Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

“ To one who is thoroughly familiar with a method the whole process is so clear that he forgets how necessary it is to describe every step to readers unfamiliar with it. The omission of a single point may make it impossible for the reader to understand or to follow the directions. Although a writer need not insult the intelligence of his readers by telling them what they already know, he may well assume that they need to be reminded tactfully of many things that they may have known but have possibly forgotten. ”

“ College culture, I soon discovered, does not care about what is happening to the world, but what used to happen to it.
"You see, my dear," Carl explained, with that quiet, casual manner so puzzling to pious devotees of "cultureine"—and even to me at first, though I adored and soon adopted it! "—universities don't lead thought—they follow it. In Europe institutions of learning may be—indeed, they frequently are—hotbeds of radicalism; in America our colleges are merely featherbeds for conservatism to die in respectably." ”

“ Every one knows the sense one gains at times while watching an ingenious machine at its work—a sense of being in the presence of a living and conscious thing, with more than the industry, the pertinacity, the dexterity, of a man. There was a moment, while watching Brennan's car, when one had to summon an effort of reason to do away with this sense of life ”

“ In analyzing a newspaper or magazine in order to determine the type of reader to which it appeals, the writer should consider the character of the subjects in its recent issues, and the point of view from which these subjects are presented. Every successful periodical has a distinct individuality, which may be regarded as an expression of the editor's idea of what his readers expect of his publication. To become a successful contributor to a periodical, a writer must catch the spirit that pervades its fiction and its editorials, as well as its special articles. ”

“ In the grind of human intercourse all manner of curious, heroic, delightful things turn up, and for the most part, are dismissed in a passing note. Behind every such episode are human beings and a story, and these, if fairly and artfully explained, are the very stuff of romance. Into every great city men are drifting daily from the strange and remote places of the world where they have survived perilous hazards and seen rare spectacles. ”

“ The transition from the Pioneer to the steel sleeping car of today was not accomplished in a single step. A man does not have to be so very old or so very much traveled to recall the day when the Pullman was called a palace ear and did its enterprising best to justify that title. It was almost an apotheosis of architectural bad taste. Disfigured by all manner of moldings, cornices, grilles and dinky plush curtains—head-bumping, dust-catching, useless—it was a decorative orgy, as well as one of the very foundations of the newspaper school of humor. ”

“ You who begin this sentence may not live to read its close. There is a chance, one in three or four billions, that you will die in a second, by the tick of the watch. The chair upon which you sit may collapse, the car in which you ride may collide, your heart may suddenly cease. Or you may survive the sentence and the article, and live twenty, fifty, eighty years longer.
No one knows the span of your life, and yet the insurance man is willing to bet upon it. What is life insurance but the bet of an unknown number of yearly premiums against the payment of the policy? ”

“ And it may be said for the Pullman car that there, at least, the tip comes to a single servitor—the black autocrat who smiles genially no matter how suspiciously he may, at heart, view the quarter you have placed within his palm.
A quarter seems to be the standard Pullman tip—for one person, each night he may be on the car. Some men give more; some men—alas for poor George!—less. A quarter is not only average but fairly standard. ”

“ It is generally conceded that for one woman who succeeds in the metropolitan newspaper field about ten fail before the vicissitudes of city life, the orders of managing editors, and the merciless grind of the big city's working world. And with those who succeed, what have they more than I? They sign their names to articles; they receive big salaries; they are famous—as such fame goes. Why is a signed name to an article necessary, when everyone knows when the paper comes out that I wrote the article? ”

“ When from many available subjects a writer is about to choose one, he should pause to consider its possibilities before beginning to write. It is not enough to say, "This is a good subject; I believe that I can write an article on it." He needs to look at the topic from every angle. He ought to ask himself, "How widespread is the interest in my subject? How much will it appeal to the average individual? What phases of it are likely to have the greatest interest for the greatest number of persons?" To answer these questions he must review the basic sources of pleasure and satisfaction. ”

“ Men are to travel then on a single rail, in great cars like halls, two hundred feet long, thirty to forty feet wide, whirling across continents at two hundred miles an hour—from New York to San Francisco between dawn and dawn.
Travel will no longer be uncomfortable. These cars, equipped like a hotel, will sweep along with the motion of an ice-yacht. They will not jolt over uneven places, or strain to mount the track at curves; in each one, the weariless gyroscopes will govern an unchanging equilibrium. Trustful Kashmir will advance from its remoteness to a place accessible from anywhere. ”

“ From a purely commercial standpoint, editors are middlemen who buy from producers what they believe they can sell to their customers. Unless an editor satisfies his readers with his articles, they will cease to buy his publication. If his literary wares are not what his readers want, he finds on the newsstands unsold piles of his publication, just as a grocer finds on his shelves faded packages of an unpopular breakfast food. Both editor and grocer undertake to buy from the producers what will have a ready sale and will satisfy their customers. ”

“ Every successful writer, consciously or unconsciously, thus pictures his readers to himself.
If, for example, an author is preparing an article for an agricultural journal, he must have in his mind's eye an average farmer and this farmer's family. Not only must he see them in their surroundings; he must try to see life from their point of view. The attitude of the typical city man toward the farm and country life is very different from that of the countryman. Lack of sympathy and insight is a fatal defect in many an article intended by the writer for farm readers. ”

“ You must wonder at man's achievements, at man's stupidity, at his honesty, crookedness, courage, cowardice—at everything that is remarkable about him wherever and whenever it appears. If you haven't this sense of wonder, you will never write a novel or become a great reporter, because you simply won't see anything to write about. Men will be doing amazing things under your very eyes—and you won't even know it. ”

“ Take such a man as Eugene Roundtree, who has been running a smoking car on one of the limited trains between New York and Boston for two decades—save for that brief transcendent hour when Charles S. Mellen saw himself destined to become transportation overlord of New England and appropriated Roundtree for a personal servant and porter of his private car. Roundtree is a negro of the very finest type. He is a man who commands respect and dignity—and receives it. And Roundtree, as porter of the Pullman smoker on the Merchants' Limited, has learned to anticipate. ”

“ I had supposed, like most outsiders, that the women of a university town would be dreadfully intellectual and modern—and I was rather in awe of them at first, being aware of my own magnificent limitations; but, for the most part, these charming new friends of mine, especially the wealthier members of the set I was thrown with, seemed guilelessly ignorant in respect of the interesting period of civilization in which they happened to live—almost as ignorant as I was and as most "nice people" are everywhere. ”

“ What a joy it was to me during that rosy-sweet early period of our union to watch Carl, like a proud mother, as he grew and exfoliated—like a plant that has been kept in a cellar and now in congenial soil and sunshine is showing at last its full potentialities. Through me my boy was attaining the full stature of a man ”

“ The requirement that news be printed at the earliest possible moment teaches newspaper workers to collect facts and opinions quickly and to write them up rapidly under pressure. Newspaper work also develops a writer's appreciation of what constitutes news and what determines news values; that is, it helps him to recognize at once, not only what interests the average reader, but how much it interests him. Then, too, in the course of his round of news gathering a reporter sees more of human life under a variety of circumstances than do workers in any other occupation. ”

“ A circular letter from a business firm announcing a new policy, a classified advertisement in a newspaper, the complaint of a scrub-woman, a new variety of fruit in the grocer's window, an increase in the price of laundry work, a hurried luncheon at a cafeteria—any of the hundred and one daily experiences may suggest a "live" topic for an article.
"Every foot of ground is five feet deep with subjects; all you have to do is to scratch the surface for one," declared the editor of a popular magazine who is also a successful writer of special articles. ”

“ Revisiting his old haunts; attending lectures together in the German and French universities; working side by side in the great libraries; and meeting the great men of his profession at dinner! Then, between whiles, we had the best art and music thrown in! Ah, those are the only real luxuries we miss and long for! Indeed, to us, they are not really luxuries. Beauty is a necessity to some persons, like exercise; though others can get along perfectly well without it and, therefore, wonder why we cannot too. ”

“ The writer, then, as the producer, must furnish wares that will attract and satisfy the readers of the periodical to which he desires to sell his product. It is the ultimate consumer, not merely the editor, that he must keep in mind in selecting his material and in writing his article. "Will the reader like this?" is the question that he must ask himself at every stage of his work. Unless he can convince himself that the average person who reads the periodical to which he proposes to submit his article will like what he is writing, he cannot hope to sell it to the editor. ”

“ Whatever the publication to which an author desires to contribute, he should consider first, last, and all the time, its readers—their surroundings, their education, their income, their ambitions, their amusements, their prejudices—in short, he must see them as they really are. ”

“ It seems to me that the leading feature of the Sunday magazine should be the biggest topic that will be before the public on the Sunday that the newspaper is printed. It should be written by one who thoroughly knows his subject, who is forceful in style and fluent in words, who can make a picture that his readers can see, and seeing, realize. So every other feature of the Sunday magazine should have points of human interest, either by contact with the news of the day or with men and women who are doing something besides getting divorces and creating scandals. ”

“ Just as the striking heads on the front page of a newspaper increase its sales, so, also, attractive titles on the cover of a magazine lead people to buy it, and so, too, a good headline in an advertisement arouses interest in what the advertiser is trying to sell.
A good title adds greatly to the attractiveness of an article. In the first place, the title is the one thing that catches the eye of the editor or manuscript reader, as he glances over the copy, and if the title is good, he carries over this favorable impression to the first page or two of the article itself. ”

“ Every morning, as the first task of the day, the city chemist uncorks a curious little crooked tube containing a few spoonsful of very ordinary bouillon, akin to that which you might grab at the quick lunch, but which has been treated by the admixture of a chemical. ”

“ Now take an article entitled "Why it is easier to get rich in Canada than in the United States." That's different! Your interest is aroused. You wonder wherein the Canadian has an advantage over you. You look into the article to find out whether you can't get an idea from it. Yet the two articles may be basically alike, differing only in treatment. One bores you and the other interests you. One bores you because it seems remote. The other interests you because the writer has had the skill to translate his facts and ideas into terms that are personal to you. ”

“ To state more than the facts warrant, to promise more than can be given, to arouse expectations that cannot be satisfied—all are departures from truth and honesty.
Accuracy in titles involves, not merely avoidance of exaggerated and misleading statement, but complete harmony in tone and spirit between title and article. ”

“ There isn't a butcher or grocer in this town who doesn't doff his hat to me when he whizzes by in his motor—even those whose bills I haven't paid. It's great to have dignity. I don't believe there's another place in the world where he who rides makes obeisance to him who walks. Much better than getting as high wages as a trustee's chauffeur! A salary is so much more dignified than wages. ”

“ Railroad men from all parts of the world have seen his model; but he has not been ardent in the hunt for customers. Perhaps that will not be necessary; the mono-rail car should be its own salesman; but, in the meantime, it is not amiss that a great inventor should stand aloof from commerce.
But, for all the cheerful matter-of-factness of the man, he, too, has seen visions. There are times when he talks of the future as he hopes it will be, as he means it to be, when "transportation is civilization." ”