ISAAC F. MARCOSSON
Isaac Frederick Marcosson, editor and author, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, September 13, 1876, of Jewish ancestry. He was educated in the public schools of Louisville, and attended High School for a year. In 1894 he entered journalism, joining the staff of the Louisville _Times_, of which he was subsequently literary and city editor. In 1903 Mr.
Marcosson went to New York, and became associate editor of _The World's Work_; and in connection with this work he served its publishers, Doubleday, Page and Company, as literary adviser. While with _The World's Work_ he wrote many articles on topics of vital interest. From March, 1907, to 1910, Mr. Marcosson was financial editor of _The Saturday Evening Post_ of Philadelphia. For _The Post_ he conducted three popular departments: "Your Savings"; "Literary Folks"; and "Wall Street Men." Every other week he had a signed article upon some subject of general interest. Some of his articles upon "Your Savings" have been collected and published in a small book, called _How to Invest Your Savings_ (Philadelphia, 1907). Mr. Marcosson's latest book, _The Autobiography of a Clown_ (New York, 1910), written upon an unusual subject, attracted wide attention. A part of it was originally published anonymously as a serial in _The Post_, and the response it evoked encouraged Mr. Marcosson to make a little book of his hero, who was none other than Jules Turnour, the famous Ringling clown. Jules furnished the facts, or part of them, perhaps, but Mr. Marcosson made him more attractive in cold type than he had ever been under the big tent. _The Autobiography of a Clown_ deserved all the kind things that were said about it. Since 1910 Mr. Marcosson has been associate editor of _Munsey's Magazine_ and the other periodicals that are owned by Mr.
Munsey. His articles usually lead the magazine.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Bookman_ (April; June; December, 1910).
THE WAGON CIRCUS[87]
[From _The Autobiography of a Clown_ (New York, 1910)]
All the circuses then were wagon shows. They traveled from town to town in wagons. The performers went ahead to the hotel in 'buses or snatched what sleep they could in specially built vans. The start for the next town was usually made about three o'clock in the morning. No "run" from town to town was more than twenty miles, and more often it was considerably less. At the head of the cavalcade rode the leader, on horseback, with a lantern. Torches flickered from most of the wagons, and cast big shadows. The procession of creaking vehicles, neighing horses, and sometimes roaring beasts was an odd picture as it wound through the night. Many of the drivers slept on their seats. The elephant always walked majestically, with a sleepy groom alongside.
The route was indicated by flaming torches left at points where the roads turned. Sometimes these torches went out, and the show got lost.
More than once a farmer was rudely aroused from his slumbers, and nearly lost his wits when he poked his head out of his window and saw the black bulk of an elephant in his front yard. It was, indeed, the picturesque day of the circus.
My first engagement was with the Burr Robbins circus, which was a big wagon show. The night traveling in the wagons was new to me, and at first strange. But I got to like it very much. It was a great relief to lie in the wagons, out under the stars, and feel the sweet breath of the country. Often the nights were so still that the only sounds were the creaking of the wagons, and occasionally the words, "Mile up," that the elephant driver always used to urge his patient, plodding beast.
The circus arrangement then was much different from now. Then the whole outfit halted outside the town, which was never reached until after daylight. The canvas men would hurry to the "lot" to put up the tents while we remained behind to spruce up for the parade. Gay flags were hoisted over the dusty wagons; the tired and sleepy performers turned out of tousled beds to put on the finery of the Orient. A gorgeous howdah was placed on the elephant's back, and a dark-eyed beauty, usually from some eastern city, was hoisted aloft to ride in state, and to be the envy and admiration of every village maiden. No matter how long, wet, or dusty had been our journey from the last town, everybody, man and beast, always braced up for the parade. Of course, by this time we were surrounded by a crowd of gaping countrymen. Often the triumphant parade of the town was made on empty stomachs, for there was to be no let-up until the people of the community had had every bit of "free doing" that the circus could supply. The clowns always drove mules in the parade. When the parade reached the grounds, the performers changed clothes, hastened back to the village hotel, and ate heartily. If there was time, we snatched a few hours of sleep. But sleep and the circus man are strangers during the season. Ask any circus man when he sleeps, and he will say, "In the winter time."
FOOTNOTE:
[87] Copyright, 1910, by Moffat, Yard and Company.
GERTRUDE KING TUFTS
Mrs. Gertrude King Tufts, author of _The Landlubbers_, was born in Boone county, Kentucky, in 1877, the daughter of Col. William S. King.
She was educated in Kentucky and at private schools in Philadelphia, after which she took a library course and went to New York to work.
The property she had inherited had been squandered, so she was compelled to seek her own fortune. For a while she did well, but her struggle for success was most severe. For nearly two years Miss King knew "physical pain and the utter want of money." Finally, however, in 1907, she became editor of the educational department of the Macmillan Company, and then she set to work upon her novel, _The Landlubbers_ (New York, 1909), which was first conceived as a short story, and was finished in the hot summer of 1908. Polly, heroine, is a school teacher out West, who hates her job, saves her money, and decides to see the world. On the trip across the Atlantic, she falls in with Flossie, confidence queen, and she is soon "broke." Suicide seems to be the only way out of her predicament and, at midnight, she quits her state-room to silently slip into the ocean. She is no sooner on deck, however, than she is confronted with cries from the crew and captain that the ship has struck an iceberg and is sinking. The next day Polly finds herself and Dick, hero-lover, on the old battered ship and alone. They, then, are "the landlubbers," and their experiences on the drifting, water-soaked craft, is the story. Miss King dramatized her novel, as she is anxious to become famous as a playwright, "not as a mere yarn-spinner." She also prepared a wonderful human document of her struggles in New York that was most interesting as an excellent piece of writing, and as an advertisement for her book. At the present time Miss King is said to be engaged upon a "long novel----a leisurely, picturesque thing into which I want to put a good deal of life." Miss King was married on February 26, 1912, to Mr. Walter B.
Tufts, a New York business man. She is a kinswoman of Mr. Credo Harris, the Kentucky novelist.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Bookman_ (May, 1909); _Lexington Leader_ (May 16, 1909).
SHIPWRECKED[88]
[From _The Landlubbers_ (New York, 1909)]
I woke, not roused by any unusual sound or motion, but disturbed by a sense of hovering evil, a horror imminent and unescapable. I sat up, looked at my watch--for I had not turned off the light--and saw that it was toward half-past eleven o'clock. The great ship was silent, save for the throbbing of her iron pulses. As I listened, the fog-horn moaned out its warning, and as the deep note died away seven bells rang faintly from above. My watch, then, was right--and it was time!
I remembered what I had to do, and obeyed the decision of my more wakeful self, though I was far more influenced by the sense of vague, impersonal fear. Still muffled in the stupor of sleep, and shaken from head to foot by a nervous trembling, I rose, put on my long cloak, and flung a scarf over my disordered hair, for if I were to meet anyone I must seem merely a restless passenger seeking a breath of fresh air. I moved rapidly as I grew more wakeful, and tried not to think. From habit I folded my rugs neatly, and plumped up the pillow on which I had been lying. My throat and lips were dry, and I drank a glass of water before I unlocked my door and stepped out into the passage.
There rose above me a long, horrible cry, a shout blent discordantly of the voices of two-score men, a fearful sound as of the essence of brute fear. Many feet pattered upon the deck. There were wordless shouts, shrieked oaths, sharp commands, the boatswain's whistle piercing through the whole mass of confused sound. The great horn boomed just once more--I heard it through my hands upon my ears as I cowered against the wall.
Then the deck quivered under my feet as a horrible, grinding, rending crash shut out every other sound, and the great ship trembled throughout her length, and began to reel drunkenly from side to side, settling over, with every swing, further and further to port.
A new, more deafening clamour arose all about me, as the sleepers were aroused, and in half a minute the corridor was filled with whitefaced people in all sorts of dress and undress, carrying all kinds of queer treasures, weeping, shrieking, cursing; there was even laughter, hysterical and uncontrollable, and strange stammered words of blasphemy, prayer, reassurance, were shaken out between chattering teeth. A fat steward ran by, shoving rudely aside those whom till now he had lovingly tended as the source of tips. Now he struck away the trembling hands which clutched at his white jacket, ignoring the shivering inquiries as to "What was the matter?" The rapid passage of him gave the excited crowd the impulse it needed, and as one man they surged toward the stair--I with the rest.
But at the foot of the stair reason returned to me, and I reflected that it was absurd for me to join in the struggle for that life which I had just prepared to renounce. Here was death held out to me in the cold hand of Fate, as I could not doubt--and here was I pitiably trying to thrust away the gift!
I wrenched myself out of that frantic crowd, and made my way back to my stateroom with some difficulty, owing to the ship's unusual motion and the increasing list to port. She quivered no longer, indeed, but there passed through her from time to time a long, waving shudder, like the throe of a dying thing, unspeakably fearful and very sickening. As I passed beyond the close-packed crowd the sounds of their terror became more awful. I could discern the cries of little children, the quavering clamour of the very old. The pity of it overcame me, and I staggered into my stateroom and closed the door upon it all. But overhead there was still the swift tramp of feet, the harsh sound of voices--steadier now, and less multiplied, the tokens of a brave and awful preparation.
The next quarter of an hour--for I am sure that the time could not have been as much as twenty minutes, though it seemed that I sat with clenched hands for several days--was spent in a struggle with myself which devoured all my strength. I had heard much, and, in the folly of my peaceful, untempted youth, had often spoken of the cowardice of suicide. But now it required more courage and strength of will than I had ever believed myself capable of just to sit upon that divan, passively waiting to give back my warm, vigorous life to the infinity whence it came. Several times I gave in, and rose and laid my hand upon the doorknob--and conquered myself and went back to the divan and sat down again. Meanwhile, the noise went on above and about me; the fat steward, his face green with fear, flung my door open without knocking. "To the boats, Miss--captain's orders--no luggage----" He went on to the next room: "To the boats, sir!" The room was empty, and he passed to the next: "To the boats----" His teeth knocked against each other, tears of fright glittered down his broad face, but I heard him open doors faithfully the length of the starboard passage.
It was, I suppose, his great hour.
I went to close the door, and found myself confronted by a man, barefooted, clad in shirt and trousers. It was Champion. "You awake, miss? I came to call you--All right? I'm going to get Mr. Darragh on deck," and he vanished.
His friendly, anxious look broke down something in me, and I was on a sudden overwhelmed by the passion of life; my humanity awoke again, and I longed for life, for life however stern, painful, hardwrung from peril and deprivation, for life snatched with bleeding hands out of the fanged jaws of the universe. I stood irresolute, the handle of the door in my hand, for I know not how long. The swaying of the ship became less regular, and the sounds of her straining, wrenched framework sickened me. I stepped over the threshold--the ship gave a last long trembling lurch from which it seemed she could not right herself; there rose a mighty hissing roar and the shriek of the steam from the hold, louder cries from the deck, the lights went out. I stumbled in the dark and fell, striking my head, and something warm and wet trickled down my face as a huge silence settled down upon me, swift and gentle as the wing of a great brooding bird, and I was very peaceful and very happy, for was I not being rocked--no, I was swinging, "letting the old cat die" in the big backyard at Carsonville, Illinois. No, it was better than that--I was dying, for the dark was shot by flashes of golden light, throbbing and raying painfully from my head, and then everything ebbed quietly, gently away.
FOOTNOTE:
[88] Copyright, 1909, by Doubleday, Page and Company.
CHARLES HANSON TOWNE
Charles Hanson Towne, poet of New York's many-sided life, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, February 2, 1877, the son of Professor Paul Towne. He left Kentucky before he was five years old, and he has been living in New York practically ever since. Mr. Towne was educated in the public schools of New York, and then spent a year at the College of the City of New York. He was editor of _The Smart Set_ for several years, but he resigned this position to become literary editor of _The Delineator_. At the present time Mr. Towne is managing editor of _The Designer_, one of the Butterick publications. With H. Clough-Leighter he published two song-cycles, entitled _A Love Garden_, and _An April Heart_; and with Amy Woodforde-Finden he collaborated in the preparation of three song-cycles, entitled _A Lover in Damascus_, _Five Little Japanese Songs_, and _A Dream of Egypt_. His original and independent work is to be found in his three volumes of verse, the first of which was _The Quiet Singer and Other Poems_ (New York, 1908), a collection of lyrics reprinted from various magazines; _Manhattan: a Poem_ (New York, 1909), an epic of New York City; and _Youth and Other Poems_ (New York, 1911), a metrical romance of domestic happiness, with a group of pleasing shorter poems.
_Manhattan_ is the best thing Mr. Towne has done so far. The poem is the life of the present-day New Yorker, the rich and the poor, the famous and the infamous, from many points of view. The poet has turned the most commonplace events of every-day life into verse of exceptional quality and much strength. As the singer of the passing show in New York City, Mr. Towne has done his best work.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Bookman_ (March, 1910); _The Forum_ (June, 1911); _Cosmopolitan Magazine_ (December, 1912).
SPRING[89]
[From _Manhattan, a Poem_ (New York, 1909)]
Spring comes to town like some mad girl, who runs With silver feet upon the Avenue, And, like Ophelia, in her tresses twines The first young blossoms--purple violets And golden daffodils. These are enough-- These fragile handfuls of miraculous bloom-- To make the monster City feel the Spring!
One dash of color on her dun-grey hood, One flash of yellow near her pallid face, And she and April are the best of friends-- Benighted town that needs a friend so much!
How she responds to that first soft caress, And draws the hoyden Spring close to her heart, And thrills and sings, and for one little time Forgets the foolish panic of her sons, Forgets her sordid merchandise and trade, And lightly trips, while hurdy-gurdies ring-- A wise old crone upon a holiday!
SLOW PARTING[90]
[From _Youth and Other Poems_ (New York, 1911)]
There was no certain hour Wherein we said good-bye; But day by day, and year by year We parted--you and I; And ever as we met, each felt The shadow of a lie.
It would have been too hard To say a swift farewell; You could not goad your tongue to name The words that rang my knell; But better that quick death than this Glad heaven and mad hell!