The Great God Success | Page 8

Thank you for the splendid story you gave us
last night. It is one of the best, if not the best, we have had the pleasure
of publishing in years. Your salary has been raised to twenty-five
dollars a week.
"Congratulations. You have 'caught on' at last. I'm glad to take back
what I said the other day.
"HENRY C. BOWRING."

III.
A PARK ROW CELEBRITY.
Kittredge was the first to congratulate him when he reached the office.
"Everybody is talking about your story," he said. "I must say I was
surprised when I read it. I had begun to fear that you would never catch
the trick--for, with most of us writing is only a trick. But now I see that
you are a born writer. Your future is in your own hands."
"You think I can learn to write?"
"That is the sane way to put it. Yes, I know that you can. If you'll only
not be satisfied with the results that come easy, you will make a
reputation. Not a mere Park Row reputation, but the real thing."
Howard got flattery enough in the next few days to turn a stronger head
than was his at twenty-two. But a few partial failures within a fortnight
sobered him and steadied him. His natural good sense made him take
himself in hand. He saw that his success had been to a great extent a
happy accident; that to repeat it, to improve upon it he must study life,
study the art of expression. He must keep his senses open to impression.
He must work at style, enlarge his vocabulary, learn the use of words,
the effect of varying combinations of words both as to sound and as to

meaning. "I must learn to write for the people," he thought, "and that
means to write the most difficult of all styles."
He was, then and always, one of those who like others and are liked by
them, yet never seek company and so are left to themselves. As he had
no money to spare and a deep aversion to debt, he was not tempted into
joining in the time-wasting dissipations that were now open to him. He
worked hard at his profession and, when he left the office, usually went
direct to his rooms to read until far into the morning. He was often busy
sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. His day at reporting was
long--from noon until midnight, and frequently until three in the
morning. But the work was far different from the grind which is the lot
of the young men striving in other professions or in business. It was the
most fascinating work imaginable for an intelligent, thirsty mind--the
study of human nature under stress of the great emotions.
His mode of thought and his style made Mr. Bowring and Mr. King
give him much of this particular kind of reporting. So he was always
observing love, hate, jealousy, revenge, greed. He saw these passions in
action in the lives of people of all kinds and conditions. And he saw
little else. The reporter is a historian. And history is, as Gibbon says,
for the most part "a record of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of
mankind."
For many a man this has been a ruinous, one-sided development.
Howard was saved by his extremely intelligent, sympathetic point of
view. He saw the whole of each character, each conflict that he was
sent to study. If the point of the story was the good side of human
nature--some act of generosity or self-sacrifice--he did not exaggerate it
into godlike heroism but adjusted it in its proper prospective by
bringing out its human quality and its human surroundings. If the main
point was violence or sordidness or baseness, he saw the characteristics
which relieved and partially redeemed it. His news-reports were
accounts of the doings not of angels or devils but of human beings,
accounts written from a thoroughly human standpoint.
Here lay the cause of his success. In all his better stories--for he often
wrote poor ones--there was the atmosphere of sincerity, of realism, the

marks of an acute observer, without prejudice and with a justifiable
leaning toward a belief in the fundamental worth of humanity. Where
others were cynical he was just. Where others were sentimental, he had
sincere, healthful sentiment. Where others were hysterical, he calmly
and accurately described, permitting the tragedy to reveal itself instead
of burying it beneath high-heaped adjectives. Simplicity of style was
his aim and he was never more delighted by any compliment than by
one from the chief political reporter.
"That story of yours this morning," said this reporter whose lack as a
writer was more than compensated by his ability to get intimately
acquainted with public men, "reads as