Sinclair Lewis

“ Is it not humorous that one should keep up discipline now, when the question that would console all noble beings for having to live is wavering in solution in my mind-hanging or suicide— a splendid hanging, under the fresh morning clouds, kicking at the banal sky in an ecstasy of torture—or suicide at midnight, alone, palsied by the funereal fog of Mother Neva?' Ivan Nicholaievitch went sadly out and closed the door. ”

“ Mr. Brown could always be depended on for tea at Mrs. Saffron's.
He may have dreamed of Ysetta's pale pure face, framed in an oval by her corn-colored hair, but that does not imply that he still desired to be her private worm, ready to be trod upon at all hours. He was beginning to feel that he, too, was a person with a Soul, and that he would free the same or bust something.
At which dangerous period in the history of Mr. Brown's soul, was published Dementia, the first complete novel of Zuprushin. ”

“ James Jouse, was the only modern who could appreciate Zuprushin.
Mr. Brown suddenly realized that he wasn't being paid by the Inland Lumber Company to stand Mr. Jouse. He interrupted:
"Strikes me that this Zuprushin is simply a fad."
Mr. Jouse came to a thunderous halt. He looked Mr. Brown all over. The Jouse fans began to snicker. Mr. Brown felt uncomfortable.
"Ah?" said Mr. Jouse. "It is very amusing to get the Typical American Business Man's opinion of a great spirit like Zuprushin. I take it that you are a business man." ”

“ She took him into a room which resembled Northernapolis of 1890. There were chairs, easy-chairs of the dragonhead school, and an enormous soap-coupon leather rocker. There were six pictures of Saffron relatives on the wall, and the relatives did not look like Hobohemia. Side whiskers and moral bangs.
"This is the first room I've felt at home in since I hit New York," sighed Mr. Brown. "But how come that you, the girl that sent out the first mobilization order for the free spirits and the economically independent women, have a room like a jolly old parasite woman back home?" ”

“ Brown waded into the sample literature. By twelve, he believed that he had mastered the mechanism of the three forms of art.
He saw that vers libre was exactly like advertising, except that usually it was not so well done. The rules were the same—short snappy stuff, breaking away from old phrases, getting a unified impression. Now Mr. Brown had written advertisements. He remembered his masterpiece: "Who is the bugaboo man who flags you every time you dream of the Little Cottage for Two? It's your local builder!! Let us bully him for you, so you'll get what you want, old top! ”

“ It's not that it was wicked—I think the Zuprushin stories were big, even if you did write them. But how dared you make a mock of this pathetic yearning of the young literary world? What if they are bad and mad, as you say?—though they really aren't; they're just a bunch of youngsters, without much money, being happy together. It's only the madness of burning youth. ”

“ Brown's simple-hearted translation of "Down with the men."
In two stories in Direct Action, Mr. Zuprushin used the word "katanthropos," and in an article in Psycho he came out flatfooted and said what he thought about katanthropos. He pointed out that among the lower animals, though the males might be showier than the females, they were merely parasites; and he suggested, with that powerful irony of his, that in our own human experience men certainly are the most complete dubs that can be imagined, and, therefore, women must be better. ”

“ Brown heard comments on them every time he went to the Café Liberté, to Mrs. Saffron's or to Ysetta's. He would in a very few weeks be able to tell Ysetta the truth, and take her back to Northernapolis without being spiritually henpecked.
There was only one trouble in regard to Zuprushin. He had no one theory of life which the Hobohemians could grasp and talk about. Something could be done along the line of feminism. You could always get a hearing in Hobohemia by discovering a new way of repeating that women were the equals of men. Then why not declare that women were the superiors? ”

“ Brown's notion of a real entertainment was to go home, play his own records on his own phonograph for half an hour and go to bed.
He met almost every well-known writer and artist in America—and the sight considerably saddened him. He got used to asking "Who's that meechin' jack rabbit of a man over there drinking tea with his chin and talking about his lumbago?" and hearing the horrified reply: "Why, that's the most famous writer of cow-puncher stories in America!" ”

“ Brown had made for lumber companies in his early days. There was the same serious attention to dull details, the same heaviness of style, and the same pessimism about the writer's salary.
Mr. Brown chortled.
"It's just as I guessed. The reason why these guys get away with literature is because no business man has taken the trouble to go in and buck them. Oh, it's a shame to take the money."
He telephoned to Bill Hupp, at the office. "Say, Bill, if you don't mind, will you start sneaking in some press stuff about a Russian realistic novelist named Zuprushin?" ”

“ New York has spoiled me. I wouldn't be satisfied to marry a normal, sensible Northernapolis girl. Dog-gone it, I'm getting so I actually like to talk about these authors, even if it's only to knock them. And if you won't marry me well, Mrs. Saffron will!"
"What! The cat! The traitor! Jane Saffron is the worst intriguer in town! Why, that woman tried to steal Max Pincus off me, till she found I didn't really like him. Then she lost interest. Now she wants to steal you! Dennis Brown, if you dare to try to marry that petticoated politician, I'll—I'll—oh, I'll—"
"Yes, honey dear! ”

“ He's an immoral old hound. Primeval brute. His latest novel is a cheery thing called Dementia."
"I get him. But what's the idea?"
"We'll write his novels for him. Bill, you listen to me: Inside of two months we'll have every highbrow in New York talking about Zuprushin. From what you tell me, these New York littery gents don't have time to read any of these foreign authors—they're too busy talking about them. They don't even buy the books. That's done by the nice little old maids that overhear the talk. ”

“ Vaudeville teams used it, and sob-squad newspaper women asked their readers to write in what they thought about it; cartoonists began to make fun of it—to spell it "catanthropos" was always knockdown humor; ministers denounced it; a Boston women's club defended it; a prominent anti-suffragist blamed it on the suffragists, and a suffragist on the antis. Katanthropos was an easy word—once you had learned to accent it on the an and to look superior while you said it—and millions added it to their vocabularies. ”

“ She answered with her eyebrows.
"This is final?"
"Final."
"Then Look, Ysetta; maybe I respect you all the more for the way you gave me the deuce after the Zuprushin affair last night. I—uh—I want your advice before I absolutely decide about going home. Mrs. Saffron said—What do you think of Mrs. Saffron, by the way?"
"She's the best fighter for reform in New York, and awfully sane and understanding and square. If she advises you to go back to Northernapolis, then go." ”

“ Dennis J. Brown sat tapping his teeth with the nail of his right forefinger, beaming idiotically and humming "Oh, Misto Bailey, You're My Ukalele Coon."
XI
HE TOOK Yeetta and Mrs. Saffron to a restaurant guiltless of Hobohemians, after the lecture, and told the inside history of Zuprushin. Mrs. Saffron leaned across the table and raved:
"Oh, you wonderful man! I adore people who can put things across!"
Ysetta sat still—hard, cold, like the statue of a young goddess. She said slowly: "I think you are disgusting! I can see now that the Zuprushin theories are absurd. ”

“ When Bill Hupp returned with a consignment of the latest novelties in high art, Mr. Brown and he planned the first publicity. Bill suggested that Mr. Brown's first name be temporarily changed from Dennis to Denis. The newspapers were to be permitted to run modest notes to the effect that Denis Brown, the distinguished California poet and dramatist, had come to New York to live. Not that Mr. Brown did come from California, but California is a good safe place for geniuses, climate, and election returns to come from. ”

“ Mrs. Saffron turned her back on Mr. Brown, and he was left alone, a child in the dark. On one side of him Ysetta was talking to Max Pincus, the painter, a short, solid young man with a heavy and pasty face. Mr. Brown instantly developed a considerable degree of dislike for Mr. Pincus, who did not talk of landscapes but of Sex, with a capital S and four exclamation points after the word. In his rolling voice Mr. Pincus was assuring Ysetta that free love was the only possible life for a genius. Ysetta was attending meekly, and smiling—with the clear chestnut eyes that Mr. Brown loved—into Mr. ”

“ All next week he read a riming dictionary in the office.
"The old man is up to something," whispered the office force. "Can you beat it—him that always wears two-dollar neckwear coming out with one of those fluffy socialist ties? Betcha a hat he's going out for amateur dramatics."
To Miss Ysetta Robinson, in New York, Mr. Brown was writing long biweekly letters descriptive of the state of his business. Miss Ysetta, in short fortnightly letters, replied that New York was very large, and her instructors in college perfect dears, and had Mr. Brown read the latest novel? Mr. Brown never had. ”

“ Brown, lumberman, and was fully developed by him after reading two articles on biology in the cyclopedia, and asking Mischa Knippensky, translator and scholar, for a couple of good snappy Greek words.
Katanthropos means that men are to women what drones are to the worker bees. ”

“ MR. BROWN left Ysetta's flat at nine thirty to attend a conference with Bill Hupp at the office. He found Mischa Knippensky, the translator, there, unusually sallow and nervous. Mr. Brown looked at him with distaste.
"Say, Denny," said Bill, "we got a letter from the Women's Radical League asking us, as Zuprushin's agents, to get him to come over to this country and lecture. They got a lot of pull too. Sort of a society anarchist bunch." ”

“ He killed his baby sister because she insisted on playing with dolls, which he regarded as a weakness unworthy of the Great Russian Gloom. Whenever he gave the toast "The ladies, God bless 'em!" he always made a slight change in the verb.
Mr. Brown would sit and brood about this hero till he hated him ferociously, then dictate a lucid but not necessarily polished account of him, occasionally referring to Mr. Jasselby's plot for suggestions as to what the lively spalpeen could do next. ”

“ The young man looked up wearily.
"Brother, I want to see the editor."
"Comrade, he is me. It's after hours, but what can I do for you?"
"Shall I make Congress pass your bill, or shall I expose the governor, or do you merely want to sell me a story at three cents a word?"
"Brother, I suspect that you are a regular guy. It is none of them things. I would fain subscribe to your sheet, which I have never seen a copy of; and while you are recovering, I would still fainer get you to accept this poem in vers libre, and you don't have to pay for it. ”

“ Whether I was good or bad, you've seen that I could be a reg'lar Russian genius, if I wanted to take the trouble, and you can't call me a dub again. Come! We can make Northernapolis one live little burg, after knowing Jim Jouse and all the big bugs. ”

“ John Henry says, Gee, I don't hardly know whether that is an automobile or my heart pounding, I got to stop smoking so much, now wouldn't I look like a boob dying of smoker's heart when I could get more publicity by croaking myself or pinching a horse and getting shot up by a deputy. ”

“ Jouse, the Liberté would be in an unfortunate state. He ran away, pursued by the thunder of Mr. Jouse's voice and the lightning of Mr. Jouse's waistcoat. He found a perfectly respectable restaurant, into which he was sure no Hobohemian had ever gone. Pathetically solitary, he ate a Swiss-cheese sandwich, while on the back of a couple of envelopes he wrote the following hate song:
I, Dennis J. Brown—of Northernapolis,
by golly!—do hereby hate and do cuss out, for keeps, all authors of the following classes:
High brainy authors who do scorn and contemn commercialized writing guys. ”

“ My husband sits sodden with a decanter of vodka before him. I gave him the vodka, the dear little father vodka.' Ivan Nicholaievitch kissed her violently. 'You are so strong, so brutal, so wonderful, Ivan Nicholaievitch,' she said. ”

“ Saffron."
"Hoozis? Mrs. Saffron that writes all this Woman-Can-the-Shekels—I mean Shackles—stuff?"
"Yes. She is the leader of the fight for woman's freedom. And such fire! Such wit!"
"Gladmeeter."
"Come for me at seven. And now tell me about those funny pathetic old hexes at the Short Story Club. I wonder if I ever told you about a terribly amusing story called Dora of the Redwoods that Mrs. Fliff wrote? I'll never forget it. ”

“ As Mr. Brown's knowledge of Russian daily life was comparatively slight, except for having once sold an old suit to a Russian Jew in Northernapolis—an incident which had caused him to distrust the whole Tartar race—he wisely laid the scenes of his stories in Northernapolis or New York.
He shipped the product in to Mr. Bill Hupp, who had once been on a newspaper copy-desk and was qualified to put in the adjectives, the spelling and the punctuation. Then it was routed to the latest member of the staff, Mr. Mischa Knippensky. Mr. ”

“ Her finer self had been bound by tradition and bourgeois ignorance, in Northernapolis. And at last she had been in Hobohemia.
Hobohemia is the place and state of being talented and free. It is to be found adjacent to the bar of the Café Liberté. ”

“ Brown and Ysetta, and had witnessed four one-act plays presented by the Hobohemian Players.
Everybody in New York is always delivering something from some shackles, and the Hobohemian Players are an organization for delivering the stage from the shackles of the commercialized managers, and for developing a Native American Drama. ”