Jack London Bookstore
Jack London Bookstore
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1898-9 WITH John London removed by death, Jack must buckle to in earnest to support his mother and the little nephew in whom she was entirely wrapped up—an infatuation which never abated. There was no question of choice as to what work he should do. There were unpaid bills of his father's which he felt in honor bound to discharge—petty sums in themselves, but hugely troublesome in Jack's creditless plight. He must snap up the first job that came to hand, and that quickly. It sounded simple, if uninspiring; but the fact is there was no place offering to an unskilled laborer for hard times were on. His only trades were those of sailor and laundryman. The long absences of seafaring did not fit in with his domestic responsibility, and he could not uncover any opening in the laundries of Oakland. Writing was not to be thought of. He must be sure of roof and grub, and a decent suit of ready-mades, before he could raise eyes again, if ever, to the literary heavens. Five employment bureaus and advertisements in three dailies failed to land a situation of any sort, and he be gan pawning his few personal effects—the silver watch Captain Shepard had given him for the Klondike, the bicycle Eliza had bought, and a raincoat much prized by his father, whose dying wish it had been that Jack inherit. Some curious newspaper items were followed up, but nothing came of them. He owns to having proffered for studio- —259—
model his one hundred and sixty-four pounds of well set up, twenty-two years growth of brawn, but some one of several fine-bodied fellows likewise out of employment won the prize. And of course, as he reminds us, along with such frivolous occupations he was trying with might and main to become wop, lumper, or roustabout. The surplus labor army, with winter not far off, pressed hard upon the scarcity of work. "Also I," Jack adds, "who had romped along carelessly through the countries of the world and the kingdom of the mind, was not a member of any union." While preforming small odd tasks he took civil service examinations for mailcarrier, and passed in the lead, only to face disappointment in that no vacancy existed. Awaiting his chance he penned an article, "Down the River," describing his Yukon voyage. The San Francisco newspaper on which he tried it, neither acknowledged nor returned it. This was not encouraging; but he set that square jaw and launched into a 20,000-word serial especially designed for The Youth's Companion. It was completed, even to typing, in one week. "I fancy that was what was the matter with it," he afterward surveyed, "for it came back." To the Lily Maid he wrote: "The art of omission is the hardest of all to learn, and I am weak at it yet. I am too long-winded, and it is hard training to cut down." But here enters a touch of faith in his star: "As yet, this prevents me from writing perfect little gems, examples of which your brother sometimes sends me." He shortened his tools, focused more intently, and began hewing unique art forms, of unmistakable purity, cut from the blocks of empirical and idealistic material so long storing in the house of his mind against this inevitable day. Out of the stuff of earth, and flesh, mind, and heart, that he knew of his own contact, with head and hand he wrought the transmutation of the mass, molded it into restrained shapes that he felt were new—at least he had met —260—
nothing like them; shapes of beauty, or strength, or truth, as desire and his latent genius dictated. In the dynamic, dramatic power of his creation he dared but a hesitant confidence, because he had been unable to conform to conventional patternings revered by those of his acquaintance not big enough in themselves to reassure him of the worth of their authority. He was still fearful of being on the wrong track, no matter how the gleam of it lured. Even the Lily Maid, to whose perceptions he still rendered a measure of fidelity, failed him with wholly unintentional cruelty. Passionately anxious to polish his astonishing outlines, though sensing unquestionable beauties and excellences, she was overborne by the spectacle of her friend hollow-eyed and pasty-pale from lack of sleep and beefsteak. Moreover and most important to her possessive and protective femininity, he was unsuccessful financially. And so, by means of a tact that would have deceived and influenced a less perspicacious lover, with veiled promptings toward some position that would bring in a regular stipend, she chilled him with hopeful references to the mail-carrier opportunity. For she had distinctly approved of his taking the examinations; he needed steadying—some reliable outlook for the future. More than vaguely was he now disillusioned. Perhaps his very tenderness increased in proportion as his recoil doubled back from her restricted horizon. She was so softly pretty, white woman of his own race—her eyes so blue and true, her long mantle of perfect golden hair as lovely as Lady Godiva's, when she let it ripple down for the pleasuring of his eyes. And then her delicate health made him shrink from wounding by determination to assert his own ego's imperious challenge. Yet it was in the fiber of him to be honest. Although he drained her culture of its last drop that could further the form of his work, in exorably he cast aside what his unerring senses warned —261—
him as weakening to it—leaving the pallid girl breathless with a bafflement due to her fate of not understanding. She is dead, and he is dead. She did her best. But her mold was too narrowed to confine his best, though all the while Jack appreciated her effort to help. She was strong enough in no possible way either to restrain or to fly with the eagle she would have caged. Even in the days of her warmest attractiveness, he would find himself, quite with out forethinking, involved by the magnetism of a woman met in her very company, some one entirely her antithesis. Earlier, he marveled at the phenomenon—perhaps, he searched, the reason lay in his own imperfectness of refinement. But he learned about women from both of them. Then abruptly he would overtake the discovery that the Lily Maid's small, vivacious, quick-tongued mother, herself young, was more compellingly enticing than the daughter he had almost been sure was his accomplished dream of womanhood. He was learning about women from them all. His opportunities were of the best—not only in the drawing room, but out of doors on foot or wheel, even to the notoriously illuminating exigencies of camp life; for he made one of their party to Yosemite Valley, which included her immediate family and some outside relatives, as well as friends. And what Jack learned, he never forgot. If detail were lost, the broad principles remained, to play a timely part in maturing tenets and conduct. Further, and finally, an apparently slight happening marked the passing of his old ineffable instinct of worship toward the girl. In reality it was a trenchant manifestation of essential fraility and lack of poise that forever lost the man to her. It was an unconsidered climax of petty irritation to her vanity that he should spend hours of his rare play-time at chess, when they might be out on their wheels or otherwise enjoying each other's society. Right in front of him she flung her fateful bolt, out of a clear sky so far as Jack's —262—
mood was concerned. Shoulders hunched, brows drawn, he bent over the checquered board, his whole soul gathered in still ecstasy of calculation, unconscious of any universe beyond the problem represented by the carven images. The slender, white-robed blonde angel stood beside the unheeding mathematician for one exasperated moment, then swooped, lightly in the flesh but oh! how heavily in spiritual consequences, and swept the table clean with her two small hands. "What did you do?" I asked with bated breath, when years later in reminiscent mood over the Lily's death he recalled the garden tragedy. "Nothing—what was there to do?" slowly he reconstructed his bleak state of mind. "I felt every bit of blood leave my face; and from her brother's expression, mine must have been something awful. The thing was unforgivable, don't you see? To me it was sheer, brutal, blind-mad outrage to every decency of human fair play. It was a sin against the Holy Ghost! It was a vicious act, to wipe a half-solved problem out of existence in that way—from small jealousy of a bloodless rival. . . . No, I did not say a word—then or ever. But when I looked up at her after what seemed a frozen century, and her frightened eyes met mine, she knew what had really happened." For a fleeting moment the young woman glimpsed the import of her pettish deed—that what she had done reached into the very body of their incompatibility. In the biology of things, no superior human entity of vibrating atoms, no matter how little ill-met, can perfectly complement any other entity of similar superiority. Jack, once at rest as to the fundamental largenesses in a given person, could generously discount incidental light qualities, except as they might indicate some abysmal vacuity. And in the Lily Maid he came to discern the stamp of an incomprehension too vast for the two ever to dwell together in mutual satisfaction of any kind. —263—
By now, for all the tenderness of what was become passionless, if staunch and lasting, friendship toward the loving girl, he still beat against the bars of her inadequacy, bars which she fain would have laid down had hers been the ability to do so. If ever I knew how he came by the following letters written to the Lily Maid, all memory has fled. It is likely that at some stage of their long acquaintance—perhaps after his marriage in 1900—the pair may have exchanged their old correspondence. Much of the matter in these letters was combed for the creating of Martin Eden's Ruth, as the author's blue-penciling bears witness. This proves what I had forgotten: that he had the letters with him in Hawaii and aboard the yacht Snark to Tahiti in 1907, since it was during this interval he composed the novel, which originally he had cynically entitled "Success." Here is the first of the letters remaining in his files, typed by him at 962 East 16th street, November 27, 1898, and sent to the Lily Maid at College Park: "Forgive my not writing, for I have been miserable and half sick. So nervous this morning that I could hardly shave myself. "Everything seems to have gone wrong—why, I haven't received my twenty dollars for those essays yet. Not a word as to how I stood in my Civil Service Exs. Not a word from the Youth's Companion, and it means to me what no one can possibly realize. "You seem to misunderstand. I thought I made it perfectly plain, that those squibs of poetry were merely diversions and experiments; yet you say—But always the same theme. Theme has nothing to do with it; they were studies in structure and versification. Though it took me a long while, I have learned my lesson, and thanks to no one. I made ambitious efforts once. It makes me laugh to look back on them, though sometimes I am nearer weeping. I was the greenest of tyros, dipping my brush into whitewash and coal-tar, and without the slightest knowledge of perspective, proportion or color, attempted masterpieces—without a soul to say 'you are all wrong; herein you err; there is your mistake.' "Why, that poem on gold is one of the finest object-lessons in —264—
my possession. I was ambitious in that. With no more comprehension of the aims and principles of poetry, than a crab, I proposed or rather, purposed to make something which would be something. I would strike out on new trails; I would improve on the Spencerian Stanza; I would turn things upside down. So I tried what has been probably tried a thousand times and discarded because it was worthless; one Alexandrine at the end of the stanza was not enough; I added a second. I treated my theme as Dryden or Thompson would have treated it. My elephantine diction was superb—I out-Johnsoned Johnson. I was a fool—and no one to tell me. "So you see, to-day, I am unlearning and learning anew, and as such things are merely principles, you can readily see why I don't care a snap for the theme. I have played Darius Green once, and if my neck is broken a second time it will be my own fault. I shall not be ready for any flights till my machine is perfected, and to that perfection I am now applying myself. Until then, to the deuce with themes. I shall subordinate thought to technique till the latter is mastered; then I shall do vice versa. "I do not know when I can be down—I may be digging sewers or shoveling coal next week. Am glad to hear you are better. Give my regards to everybody. "Good-by, "Jack." Three days later in blackest mood he wrote to her the letter from which I have already drawn portions from time to time as they fitted into my mosaic. I present the remainder: '962 East 16th St. Nov. 30, 1898. Dear——: "I do appreciate your interest in my affairs, but—we have no common ground. In a general, vaguely general, way, you know my aspirations; but of the real Jack, his thoughts, feelings, etc., you are positively ignorant. Yet, little as you do know, you know more about me than anybody else. I have fought and am fighting my battle alone. You speak of going to———: I know how well she loves —265—
me; do you know how? or why? I spent years in Oakland and we saw nothing of each other—perhaps once a year looked on each other's face. If I had followed what she would have advised, had I sought her I would to-day be a clerk at forty dollars a month, a railroad man, or something similar. I would have winter clothes, would go to the theater, have a nice circle of acquaintances, belong to some horrible little society like the ——, talk as they talk, think as they think, do as they do—in short, I would have a full stomach, a warm body, no qualms of conscience, no bitterness of heart, no worrying ambition, no aim but to buy furniture on the instalment plan and marry. I would be satisfied to live a puppet and die a puppet. Yes, and she would not like me half as well as she does. Because I felt that I was or wanted to be something more than a laborer, a dummy; because I showed that my brain was a little bit better than it should have been, considering my advantages and lack of advantages; because I was different from most fellows in my station; because of all this she took a liking to me. But all this was secondary; primarily, she was lonely, had no children, a husband who was no husband, etc., she wanted some one to love. "If the world was at my feet to-morrow, none would be happier than she, and she would say she knew it would be so all the time. But until that time—well, she would advise to not think of it, to sink myself in two score years of oblivion with a full belly and no worry, to die as I had lived, an animal. "Why should I so study that I may extract joy from reading some poem? She does not, and does not miss anything: Tom, Dick and Harry do not, and they are happy. Why should I develop my mind? It is not necessary for happiness. A babble of voices, petty scandals, and foolish nothings, should satisfy me. It does Tom, Dick and Harry, and they are happy. "As long as my mother lives, I would not do this; but with her gone to-morrow, if I knew that my life would be such, that I was destined to live in Oakland, labor in Oakland at some steady occupation, and die in Oakland—then to-morrow I would cut my throat and call quits with the whole cursed business. You may call this the foolish effervescence of youthful ambition, and say that it will all tone down in time; but I have had my share of toning down. —266—
(Here follows the paragraph upon Duty, already quoted, and the incident of the meat at school.) He goes on: "You say, 'It is your duty, if you wish to hold the esteem of those whose approval or companionship is worth having.' If I had followed that, would I have known you? If I had followed that, who would I know whose companionship I would esteem? If I had followed that from childhood, whose companionship would I he fitted to enjoy?—Tennyson's, or a bunch of brute hoodlums on a street corner? "I cannot lay bare, cannot put my heart on paper, but I have merely stated a few material facts of my life. These may be cues to my feelings. But unless you know the instrument on which they play, you will not know the music. Me—how I have felt and thought through all this struggle; how I feel and think now—you do not know. Hungry! Hungry! Hungry! From the time I stole the meat and knew no call above my belly, to now when the call is higher, it has been hunger, nothing but hunger. "You cannot understand, nor never will. "Nor has anybody ever understood. The whole thing has been by itself. Duty said 'Do not go on; go to work.' So said others, though they would not say it to my face. Everybody looked askance; though they did not speak, I knew what they thought. Not a word of approval, but much of disapproval. If only some one had said, 'I understand.' From the hunger of my childhood, cold eyes have looked upon me, or questioned, or snickered and sneered. What hurt above all was that they were some of my friends not professed but real friends. I have calloused my exterior and receive the strokes as though they were not; as to how they hurt, no one knows but my own soul and me. "So be it. The end is not yet. If I die I shall die hard, fighting to the last, and hell shall receive no fitter inmate than myself. But for good or ill, it shall be as it has been—alone. And you, remember this: the time is past when any John Halifax, Gentleman, ethics can go down with me. I don't care if the whole present, all I possess, were swept away from me—I will build a new present; if I am left naked and hungry—to-morrow before I give in I will go naked and hungry. . . . ". . . . Frank [Frank Atherton, an old friend] has been play- —267—
ing the violin and Johnny the devil in the room while I have been writing this, so you will forgive its disconnectedness. . . . "Yours, "Jack." The next missive is of December 6, 1898, and records the debatable success of a manuscript entitled "To The Man On Trail," which he had submitted to the Overland Monthly. The Uncle referred to in my Prologue as business manager of the magazine, from this time on began speaking of the remarkable work being turned in by "this boy, Jack London." "Frank is at last gone and I can do a little writing. Why did you not send me what you had written? Were you afraid of hurting my feelings it seems your previous frankness, extending through several years, had precluded any such possibility. . . . "Sent out in this mail, 'trailers' after articles I mailed last September, and which have vanished utterly. Received a letter from the Overland Monthly. This is the substance of it: We have read your MS and are so greatly pleased with it, that, though we have an enormous quantity of accepted and paid-for material on hand, we will at once publish it in the January number, if—aye, if you can content yourself with five dollars. "There are between three and four thousand words in it. Worth far more than five dollars, at the ordinary reportorial rate of so much per column. What do you think of that for a first class magazine like the Overland? . . . "We are getting ready to sue the Republican Club for our prizes. No word from Youth's Companion. "If I could only come down. Hope this will find you in better health—I hate to think of you lying sick." Jack had won first award for an essay in a contest held by the Fifth Ward Republican Club for campaign songs, essays, cartoons and poems, the song prize being taken by his friend Rev. Robert J. Whitaker. The Club seems to have defaulted in payment, and hence was sued by the various winners. —268—
On December 22, he wrote the Lily Maid: "All this week and part of last I have spent in the superior court of San Francisco. One of my Klondike partners, Sloper, has returned, and because he had not struck it rich, his wife, to whom he had deeded over four thousand dollars worth of property before he left, has sued him for divorce, alleging desertion. I had to serve as witness on various points. It sickens one to find a woman can be so small and cold-blooded. "No news from Republican Club. Overland has not paid five dollars yet. Youth's Companion yarn came back prime cause of rejection they state to be unusual length of each chapter, which length is never allowed, they say, 'except in very special instances.' In the beginning, in response to my queries, I was told that 3000 words made an average chapter, and in the end, none of my chapters exceeded that amount. I take it to be merely an alleged cause, or else a mistake on the part of the one who first advised me. "Enclosed, you will find the successful Examiner story. [Jack's own contribution to this newpaper's contest had been rejected.] Please keep it, remembering that strength of narrative and originality of plot were demanded by those in charge of contest. Some day, when the MSS. I submitted are published elsewhere, I shall forward to you so that you may compare. Also, in the successful story I send you, please endeavor to find what plot there is, if any, or if it is a study, or pseudo-study." The Christmas of 1898 was a blue one. He faced losing his typewriter, for want of its small rent, and the day brings up dreams that make him evince a trace of unthinking masculine cruelty to the deprived girl who loves him, in his picture of that ever latent desire for fatherhood. "About the loneliest Christmas I ever faced—guess I'll write to you. Nothing to speak of, though—everything quiet. How I wish I were down at College Park, if for no more than a couple of hours. Nobody to talk to, no friend to visit—nay, if there were, and if I so desired, I would not be in position to. Hereafter and for some time to come, you'll have to content yourself with my beastly scrawl, for this is, most probably, the last machine-made —269—
letter I shall send you. . . . The typewriter goes back on the thirty-first of December. . . . Then the New Year, and an entire change of front. "I have profited greatly, have learned much during the last three months. How much I cannot even approximate—I feel its worth and greatness, but it is too impalpable to put down in black and white. I have studied, read, and thought a great deal, and believe I am at last beginning to grasp the situation—the general situation, my situation, and the correlative situation between the two. But I am modest, as I say, I am only beginning to grasp—I realize, that with all I have learned, I know less about it than I thought I did a couple of years ago. "Are you aware of the paradox entailed by progress? It makes me both jubilant and sad. You cannot help feeling sad when looking over back work and realizing its weak places, its errors, its inanities; and again, you cannot but rejoice at having so improved that you are aware of it, and feel capable of better things. I have learned more in the past three months than in all my High School and College; yet, of course, they were necessary from a preparatory standpoint. "And to-day is Christmas—it is at such periods that the vagabondage of my nature succumbs to a latent taste for domesticity. Away with the many corners of this round world! I am deaf to the call of the East and West, the North and South—a picture such as Fred [Jacobs] used to draw is before me. A comfortable little cottage, a couple of servants, a select coterie of friends, and above all, a neat little wife and a couple of diminutive models
of us twain—a hanging of stockings last evening, a merry surprise this morning, the genial interchange of Christmas greeting; a cosy grate fire, the sleepy children cuddling on the floor ready for bed, a sort of dreamy communion between the fire, my wife, and myself; an assured, though quiet and monotonous, future in prospect; a satisfied knowledge of the many little amenities of civilized life which are mine and shall be mine; a genial, optimistical
"Ever feel that way? Fred dreamed of it, but never tasted; I suppose I am destined likewise. So be it. . . . The whole thing is a gamble, and those least fitted to understand the game win the —270—
most. The most unfortunate gamblers are those who have or think they have systems to beat the game—they always go broke. . . . "I shall forsake my old dogmas, and henceforth, worship the true god. 'There is no God but Chance, and Luck shall be his prophet.' He who stops to think or beget a system is lost. As in other creeds, faith alone atones. Numerous hecatombs and many a fat firstling shall I sacrifice you just watch my smoke (I beg pardon, I mean incense). "I started to write a letter; I became nonsensical; forgive me. I go to dine at my sister's. Happy New Year to all!" The January, 1899, Overland published his story, "To the Man on Trail." I find part of a letter written about this time, containing a reference to the skepticism of the Black Cat concerning himself; likewise his discovery of the non-existence of inspiration: "I, from a stylistic and constructive standpoint, have wandered afar after strange gods, and find it difficult to get back to the right trails. My conversation is still learning to walk, as you will have observed. . . . Don't criticize punctuation in my letters; I type them off as fast as I can think. . . . "The only other reason of refusal by Youth's Companion, was loosely strung narrative, which I can't exactly see; at least the Companion is publishing much worsely strung, balder stuff every issue. So be it. . . . "I have reached a conclusion: there is no such thing as inspiration. I thought so once, and made an ass of myself accordingly. Dig is the arcana of literature, as it is of all things save being born with a silver spoon and going to Klondike. The only inspiration is that which comes to an orator when addressing a vast multitude which is in sympathy with him. "Poor child! You took four guesses as to the fate of my wheel and missed it, every one—soaked with my Hebrew uncle. Also other articles too numerous to mention. Lots of fun working under such conditions. You are in luck to obtain this Overland. It's the only one I possess, and I had to borrow the dime to buy it. . . . "The Black Cat writes me concerning an MS. submitted to —271—
them. They want references, as I am unknown. Then they wish to know if I wrote it myself, if the idea is mine, if it has ever been in print in part or whole, if it has ever been submitted else where, and if others have or will have a copy of it. . . . Wonder what they'll pay? It is a pseudo-scientific tale, founded on hypothetical chemical, biological, and pathological laws, dealing with the diametric converse of chemical affinity and the mysteries of protoplasmic coagulation. Very sorry, but can't forward definitions. "I have Cyrano de Bergerac, but no stamps to forward; besides, I would vastly prefer reading it with you. . . . Would like to talk Ella Wheeler Wilcox over with you. You seem to misunderstand her. . . . "'Magnificent.' No word bears exactly the same significance to any two persons. Barbaric splendor is magnificence to the barbaric mind. Two such specimens as Jack and Lucille, fur-dressed, be-moccasined, etc., may strike you as bizarre—it strikes me as possessing a crude magnificence. "Yes, some of the qualities of Jensen go into Malemute Kid. But Malemute Kid is still something more. I shall tell more about Lucille, some day." And here is a lovely fragment, treating of an expectant young mother, a mutual friend: "I have seen a woman in such condition, but the feeling of wonder, of sacred mystery about it, never stales upon me. It's such a natural event, but somehow, I cannot bring my own practical self to view it exactly in that light—there's a something, a vague and intangible something over and beyond, which eludes the grasp. As reason is excluded, suppose it must be classified under the head of emotion, sentiment. Well, sentiment within bounds is one of the redeeming traits of the world." Another fragment, January 13, 1899, attests his loneliness and restlessness: "I doubt if you can understand how disappointed I have been—thirteen days since I wrote you, and no sign. At last I thought, 'Perhaps she remembers my birthday and is waiting so her letter —272—
may arrive on that day.' Yesterday morning I thought surely it would arrive. When it did not the afternoon became invested with an infallible certainty. Alas! The postman brought a dun! "Well, yesterday was my birthday. I did not look for 'many happy returns of the day'; nor did I receive many. My sister was the only one who wished me that, or anything else. Thought I would break the tediousness of my endless prose writing and take a little holiday. . . . So I read the morning papers; answered a couple of pressing letters; stood off the butcher and baker to satisfy the absurd cravings of life; wooed the Muse; and sat down to write poetry. The funniest part of the whole thing is that I did it from a sense of duty." In the course of the next letter, dated January, 1899, again he takes up arms for Ella Wheeler Wilcox; and singularly enough the paragraph he quotes from the "sweet singer," as he termed her in later life, expresses what he had felt for the Lily Maid to whom he offers the paragraph with a challenge to criticize it: "Right in the neck—don't mention it. Tisn't exactly right to ask for criticism, and then criticize—I understand that, but, well, I wanted to show the point of view by which I worked. I was wrong in doing it, and besides, did it rather rudely. Still, I believe you're none the worse for it. I wish I could talk with you; I might explain better. "One other thing. I don't know whether you share this belief with your brother, but think you do—that I do not take time enough; do not let a thing cool; do not write and write and rewrite; do not, in short, exhibit the peculiar, or rather, exercise the peculiar methods of the lapidary. To this, I believe, you attribute the weakness of the characters I have drawn. Two other possibilities arise. First, as I stated before, the lack of effect may be laid to your egregious ignorance of such types. Secondly, the fault may lie in me, but not in the trick of the hand or phrase. The latter may do their work very thoroughly, admirably, and through no weakness on their part, produce a puerile result. This then, is due to insincerity of vision on my part; and all the polishing of the MS. will never succeed in bettering it. You see what I am driving at. —273—
I am sure what I have written reflects almost perfectly the thought, the image in my mind. I know, if I draw the complete character of Malemute Kid in one short story, all raison de etre of a Malemute Kid series ceases. "Am very sorry to hear you are worse; and you had been so hopeful, too. Hope my last letter had no bad effects—if it stirred you up, as it evidently did your brother, it was really criminal on my part. Forgive me. Though I guess you know already what a rough-shod barbarian I am, even at my best. At least you cannot say I am anything but candid. Unless your brother mentions it, don't let him know you know I was lectured—it's only Jack, anyway. "By the way, forgot to tell you in my last letter, that I stand first on the eligible list for carriers. My percent was 85.38. My postman tells me I stand a good show for appointment. At first one goes on as extra man, making about forty-five dollars per month. After about six months of that he becomes regular with sixty-five dollars. But the whole year may elapse before I get anything at all. . . . "You are unusually prejudiced against Ella Wheeler Wilcox; your brother shares it with you; I am sure your mother does too; and hence, with no further search, you fan each other s distaste. Tell me what you think of the following—style and thought:
"Speaking of marriage—the following is what Zangwill calls Spinoza's 'aphorism on marriage': 'It is plain that Marriage is in accordance with Reason, if the desire is engendered not merely by external form, but by love of begetting children and wisely educating them; and if, in addition, the love both of husband and —274—
wife has for its cause not external form merely, but chiefly liberty of mind.' "John Keats wrote to Miss Jeffry: 'One of the reasons that the English have produced the finest writers in the world is that the English world has ill treated them during their lives and fostered them after their deaths.' "What do you think of it? Don't harbor the idea for a minute that I deem myself in that category. I consider myself a clumsy apprentice, learning from the master craftsmen and striving to get my hand in. "It's midnight, and I m going to mail this before I turn in. Your brother is over in 'Frisco, gone to the theater I believe. I shall read in bed till his return. If the Overland, Black Cat, and Republicans pay me next week, within a couple of days of each other, I may be able to come down. Good-night——" Follows the last of this correspondence in my possession, with its opportune dovetailing as will be seen in the final paragraph; into the Cloudesley Johns series of letters; letters which carry on the evidence of Jack London's unfolding in the crucial beginnings of his rapid elevation to prominence. In the closing paragraph one marvels upon the boy's perspective on his own work, from his heartstick reference to "The White Silence," that masterly story of which George Hamlin Fitch a year thence wrote: "I would rather have written 'The White Silence' than any thing that has seen the light in fiction in ten years. "962 East 16th St. Feb. 28, 1899. Dear———:— "Yours came to hand not half an hour ago. Am very sorry to hear of your brother's illness, and can appreciate just about how well worn out every one is. Now as to my coming down. If absolutely necessary, telegraph, and I will be there. Yet much as I would like to, my hands are so full and there is so much to be done, that I could not be just to my family and myself did I come when it was not absolutely necessary. You know how we are living from hand to mouth, nothing coming in except what —275—
is earned, even yet much of my stuff is in pawn and bills running galore. "And I wish to turn out some good work in this coming month, for I expect a call from the Post Office in April if not sooner. As to the good work I will explain. James Howard Bridge, editor of the Overland, has at last returned. He at once sent for me. . . . This is the essence of our conversation: "While advising the majority of candidates for the magazine field to seek other pursuits, he would not do so in my case. I showed the proper touch, only needed bringing out. Different people had been asking about me, Sunday Editors of the Examiner, etc. He had bought the Feb. Overland on the train West, and was quite taken with my 'White Silence.' Said it was the most powerful thing which had appeared in the magazine for a year; but he was afraid it was a fluke and perhaps it would be impossible for me to repeat it, etc. Now to his proposition. The Overland prints forty pages of advertisements at thirty dollars per page, while McClure's print one hundred pages three hundred dollars per page; yet printing, plates, paper, mail service, etc. cost just as much for the Overland. The only thing the Overland could scale down was the writers, and these it had to. While not in position to pay me well, he thought he could give me most valuable returns for my work. If I sustained the promise I had given, he would give me a prominent place in the pages of his magazine, see that the newspapers, reviews, etc. puffed me, and inaugurate a boom to put my name before the public. You can readily see how valuable this would be—putting future employment into my hands from publications which could afford to pay well. Yet the best he could do would be $7.50 per sketch. It would take too long to go over all we said. I may be called over again some day. "You understand my position, I hope; yet frankly, should it be necessary you know you can call upon me. As I expect it to rain this week, the roads will be impassible and I will have to have recourse to Ferry to Alviso. . . . "From what I have told you above, you may see that things are brightening, only as yet in the future. I may not fulfil expectations, break down, and have to still further develop before I come out; and if I do not, even present success is a matter of much —276—
waiting. Enclosed letter from Cloudesley Johns, return with what you think of it. Don't think I've got the swellhead. I was sick at heart when I read printed 'White Silence,' and I yet fail to see anything in it. Give my regards to all, not excepting a good share to yourself, and believe me ready to come if you cannot get along without me, "Jack." |
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