Show HOW ALLEN WRITES Kentucky Authors Plan For DOing Good Work STAYS AWAY FROM HONE T WRiTES EST OF KENTUCKY WN ABSENT FRM I What It Costs to Bring Out a Book of AdventureKard Early Life of Author of The Cruise of the Cchalotener Chare Kings Late Work t New York April GJames Lane Allen Al-len has been living all winter at Washington Wash-ington where he has been workIng on I another novel of Kentucky life He seems to find that he writes best of Kcntuck whcn he is away from ital cxperince not infrequent with writers dUI no dQubt to the familiar fact that icIly localIty of which one is fond takes on 1 special grace and glow when ones one-s removed from i WIsest he wrote his frt short stories Mr Allen wa making the experiment of hiving by literature IQne here in New York xc foUpd It tlesae hard experment that it has prove tomost others who have trIed i and be returned afterward for several years to Kentucky For several years past how ver until he wlmt to Washington he had been living mainly here sgain I has been a long had struggle with him one that none but ama a-ma of 11eroic reoluUon could have gone through and not until the great aurcess ef The Choir Invilble I asia Pt did he fe1 perfectly sure thjl the fight was yon Earlier books of dourse met with tin en our glng reception but the best of them left him still with his Way more or less to make Now he has oalit his way to niaintain But even only way ma this is not necessarily an easy ana sun pIe malter and so far as mere stren uousnes of labor is concerned IIs Al lens prsentdlfers little from his ast He goes to his desk each morning with the ge grcatet reglarty and strives away there with all the patience of genius until well on In the afternoon No reader of his writings need to be told that he ioe his work with caN anyone cnnseSthai eery OU Is nl considered The publishers arc already announcing the new noel but it will not be published until next fail l and it has not I thInk yet left the authors I hand I ig to pave a tte adapted front Shakespeare as so many novels now do > the passage chosen being The met tie of your pasture in Henry Vs famous I fa-mous address to his soldier I have just received from a friend in London some passages of autoblogra Phy lately communicated to hIm by Frank T Dulen the author of The CrUise of the Cahalot which so many readers are now pronouncing the most enthralling narrative of true sea ad cnthra1ng narrtve e1ure that has ever come Into their hands These passages indicate that if anybody yans to repeat Mr Bulens 1terar achievement in kind as well as In measure he will have to begin early in life for Mr Bunens own career was ont unbroken successIon of unusual o I eriences from the moment of his birth I down to about Isis twentffh year I since when it has had a rather more normal course I was born In London coure In 1857 he says my father being a I journeyman stonemason My mother I never knew for while I was an infant I IflI pa1nt separated leaving me their only chiliLto the mrcyof my fathers sister a poor dreacnakor who never married To her tender care I am indebted in-debted for seven happy years or his life with his aunt he adds Hr usual bedtime was 1 a m mine was 7 p m So as I slept wIth her and 11 la soundly sleeping till 9 the bright summer mornIngs were almost Interminably long to me But happily there stood on the narrow m9te1plece a few books a Bible a cooker bole somebodys advice to young servants a book of common prayer and Paradise Lost And when I became able to read I used to climb cautiously over the hea of the bed set a bok and steal back again Paradise Lost son su lllrseded all the other and incredible its i may sound before I had complete com-plete my fifth year I ha read it through arguments and an twice In may ninth year 11 Bulen continues I con-tinues came a calamity that swept me like a drifting ship out of the peaceful haven of I aunts home Education I love and sympath all disappeared In 1 their place ce hunger blows severe txhaustng labor from 6 In the morning till 1 at night md an atmosphere of I vie language At last when I was inS In-S ray twelfth year after an experience of WI e1 hn OnU1PSe cei life in London that would sound in I credible if it were detailed r escaDed i to sea a cabin boy in an old tub of a bark bound to Demaraa From Demara Bule1 went to Mex leo and by stress of a shipwreck was landed finally at Havana There he says I soon found friends and he came deputy billiard marker at the hotel Rt Isabel here my tiny size fluent SpanIsh picketS UIJ In Mexico und perfect assurance or check made me a prIme favorite An English gras Heman named Daykin holding a high official position wanted to adopt me and with that nd In tieu i took me to the consul I was a fatal mistake For the consul had lost the run of me and seeing me agaIn not only refused to entertain MI DaYldns proposa but immediately put me on hoard a homo yardbound Bluenose hade Thel I said a long goodbye to comfort agaIn Arriving In Liverpool I was sent adrift to find It impossible tp get any skipper to ship me on account of my diminutive sie At last a friendly figurehead caner took me in and gave me work until he could try and find whether anyone belonging to me would pay 5 shIllings weeklY toward my keep while hI taught me his trade I knew he would be unsuccessful but I had two months employment learning so rapidly that he was dellhte with me After this for several months he led the life of a street arab ht London and of this experience he says But I was SI 1 math for the hegular arabs and often I had to make twopence last two days Never shall I forget snatching a handful of whelks out of a big tub In 1Ulngsgate shellfish market and scut I tlng away to a dark corer with them only to find that they were unboled amid consequently uneatable alhough I ldidnt broken my fast for nearly two days Only because I wouldnt beg t1Qugh I scceeed In getting a shIp Falmouth at last the JamaIca Brinkburn of London for From thIs followed ten or twelve S yeaiw ot almost constant seafaring marked fO the most part by nothing but hardships and darers At 22 wIth an all but empt pure and noth S Ing better in prospect than a life b fore the mast he married a girl jUt l turned 18 He was soon of necessity at sea again before the mast In a s hooner bound for Nova Scota Finally Fin-ally tIme life became perfectly intelor st ahle to him and he decIded to find employment S em-ployment on land l But things got so bad says he that We laid out our last hat sovereign on food for the baby Rnd began to starve CredIt we had t none or friends or relations worth a 5 rot of pins to us In the midst of this came an offer of a berth ashore as a computer In a public officea sort of Junior clerk at 1S a week Great heavens I thought 5 I was Rothschild I took it gracefully and said goodbye to the sea But I soon found it was no easy task to step down from the position of a leader of men to that jif it deputy unior clerk In fact it was almost maddening at times only to be borne by remember lag the two helpless ones at home And there was always some reading to be had Reading had been the salt of y whole life although I have been shut 111 to two lOoks for a whole volage the Bible and Bleak House both of which I read through front berlnning to end so many tImes that if I were to state the number I should certainly ho dIsbelieved The need of piecing out his clerical salary as the size and necessitIes of his family increased led him about six years ago to try his hand at writing He met with many discouragements at first and with no really substantial success until he brought out The Cruise of the Cschaiot his oply book thus far thought he is to bring out another an-other soon Of the hIt the book has made he says When the Cachalot appeared men whose nulmelo I had read with awe as the august arbiters of literature lit-erature wrote to me and wrote of me as if they were all in one grand con apiracy to turn my head and the only place where my book has been totally tnored is in the London morning dailies Mr 1trank Norris the young novelist has fued himself from routine work as reader for a publishing house and returned re-turned to CalIfornia He has made a six months trial in New Yoak and tie cides that lie finds California much snore to his liking It Isnt however because he likes California better that he now returns there He goes to gather material for a new noVel or rather for several for hg hss In his head a scheme of such dimensions that to cx ecute it fully in its several parts hp 511511 have to write not less than three novels Itt so young and new a man as Mc Norris sucha projectwould or dinarliy seem ttmbitioua enough to justify jus-tify a questioning snub But I dont think any of the few friends to whom 110 lisa confided it has had the least inclination in that direction In almost al-most every published review p1 his stories particularly of his last one McTeague some reference Is made to his unusual capacity and power and those who know the man himself are even more impressed with this than those who sirnplykudw hlmthrough his books A perfectly mbdest and rather silent man lioailljustIfiesto you in sonic way than tyou can hardly Rgure alit his fitnesS to undertake as large a work as be will A return to California is still It ro tunis home lorMu Norris his iltrniiy live atiSan Fraflci5o Fosthepresent however he itill be engaged mainly in the southern part of the state Ho has not giyen up New York tor all amid ever hiO expectation is to returnhere at least for a time toward the end of the year New York is as gopd a market for the sale of literary protluetions na a man could desireif dfll9 his productions are saleable Excellent proof is mel forded by the recent experience of Mr Seurnas 1rcMausus He came over to this country about the first of the year as complete and puliess a stranger as couIl be e khew nO one here and I think brought no letters of untroduc tton He had Iubllshed a number of stories and sketches of IrIsh life in a Dublin newspaper but not one of them prohabl3 had ever been read here Under Un-der the pen name of Mack he had published tieo books that were more or I less known in Ireland and England but hero they were not known at all During Dur-ing the three months of his sojourn without having anybody to urge his claims except himself he has sold seven or eight stories to Harpers a like number num-ber to the Century several to the Saturday Sat-urday Evening Post aiid a good 1mm her to oilier periodicals and he has brought out one book tumid lie has two others accepted for publication soon He is not by any means an urgent or aggressive man Ho presents himself and his mattel simply and modestly taking neither with undue seriousness But what he writes has always au obvious ob-vious charxn in its genttine 3umot or I pathos and this secures its quick ac ceptnnce by editors and publishers I Mu McuIanus hasas easy a way in his production as in his selling His sketches and stories come direct and I iearm from the life he has led himselj from his births anti he writes them straight off in a sort of schoolboys copybook ttnd never so much as reads them over Herbert 52 Hamblun has lately finished fin-ished a railroad story for boys It wilt be published serially in the latter part of the summer and time early fall and I thea appear as a book Although Mr Hamblmn is driving the pen with such energy these days he has not ceased to do his usual days work in driving Ian I-an engine He has lately suffered so vere bereavement in the death of his wIfe Generalbetter known as Captaiii King writes from Manila that he has not had much time of late to devte to literature and one can readily believe be-lieve hint but like mpst writers when the publishers are urging he thinks he is likely to have quite an abundance soon lIe also says what also one can readily believe that he is gathering a wealth of good material E C MARTIN |