| Show WRITING FOR MONEY A reporter of the new york world recently interviewed julian hawthorne with the following result As aa to methods of work mr haw thorn when lie geth gen a contract or undertakes to write a story simply goes at it and keeps it up tip until the task 18 completed ue he begins work pt at 9 or 10 in the morning and keeps at it until 10 or 11 at night of those shorter novels such as are printed in lippin cotts and Bel forda magazines he writes one in ten days or two week they contain words and that is at the rate of words a day or say two and a half columns of the arld the trouble he be said was to get the central idea for the story if that is a satisfactory orie one why the story writes itself and I 1 can do a great deal of work in a day 1 on one occasion be wrote steadily for 26 hours this was during his residence in london landon shortly after he had entered upon a literary career he had agreed to have a story done by a certain hour on a cert certain alti day and as is very apt to be the way with young wen men he had put off the work u until I 1 the I 1 I 1 th hour then con fronted by the uncompromising f fact tet that he be must do the work or lose his money he set himself at the task with all his might and main he started in at 9 one morning aud and stuck hard at work until nearly noon the next day he says he found no difficulty in writing after the first hour his thoughts came freely and his bis hand hanu worked mechanically he remembers that when he finished the story he became aware that his were playing about the room where he be had bad been writing he neither saw nor heard beard them when he be was at work and now they looked more like shadows than real tangible forms he did not feel particularly worried but his brain seemed to be strangely confused so instead of going to bed as a man inan naturally would think of doing he be put ou on his hat and overcoat and set out for a long walk he remained out of doors until dusk then upon his bis return home he ate a light supper drank two bottles ot of ale and went to bed the bodily exercise had cleared his head his brain was as cool and quiet as could be wished and he slept eighteen hours as soundly and peacefully as a child talking over the success that stories of london lif elave had it was mentioned as a curious fact that no tales of new york life bad succeeded that is said hawthorne because new york city lacks the old background which london has london is a pool into which all elements drift but new york they pass through he went on to tell how he forgot one story as soon as another was written and cited a curious illustration of this in a novel ot spanish life which he picked up about the house not long ago he read the novel with interest and began to review it as something new until happening to look through an old scrapbook of his writings he discovered that four years before he be had written a long review of it for the world yet the memory of the novel had quite vanished in a little literary autobiography hawthorne tells in a few words his estimate of authorship as a trade after telling of his novels be says 1 I cannot conscientiously pay eay that I 1 have found the literary profess profession lon in and for itself entirely agreeable almost everything that I 1 have written has been written from necee necessity sity and there to is very little of it that I 1 sh shall 11 not le im glad to see forgotten tho ti rewards of literature for men of limited calibre are the incidental ones the valuable friendships and the charming associations which it brings about fur for the sake of these I 1 would willingly endure again many passages of a life that has not been all roses not that I 1 would appear to belittle my own work it dors not need it but the present generation in america at least does not strike me as containing much literary genius the number of undersized persons is large and active and we hardly believe in the hie possibility of heroic stature I 1 cannot sufficiently admire the pains we are at to make our work embodying the aims it does immaculate i rn macu late in form form without idea is nothing and we have no ideas if one of us were to get an idea it would create its own form as easily as does a flower or a planet I 1 think we take ourselves too seriously our posterity will not be uearl nearly yso so grave over us its for my part I 1 do not write better than I 1 do because I 1 have no idess ideas worth better clothes than they can pick up for themselves what is worth doing at all is worth doing with our best pains is a saying which has injured our literature more than any other single thing how many a lumber closet since the world began has been filled by the result of this purblind and delusive theory but this is not autobiographical save that to have written it shows how little prudence my life has taught me 8 much for his literary work we went out into the sunshine and looked across the rippling blue of the water and hawthorne told how in the early morning the place was covered with ducks and there was much good shooting he told how he helped do the baying in summer on the 30 acres of grass land how his two seventeen year old boys ran the farm and with the help of one man raised all the vegetables the family used and had some left over to sell how bow the place belonged to mrs goodsell but he hoped to buy it in two years and how haw his hip oldest daughter hildegarde was enjoying the winter in philadelphia while his other daughters gwendolen gladys beatrice and imogene helped their mother at home then the boy with his allday all day horse drove up and the handsome big fellow with a strong goodby good by grip turned back to his desk and went on filling the long sheets of white foolscap with fine black marks and when a sheet was covered he had gained words on the end |
