marble-topped table. She put on an old wrapper, let down her hair, made it all nice and stringy with cologne, lay down on the bed and moaned. They were three years married now. He was twenty-two, she was going on for about sixty-six.
“Star, why do you moan?” he asked gently.
“You’re tired of me, Maurice. You don’t love me,” she moaned. “I’m jealous.”
“Of whom,” he inquired.
“Of Edith, of your Aunt Mary, of your stenographer, of our landlady, of the schoolteacher downstairs, of our late cook, of everybody.”
Moan—moan—moan. “Jealousy isn’t a vice. ”

“ My God! woman, you’re heartless.
Gloria: I’m Gloria Goodle—the Speed Girl, Coast to Coast Gloria.
Anthony: Coast to coast!—ashes to ashes! dust to dust! My love is dead.
(Then a thick impenetrable darkness descended on his mind—though you’d hardly notice the difference.)
The Dawning of a Brighter Day At seven-thirty of the same evening, Anthony was sitting on the floor of the front room of his apartment, with three books before him—a child again playing with his stamp-albums—when Gloria and Dick came in.
“Anthony!” she cried, “your grandfather has died and left you a hundred million bucks.” ”

“ There had been a staircase where the ladder stood but, in an access of humility, Claude had slid down the banisters two weeks before. Mistaking his self-effacement for hilarity, his father, laughing heartily, had removed the stairs with an ax. Nat Wheeler was a large easygoing affable man with a strong sense of humor.
It made little difference with the habits of the household. The men used the ladder freely. Mahailey slept in the cellar on a hanging shelf, which Claude had built for her, so that the rats could not get at her. ”

“ Why should I work, making uninteresting washing machines? I will become a writer. Among them I shall not be strange, for there are many nuts among the writers. They write books like this and get away with it. Many people will think this is a deep, philosophical book, that it throws a new and fierce light upon the problems of civilization. ”

“ The wide-awake business man of America began to employ the best writers, to write his ads. These writers dealt with facts, gentleman, facts, in their own inimical style, if I may say so, and the advertising sections of our great American magazines shortly rivaled in interest the stories and other fictional matter, so that it was the common custom of our business men to tear out the advertising section and keep that to read and throw the rest away. ”

“ It is facts we want and not imagination, and I am glad to say that the successful literary writers of to-day, with their ears to the ground, their eyes to the keyhole and their nose to the grindstone, are hearing the stern voice of the people—yea! and heeding it. Imagination has had its day, my friends. It was all very well in those bygone days of yore for an author to depend on his imagination, but it’s different now. ”

“ And, moreover and likewise, the fictitious writers couldn’t keep on writing their imaginative bunk and get away with it. They couldn’t stack up some guff about a raven or a skeleton in armor against the real thing, like the Ginko Cigar or the Jimmy Pipe. If they tried to pull any Rip Van Winkle stuff alongside a smart talk about Hartenheimer’s Morestyle Clothing, the picture of the clean-faced young man—bright-eyed, square-jawed and everything—simply made old Rip look like three mutilated dimes. ”

“ No one, not even he, had ever engendered a skepticism of the value of all activities, rose-tinted but not blue, shining vaguely like a great cloud galleon, whose shrill cry drilled a tiny hole in the ensphering silence. ”

“ We, being of sound mind and in fear of death, do voluntarily make, sign, seal, publish and declare this our last confession:
Dick Livingston is not Jud Clark. He is Fred Gregory. Howard Lucas, Beverly Carlysle’s husband, was not killed by Jud Clark. She was not married to the man Jud Clark killed. It was Fred Gregory. ”

“ I shall do it myself—with the aid of my husband’s column—I, Marie, Countess Zattiany!”
“But, no,” he answered. “Return to Austria as Mrs. Lee Clavering and you’ll be cut by every true-born Austrich. We recognize no one without sixteen quarterings—and a few hangings and drawings.”
“What?” she stared aghast. “Mrs. Lee—? Shall I have to take my husband’s name? Isn’t the Lucy Stone League too powerful——”
“Not in Austria,” he said blandly. “No League whether of Nations or denominations is recognized.” ”

“ Say—‘I’m sorry, Mamma.’”
Lou, the fourth daughter, clad in scarlet tapestry, trimmed with jet chignons and basques of green corduroy, interrupted the conversation.
“Sh-h-h! there’s someone coming up the drive.”
“A man?” they cried in unison.
“I think so.”
“To your stations, girls!” said their mother. “Whose turn is it to-day?”
“Vicky’s,” said Esme reluctantly.
Vicky seized the lasso which hung ready to hand and, clambering through the window, stretched herself prone upon the porch roof, over the front steps. ”

“ Let us contrast for a moment and I will not detain you long, two well-known writers. Take Washington Irwin, for instance, what did he write about? Why it is well known of all men that he wrote about many things that never had actually happened in this broad land of ours nor anywhere else. Take Rip Van Winkle, for instance, all about a disgraceful old bum, who 63soused himself into such a state that he beat his wife—a thing, I am sure, with all due respect, no man here in this audience would be guilty of in public. ”

“ Wheeler suspected that this removal of the stairs was a joke. She had learned that her husband’s humor might wear any guise. But she was old fashioned. She thought it improper either to descend or ascend a ladder, if there were any men below, and as the men always arose before she did and stayed up after her bed-time, she was practically confined to the second floor. ”

“ Edith, their daughter, was eleven. She and Maurice had a wonderful time playing tag and pussy-in-a-corner, while Eleanor sat on the porch with the other old folks and had a wonderful time being jealous of Edith.
“Maurice! don’t get overheated, darling! Look out! you’ll tear your panties and mamma will have to spank. Maurice! come sit by mamma and she’ll show you how to play cat’s-cradle. Maurice, dear! You mustn’t play with that rough, rude tom-boy. Come, let mamma tell you Bible stories.” ”

“ It swept the cabin from its underpinning.
As the mass of rocks bearing the little shack crashed past Adam Larey, the saintly woman leaned far out o’er the window sill and handed him a small photograph.
“Woncefell, the Wanderer,” she said in a low, clear voice, “take it. It is my daughter, 168my child, not Elliott’s. With the clairvoyant truth given to a dying woman, I tell you that you and she will meet. Go find her. And now, I do not know where we’re going but we’re certainly on our way. You’ll excuse my leaving you, won’t you? Her name is Ruth. ”

“ It got to be so good, so full of real American life and everything, that some of it gets printed every week on the page facing the highest priced full page ad in the Saturday Evening Post, and that’s the proudest position in American literature to which any man can aspire to. ”

“ He walked with one foot on the curb and one in the gutter. Up and down he went, as with alternate step he now rose toward heaven on the higher foot, now sank 8toward earth on the lower. It pleased him to walk thus. It seemed to typify the conflict of life, the struggle between the higher and lower natures. Natalie, carrying both bags, wept unceasingly, but inaudibly.
“That is fine,” thought John Webster. “She weeps with dignity. But she walks with both feet on the sidewalk.”
“Come, woman,” he said. “Walk as I do, with one foot in the gutter. That will do for a starter. ”

“ Joseph felt that he was just the cutest little plotter in all Cuba. Oh! it was grand!
⁂ He was in her room when Santaclaus entered, Capitan Santaclaus, one of the rudest of the rude Spaniards.
“You are conspiring against the King, el Rey,” said Santaclaus. “You and your young devotee, little Josie here. You will both be killed. It will be very enjoyable.”
The time had come! Santaclaus, while not the Capitan-General, was notably well equipped for the proper reception of the sacred bullet. Joseph hoisted out the artillery, leveled it, pulled the trigger. Click! Nothing more. ”

“ Then a smart, keen-witted American business man who happened to be editor of one of the magazines saved the situation, so to speak. He saw that literature had got anæmic. It was short on red blood corpuscles. It needed a transfusion of blood.
“So he put the patient face to face and shoulder to shoulder with the real force in American life, the advertisements—made a page ad face a page of so-called literature—cut the stories into strips and put a column ad next to a column of fictional writing. ”

“ So then Natalie was a house, a new thought. Probably other people were houses too; his own wife, perhaps. He must look to see what kind of a house she was. Was she an eligible family residence, suitable for permanent occupancy, or merely a boarding house, to be left at short notice—if one preferred, let us say, a nice little bungalow?
And so there he was on his way home for lunch and an inspection of his wife.
II Yes, both of them, wife and daughter, were houses. Then he himself must be a house. Houses should not wear clothes. He went up to his room and took off all his clothes. ”

“ Evolution is a notoriously slow process. On the other hand, behind that white forehead there may have been merely one full portion of the great cosmic void. Judging her by what she verbally disclosed, her rating under the Binet test was D−.
She was not a well woman. Besides indigestion, she was suffering from another chronic illness, detropitis. She did not know it yet. She had not met Maurice’s other half. She was 12his better half, but Edith was his other half—a very different thing.
Edith and Maurice were fashioned for each other. ”

“ Joseph put his arm, one arm, around her shoulders, not her waist, and kissed her cheek, not her lips—once.
“Lissen,” said he, “love is not for me. You 74know my name. Have you grasped its significance? Read your bible! Moreover,” he continued, “I am devoted to one purpose. I must shoot el Capitan-General in his gold-laced—well—that is—in his gold-laced uniform—yes. And get shot myself in—well—that is a detail, a mere detail. Anyhow, thus shall Cuba be libre.” ”

“ Guerd Larey’s ’live as you be.”
“Do you mean to say,” cried Adam Larey, “that I’ve been expiating Guerd Larey’s death in the desert for seventeen years with sandstorms and tarantulas and everything, and he ain’t dead? This is an outrage! Somebody’ll pay for this!”
“Go easy, young man,” said Merrywell. “Ain’t you been workin’ fer Mr. Zane Grey? Well, don’t you know as Mr. Grey don’t never let his heroes do nothin’ ’at’s really bad?” ”

“ Everybody roared with laughter.
“Oh, well,” said Nicky, “you know, they’re the thing nowadays—unhappy endings—they all do it—call it Realism.”
47 THE VANISHING POINT
With Apologies to
“The Breaking Point” I “Give Elizabeth a kiss for me!” Uncle David called after him, as he left the house.
“David,” said Aunt Lucy, “he’ll never marry Elizabeth until the mystery is cleared up.”
“Nonsense!” said Doctor David. “Donaldson’s dead. Maggie will keep quiet for her own sake. She’s as criminally liable as I am. Beverly Carlysle hasn’t been heard of for years. The Thorwald woman will never tell. ”

“ Tears run down one’s nose and dilute one’s ink. One’s heart——
Look forward then....
146They’re all right now. Huggo in Canada, reformed. So he’s all right now. Rosalie at home, every day, all day, teaches Huggo’s daughter about Jonah. So she’s all right now. Harry say “Mice and mumps” over and over again all day long. So he’s all right now. Doda and Benji still dead. So they’re all right now.
147 CERTAIN PEOPLE OF NO IMPORTANCE
Not By
Kathleen Norris I The Crabtree family is ancient and honorable. Though the beginnings of the American branch are obscure, the family’s origin is undoubted. ”