the comic operas of Gilbert (and mind, I agree that Gilbert's libretti creak badly at times) we shall see something of the same thing. In "The Mikado", for example, when Ko-ko is called upon to explain how it is that Nanki-poo, whose execution by himself he has described afflictingly a short time before, is still alive and well, he says: "It's like this: when your Majesty says, 'Let a thing be done', it's as good as done practically it is done because your Majesty's will is law. Your Majesty says, 'Kill a gentleman', and a gentleman is told off to be killed. Consequently that gentleman is as good as dead - practically he is dead and if he is dead, why not say so?" Such, it seems to me, is the reasoning of the fairy tale. The things related might just as well have happened as any other things, and therefore they most probably did happen; nay, they assuredly did happen. But the French are an intellectual people, and their lies (by which I mean the creative works of French writers) are calculated to produce a certain effect upon the mind of the reader. Take the case of Anatole France. All the lies in his works are lies which are intended to put notions into the heads of his readers. They are not nonsense. They may have the air of nonsense, but they are nothing of the kind. Their

naïveté is ingenious. I think Anatole France was much too self conscious a literary artist to risk pure nonsense. Indeed, I have just been reading a book about Anatole France (it is called "La Vie et les Opinions d'Anatole France", and is written by Jacques Roujon) which says that the keynote of that writer's nature was laziness, and hints pretty plainly that he was exceedingly second rate, with a poor brain, few ideas, etc. It may be so. Anatole France's brain has just been

discovered to be small and light by those who have taken his head to pieces, and these gentlemen are supported by M. Roujon, who had picked it to pieces without seeing the remains. This is a minor point. I shall not labor it, having used Anatole France merely as an example to show what I meant above as to the incapacity of the French genius for nonsense as it is known in other countries. I cannot imagine in French, that is, the conversation which takes place between Alice and the Cheshire Cat regarding the Duchess's baby, which turns into a pig and runs away. "Did you say 'Pig' or 'Fig'?" asks the Cheshire Cat. This, to me, is the question which could only be asked in a world where anything might happen. It is not an intellectual world or a French made world, but belongs to the poetic silliness of the English genius.

To turn from nonsense to sense, I note with great satisfaction that it is proposed to create a University for Wessex. This is not an impossible scheme, although probably it will be some time before such a university can be developed from the present University College of Southampton. But the really interesting thing about the project is that a Thomas Hardy Chair of English Literature is suggested for the university, and that this chair could immediately be established. An appeal for funds has been made by a strangely associated set of men Dr. E. K. Chambers (one of the greatest authorities upon dramatic literature, if he is not absolutely the greatest in England); Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (the popular novelist and professor of English at Cambridge); Sir Israel Gollancz (a wit, Shakespearian scholar, and member of more committees than

I can count); Sir Frederic Kenyon; Sir Henry Newbolt; Horace Annesley Vachell (another novelist, and a dramatist); and the Duke of Wellington. All these in their way are able men, but literature is not very authoritatively represented upon the committee. However, this does not greatly matter, since the members are only appealing for funds. What interests me is the nature of the chair of literature. What will the professor be called upon to specialize in? The novel? That would be an unheard of thing in England. It is far more likely that he will be a specialist in poetry; and no doubt it would be this side of his genius that Mr. Hardy would most like to see honored. It seems to me to be a new departure for an English author to be given such a mark of respect in his lifetime, and I am glad of it.

Another item of news which gives me the liveliest satisfaction is that Jane Austen's letters are to be reedited and reissued, under the eye of R. W. Chapman. This is great news. I have long desired that the new edition of Jane Austen's letters might make its belated appearance. Of course, it is said that Jane Austen's letters are inferior, but that is simply untrue. They are excellent letters, full of the most delicious moments for the real reader of Jane Austen. Unfortunately, the original editor of the letters did not seem to appreciate them, and the word has been accepted (as such words always are accepted) ever since, without any effort at the formation of an individual judgment. Long ago, when I was dying as it seemed I wrote

to E. V. Lucas saying that I should die happy if he would kindly produce a new edition of Jane Austen's letters. Mr. Lucas replied, very courteously, telling me that there could be no new edition owing to difficulties of copyright. At the same time, by the way, he urged me to read (and I hereby thank him for the advice, and pass it on to others who may benefit) the Journals of Fanny Kemble, which are fascinating, and which might be reprinted by some benefactor of the human race. And so no new edition of Jane Austen's letters appeared at that time, and no new edition has since appeared. Now, copyright difficulties have been overcome, and we are to have the book. Good luck to it!

I learn that Anthony Hope has completed a new novel, called "Little Tiger", which will be published this autumn. It is the first since 1920, when "Lucinda", which I am ashamed to say I did not read, appeared. Since Anthony Hope is a good novelist, and since I can always read his older books, I look forward to reading this one. I am told it is in the vein which began with "Double Harness" and went on to "Mrs. Maxon Protests". Personally, this is not the vein in which I most delight; but since Sir Anthony does not seem to be likely to give us another "King's Mirror" or "Prisoner of Zenda", and since a problematical loaf is better than nothing at all, I am prepared to hail the new novel with at least a preliminary welcome, and to wish that it may stand comparison with the best of its author's non-romantic writing.

SIMON PURE

I met this most famous of best sellers, the man who, along with Zane Grey, is probably the only writer of stories for the millions whose works are read with almost equal eagerness by both men and women. I have seen him twice in the last few weeks. The first time, in a room filled with people, he seemed dignified, a trifle reserved, with the marks of the west in his appearance, and the softness of the east in his speech. The second time, informally, he became a person of great friendliness, of a rare sense of humor. He tells a story well, and laughs much. His bright, keen blue eyes twinkle constantly. He is a proud father, a gallant husband, and a conscientious workman. Many of the facts of his life must be gained from others; for he discusses his success and himself modestly, and would much prefer to talk of his sons or of the work of some friend of his among Carolina mountaineers or Arizona Indians.

He had come on to New York City to see his son perform at his graduation from the Academy of Dramatic Arts. Paul Wright, the middle son, will next year become a professional actor; by those who know, he is said to have great promise. Perhaps this ability is an inheritance from the days when his father preached from the pulpit and learned to be a novelist through the telling of vivid parables to his spell

bound audiences. The older Wright brother will next year teach in the University of California. He will teach mathematics; but he is interested, too, in athletics. The youngest boy is still in school.

"I asked Paul", Mr. Wright told me, "what he would like best to do for his last vacation. I gave him his choice completely. He could go to Europe, Maine, anywhere he chose." Young Mr. Wright chose to go back to Arizona with his father, and on a seventeen day pack trip explore some of the little known and wildest parts of his adopted state. The Wrights live in Tucson, Arizona, and come east only very rarely to renew old contacts. Mr. Wright became enthusiastic when he told of the proposed trip. They would go back presently to gather their outfit, then they would sally forth. It was an experience. It was a lark. There was also, back of this story, pride that the boy had chosen to spend his summer with his father and in this manner.

wanted to talk, to which he wished to impart his ideals of life. This ability to gain the public ear is the real secret of his success: this, and the fact that he tells a story in simple, flowing English. If you read his new novel, as I have read it, you will find that it is an excellent tale, developed logically and dramatically, filled with characters that, while intensely human, represent vital types in life. His men and women are more than men and women, they are symbols in a parable, or an allegory if you will. They leave us with a freshened realization of simple truths of which we are conscious, yet of which we like to be reminded. But like the perfect sermon, they never become preachy to the point of spoiling the rapid progression of an exciting story. Harold Bell Wright is the great evangelist novelist. He hits straight from the shoulder, though. He does not affect the clerical vestments. He has learned the way to use the dramatic illustration of a point with something like perfection. As he talked to me the other afternoon, he illustrated his points with simile and with anecdote. There is one other point in considering his work. He knows how to paint pictures. Like Joseph Lincoln and others of the popular writers, he learned to draw before he turned to writing as an expression.

The story of his life is one of romantic episodes resulting from brave and determined struggling. He remembers when he wrote his first story as vividly as he remembers his mother's early training. I shall never forget the amusement of his look, mixed with eager remembrance, as he told me of that first effort, and of how it came to him.

Although he has lived most of his life in the west, Mr. Wright was born in Rome, New York. It is to his

mother's love of pictures, of the out of doors, of beautiful and gentle things, that he ascribes his desire to create. She gave him books to read, among them "Hiawatha", which was his favorite, and still is. He saw in it a series of pictures, and he wanted to paint them. When he was left alone in the world, at ten, it was to painting that he looked for a livelihood, although he was grocer boy, quarry and factory hand, when other means of earning bread failed.

He liked to paint landscapes; but he found other forms of decorating more profitable.

"I suppose you don't remember the delivery wagons with all sorts of curlicues and landscapes on them", he said. "Well, I used to paint those."

After a time he was earning a good salary at his profession, and he hired a man to teach him academic subjects in the evenings. He studied hard and accomplished much. Presently he found that he was indulging in fancies of the sort that could not be called strictly lessons. Yet his tutor encouraged him to put them on paper. Even now, he admits, he writes these things for his own amusement. He is always writing for his own pleasure, quite apart from his novels.

"The novels are business", he says, but with a smile, which means that they are really a great deal more to him than that.

His first real story was written when he was a student at Hiram, Ohio, earning his way through college by his landscape painting.

"I was sitting one night at my desk", he told me. "My inkwell was one of the old fashioned kind, with two parts. The desk light shone across it, and as I looked at it I seemed to see a skull.

It startled me. Then I looked again, and it was a perfect little skull which

the rays of the light formed in the ink."

From this image he gained the idea of a fantasy. He wrote it. He told how the skull took form and came out of the inkwell. Then a new idea came to him. The skull would become a skeleton. It would hover over the student and talk with him. It would discuss various problems of life and death. He wrote a sort of Socratic dialogue between the skull and the young student. A religious paper rejected it, but later published some of his work.

He then gave up putting his daydreams into words and turned to the business of preaching and administering to congregations in various communities. He learned to know simple devout souls, and those with the roughness of mining camp and mountain. He learned to talk to them all. In Pierce City, Missouri, in Pittsburg, Kansas, in Kansas City and elsewhere, he preached and did the exhausting work of a minister of souls. He has no feeling that he was "called to the ministry". It was simply the best way he knew of getting to know people and of administering to their needs. His religion in a democratic one.

Those who knew Wright in those early ministerial days tell of him as one of the most inspiring religious leaders they have ever seen. He knew men and talked to them as men. He was never afraid to attack a wrong, and to pursue the attack until he conquered, in spite of the enemies he made. His friends, however, were stronger than his enemies.

"That Printer of Udell's", his first novel, was written in Pittsburg, Kansas. In it were many characters he had known, some of whom, according to local information, are still alive. It was not intended for publication; but

as a sort of serial sermon, to be read from the pulpit. He showed it to friends, however, and they persuaded him to publish. Mr. Wright had never been strong, and the work of getting his manuscript ready for the printers and carrying on the duties of his parish was too much for him. He retired to the Ozarks, and commenced work on "The Shepherd of the Hills". It was this book that carried him and his message far and wide over the world, and made him the preacher to many millions more than the dozen or so millions who have actually purchased his books. It was then he realized that by retiring from the ministry he would be able to reach this public as he never could if he attempted to write and fill a pulpit at the same time.

Following "The Shepherd of the Hills", he wrote five successful books which found an ever growing public; but his struggles with life were not over. He had been married and his boys were growing up. He had moved to southern California. Here a terrific accident, in which an automobile crashed into him while he was riding a horse, aggravated an early lung weakness. His doctors told him that he had developed an active case of tuberculosis.

The story of his recovery to health, he told himself with force and dignity in "The American Magazine" for June, 1924. He lived in a tent in Arizona. He wrote, there, "When a Man's a Man", which he expected to be his last book. He wrote it because he knew it would mean a source of support for his family. He recovered and completely. You have only to see him today to know how sturdy he is. He looks forty odd, and he is more than that in years.

I should like to quote two sections