"Portrait of a Man," Painting by Paul Cézanne. "Portrait of a Spanish Lady," Painting by Goya.. "St. Ildefonso of Toledo," Painting by El Greco... "Zoo, The," Painting by Molly Luce. "Vamper, The," Dry-point by A. R. Middleton Todd 642 Ivory, Apes, and Peacocks: 28, 74, 109, 149, 192, 230, 267, Metropolitan Opera-Schumann-Heink's Farewell -Philharmonic Orchestra and Pro-Musica Society Thackeray, William Makepeace (Melville). Tigers, Gold, and Witch Doctors (Digby) THE OUTLOOK, January 4, 1928. Volume 148, Number 1. Published weekly by The Outlook Company at 120 East 16th Street, New York, N. Y. Subscription price $5.00 a year. Single copies 15 cents each. Foreign subscription to countries in the postal Union, $6.56. Entered as second-class matter, July 21, 1893, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., and December 1, 1926, at the Post Office at Dunellen, N. J., under the Act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1928, by The Outlook Company. From Publisher_To You T HE question whether or not a writer should also hold a job is one that has agitated literary folk ever since the first author scratched his lines upon the walls of his cave-despite the fact that most writers have had to do other work whether they wanted to or not. Sherwood Anderson now joins the ranks of those who believe, not only that it is a good thing, but that it is a necessary thing. Without going in for theories of professional art versus amateur hobbies, he frankly states that when he was without a job he just plain grew tired of associating so much with only one man-Sherwood Anderson. As a result, he has bought himself two country newspapers and is now so interested and busy that he has time to write for The Outlook. NEXT in interest to Mr. Anderson's piece is Adachi Kinnosuke's essay on his remembrances of his childhood in Japan. He has never written anything finer than the series of which this paper is the first. MEANWHILE, we are glad to wel come to our pages several new writers and editors of departments. Thomas H. Gammack, who will make us more familiar week by week with what the business and financial leaders of Wall Street think, is now on the staff of the New York "Sun." Harriet Eager Davis, formerly the editor of the "Little Delineator," and also author of several books and pieces for children, lives in New Haven when she is not junketing up and down the land collecting the tales from childhood which we begin printing in this issue. Ibby Hall is the nom de plume of a poet and writer of operettas for children, who uses this name for her journalistic work. We are calling her very human and unusual miniatures from the news, "Life and Death and Giants." Eugene Bonner, the writer of "Musical Impressions," is well known to musicians and composers both here and abroad, and now lives in New York City. Volume 148 T The Outlook January 4, 1928 Nearer the Grass Roots HE impulses that led me to be come the editor and publisher of two small-town weeklies in a Virginia country town are somewhat complex. In the first place, I think almost every man in the country has the belief, buried away in him somewhere, that he would make a successful editor. Formerly, when I lived in Chicago and New York, I knew a good many newspaper men. They all dreamed of getting away from the hectic rush of city newspaper work and owning a smalltown weekly. Every writer has in him a love of the ink-pots, and all of the old trade words of the printer's craft are dear to him. There is, you see, a strong call in all the vast brotherhood of the ink-slingers in just the direction I am now going. In my own case, I had the impulse, as suggested above, but I did not become a publisher for that reason. I am doing it primarily to make a living. I would like to go back of that a little. Just making a living is hardly the problem. Almost any one can do that in America now. It is important, though, how you make a living. The way you make your living has so much to do with what you get out of life. Even in America, making a living takes a good many hours. IAM, as people interested in the ten dencies of writing in America may know, the kind of writer whose work is a good deal more discussed than read. Perhaps a good many people who know my books do not know that. Well, it's true. My books have never sold well. I began writing when I was well past thirty and after the adventures that commonly come to any man who has been laborer, soldier, wanderer, and factory employee. At the time I began writing I had got, temporarily at least, out of the ranks of laborers and had become a copy man in an advertising By SHERWOOD ANDERSON agency in Chicago. At that job I was fairly successful, and I went on with it. until about three years ago. I was employed in a large advertising agency, and my employers were very patient. Sometimes I went on for months without the impulse toward writing coming to me at all; and during those times was, I presume, a fairly good copy man. Then the impulse did come. To be sure, it caught me many times unprepared. There might have been a rush of advertising copy in the agency just then. I had to stall. Many of my short stories were written at my desk in an advertising agency and while I was presumed to be writing advertising copy. A story of mine that has been often reproduced, called "I'm a Fool," was written while I was supposed to be writing automobile copy. The agency employing me used to send me out to various towns, where I was to spend my time writing advertisements for manufacturers. I did write the advertisements, of course, but never took as much time doing it as I pretended to be taking. The spare time gained by thus cheating was often spent writing short stories or novels in some country-hotel room or on the bank of some stream near a small manufacturing town. My people were pretty patient with me. My employers were naturally aware of what was going on. Sometimes I used to quit work altogether for months and wander away somewhere to devote myself to my fiction writing. The president of the agency once called me into his mahogany-furnished office and said: "Sherwood, I will stand for you, but I hope it isn't catching. I never would stand for another one like you." I think it is true that almost every newspaper man and advertising man in the country has in him something of the writer. He is inclined to be sympathetic with such fellows as myself-and don't Number I we take advantage of it! We are the unscrupulous ones. My employers were always kind. When I came back from a long period of vagabondage, they always gave me my job back. I have reason to know that they did it many times when they might have employed some other fellow more useful to them, at a much smaller wage. It was, I take it, their tribute to the brotherhood. To justify themselves to themselves, they pretended I was a fine copy writer. I had always intended to hang on to some kind of a job outside of my writing. In spite of the fact that I got early recognition, my books did not sell. At last they did begin to sell a little, both in America and abroad. There was less and less need of my hanging on to my job as an advertising copy writer. I GAVE it up. I did what every writer dreams of doing-became a man of leisure. One of my books, a novel, had sold very well indeed, and I had money with which to buy me a house and a small farm. I thought of myself as settling down on the farm and leading the simple life. I would consort with nature, read, and loaf. Already I had published some ten or twelve books. Whatever happens, I thought, the books I have already published, with what writing I will naturally do, will provide me a living as long as I am content to live in this simple fashion. During my first year in the country I was quite happy. For one thing, I was building a house. This kept me busy. It was during the second year that I began to pay heavily for my indiscretion. For an American, who had gone through the American grind, what I was trying to do is perhaps impossible. We all talk of wanting leisure. I doubt if any of us want it. No writer can write more than two or three hours a day. Often he cannot write at all. What was I to do with the long hours? I wandered over the fields; went fishing; tramped around from house to house, visiting my neighbors. Often I longed for my advertising agency. My country neighbors all had work to do. They were farmers. Theirs was a busy life. I was the only idler in the neighborhood. They began to speak of me as "the millionaire." Americans think of any man who can get through life without working as either a crook or a millionaire. If my country neighbors ever suspected me of being a crook, they did not say so to my face. Some of them read books and had seen my name in the newspapers and in the literary magazines. All Americans think any one must be a millionaire who frequently gets his name in the newspapers. The two or three years I put in trying to be a man of leisure, a sort of gentleman writer on the European plan, let us say, were the most miserable I have ever spent. In desperation I went over and spent some months wandering in Europe. Nothing interested me much. I was associating altogether too much with one Sherwood Anderson. I never grew so tired of a man in my life. I had come down into Virginia to settle, liking the country here and the people. In Virginia there is a touch of the South without too much of it. It suited me. I had no quarrel with my surroundings or my friends. My quarrel was with myself. I had got into a position I did not want to be in. How was I to get out of it? HERE were two newspapers pub TH lished in a neighboring county seat town in the middle of a fat agricultural region, one Democratic and the other Republican. One day, on an impulse, I went to the town and purchased the papers. I have been running them now for a month, and it has been the most normal and happy month I have had since I threw up my job in the advertising agency in Chicago. As to my policy in running these papers, I think I can say definitely that I have no policy beyond amusing myself, making them pay, keeping busy, and turning out live little newspapers. Of course, I expect to do other writing. Now that I am busy again I shall find time for that. In reality, the small-town weekly is not a newspaper in the city newspaper sense. We do not handle any National Sherwood Anderson news, pay no attention to sensational murders or divorce cases-unless they happen in our own town-and there is no rush. Such a thing as fear of a "beat" is unknown. The papers are filled almost altogether with news regarding the comings and goings of the people of this community. Death seems to be an important factor in our lives. Long obituary notices are written and sent in to my papers. And then there are the churches and the lodges. They also fill much space. The churches are the social centers of our towns. Since the saloons have gone they are about the only social centers we have. Except perhaps the local newspaper office. Most of the editorial work and reporting on the papers I have taken over I am doing myself. I have, however, found a young Virginia mountain man who promises to develop into something special. He has been up and down the world a good deal and has a sense of humor. He is writing for me under the name of "Buck Fever," and he has been a help. I am giving you here a sample of his method. It is making a hit in our town. He called this thing "The Lonesome Water Meter." The Virginia Table Company has a water meter. It is the only one in town. A sad thing has happened to it. At first, when it was newly brought to town, it worked fine. Now it has begun to behave badly. For a long time now it has not been able to digest its water. The matter was brought up at a meeting of the town council. Mr. Gordon, being nearer the lonesome meter than any one else, spoke very feelingly of its condition. He said he almost hated to go home at night, leaving the poor water meter there alone in the big, dark building. It would be all right, he thought, if there were other water meters in town so that it could have an occasional evening of companionship. On several evenings, he said, he took the water meter home with him and invited in some of his friends. There was song and wassail. Some of the guests danced, but the poor water meter would not dance. It sat in a corner and moped. The council decided, and we think (Continued on page 27) |