a quarter of a century hence, perhaps, one of those arbiters of taste to whom poetastry owes its very existence will lecture before the intellectual and artistic circles of that period on “the literary remains of the bonnerian period”; and the ledger school of poetry, long neglected by our critics, will become a fashionable cult. i hope, too, that the names of those writers who, as disciples of that school, gave an impetus to those great principles which live to-day in the beautifully printed pages of our leading periodicals will be rescued from the[pg 12] shades of obscurity and accorded the tardy credit that they have fairly won.
these principles have lived because they were founded on good, sound, logical common sense, for mr. bonner possesses one of the most logical minds in the world. in the days when he was—unconsciously, i am sure—moulding the literature of future generations of americans, he was always able to give a reason for every one of his official acts; and i doubt if as much can be said of all the magazine editors of the present day. it was this faculty that enabled his contributors to learn so much of his likes and dislikes, for if he rejected a manuscript he was always ready to tell the author exactly why the work was not suitable for the ledger.
for instance: one day a maker of prose and verse received from the hands of the great editor a story which he had submitted to him the week before.
[pg 13]“if you please,” said the poet, politely, “i should like to know why you cannot use my story, so that i may be guided in the future by your preferences.”
“certainly,” replied mr. bonner. “this story will not do for me because you have in it the marriage of a man with his cousin.”
“but,” protested the young author, “cousins do marry in real life very often.”
“in real life, yes,” cried the canny scotchman; “but not in the new york ledger!”
and it is related of this talented young maker of prose and verse, that he changed his hero and heroine from cousins to neighbors, and the very same night was seen in pfaff’s quaffing, smoking, and jesting with his fellow-poets, and making merry over the defeat that was turned into a victory. and in the generous fashion of bohemia he told all his comrades[pg 14] that “bonner was down on cousins marrying”; and thereafter neither in song nor story did a ledger hero ever look with anything but the eye of brotherly affection on any woman of even the most remote consanguinity.
“in real life, yes; but not in the new york ledger!”
that gives us a taste of the milk in the cocoanut, although it does not account for the hair on the outside of the shell.
as a matter of fact, mr. bonner knew that a great many of his subscribers did not approve of a man marrying his own cousin when there were plenty of other folks’ cousins to be had for the asking; and so, rather than cause a moment’s annoyance to a single one of these, he forbade the practice in the columns of his paper.
i knew a number of these ledger writers in my salad days, and have often heard[pg 15] them discussing their trade and the condition of the market in a way that would have lifted the hair of some of the littérateurs of the modern “delightfully-bohemian-studio-tea” and kettledrum school.
years ago one of them confided to me his recipe for a ledger poem. “whatever you do,” he said, “be careful not to use up a whole idea on a single poem, for if you do you’ll never be able to make a cent. i usually cut an idea into eight pieces, like a pie, and write a poem for each piece, though once or twice i have made sixteen pieces out of one. my ‘two brothers’ idea yielded me just sixteen poems, all accepted, for which i received $160. what do i mean by cutting up an idea? well, i’ll tell you. i took for a whole idea two brothers brought up on a farm in the country, one of whom goes down to the city, while the other stays at home on the farm. well, i wrote eight[pg 16] poems about those brothers, giving them such names as homespun bill and fancy jake, and the city man always went broke, and was glad to get back to the country again and find that homespun bill had either paid the mortgage on the place or saved the house from burning, or done something else calculated to commend him to the haymakers who subscribed for the paper. then i wrote eight more, and in every one of those it was the yokel who got left; that is to say, fancy jake or dashing tom, or whatever i might choose to call him, would go to the city and either get rich in wall street—always wall, never broad or nassau street or broadway, remember—and come back just in time to stop the sheriff’s sale and bid in the old homestead for some unheard-of figure, or else he would become a great physician and return to save his native village at a time of pestilence, or maybe i’d have him a[pg 17] great preacher and come back and save all their souls; anyway, i got eight more poems out of the pair, to say nothing of some stories that i used in another paper.”
i pondered for several moments over the words of the poet and then i said to him, “but if you were so successful with the ‘two brothers’ why didn’t you try to do as well with two sisters?”
“i did,” he replied. “i started a ‘two sisters’ series as soon as the brothers were all harvested, but i got them back on my hands again. you know bonner is down on sisters.”
“bonner is down on sisters!”
what stumbling-blocks there were in the path to literary fame which the poets of the early ledger period sought to tread!
fancy the feelings of one who has poured out his whole soul in a poem descriptive of sisterly love and learns that his labor has been in vain, not because of any fault on his part, not because his[pg 18] poem is not good, but simply and solely because “bonner is down on sisters”! and then i hear the carping critic ask if i call that good editing. i say that it was the very best of editing. at any rate, it was good enough to make the ledger fiction popular from one end of this country to the other; and it is because of that editing that we still find the old dusty files in the country garrets, along with the pop-corn ears and the wreaths of dried apples. i wonder how much of the ephemeral literature of to-day will be found sacredly guarded in anybody’s garret a quarter of a century hence?
but there were other folks besides sisters and matrimonial cousins who were regarded with disfavor by the great editor and thinker who long ago set the pace for modern american fiction.
well do i remember jack moran coming upon us one bright morning, a dozen[pg 19] years ago, with bitter invective on his lips because his poem, “the stepmother’s prayer,” had been returned to him from the ledger office. he read it aloud to us, and then inquired, pathetically, “isn’t that poem all right?”
it was more than “all right.” it was a delicate, imaginative bit of verse, descriptive of the young bride kneeling reverently in the nursery of her new home and praying that god would make her a good mother to the sleeping stepchildren. it was a real poem—such a poem as poor, gifted irish jack moran could write, but only when the mood was upon him, for he was not one of those makers of verse who go to work at six in the morning with their dinner-pails.
“ah, jack!” exclaimed a sympathizing poet, “you never should have taken it to the ledger. didn’t you know that bonner was down on stepmothers? change it round so as to make the stepmother[pg 20] a beast, and he’ll give you ten for it.”
“by the way, jack, do you remember the time there was a death in the old man’s family, and we all got in on him with poems about meeting on the further shore and crossing the dark river?”
“i do,” replied jack, briefly. “it was worth just twenty to me.”
and why was bonner “down” on stepmothers? simply because he wished to avoid giving offense to those who disapproved of second marriages, and who formed a very large part of his constituency.
i hope that i have thrown sufficient pathos into my description of the condition of the poor rhymester of a dozen or fifteen years ago to touch the hearts of my sympathetic readers. how much better off, you say, is the literary man of to-day, who makes steady wages in franklin square, or occupies one of the neat white[pg 21] cottages erected for the employees of the mcclure steam syndicate mills in paterson!
better off in some respects, perhaps, dear reader, but in others his state is none the more gracious than it was in the days when jack moran’s “stepmother’s prayer” was rejected because bonner was down on stepmothers. the great ledger editor has retired to his stock-farm, but the principles which have enabled him to possess a stock-farm still live in every magazine office in the land, and the writer of to-day must be just as careful in regard to forbidden topics as his predecessor was, and, moreover, must keep his eye on three or four editors, with their likes and their dislikes.
but these remarks are not made in a carping spirit. there is some good reason for every one of these likes and dislikes. if mr. gilder prefers oatmeal to wheaten grits as a breakfast-table dish[pg 22] for the hero of the new century serial, it is because he has an eye on his scotch subscribers; and if the manuscript of robinson crusoe is returned to mr. de foe with the remark that “burlingame is down on goats,” it is simply because scribner’s magazine is not pushing its sale in harlem and williamsburg.
in regard to the practice of cutting an idea into eight pieces and serving up each piece as a separate poem or story, can any one familiar with current literature deny that ideas are just as much cut up now as they ever were? more than that, have not some of our writers solved the old problem of making bricks without straw? why, then, you ask, is their manuscript printed in preference to matter that is more virile and fresh and readable? for the same reason that jack moran’s “stepmother’s prayer” was returned to him by the very hand that was stretched forth in glad eagerness to grasp[pg 23] the sixteen poems that had sprung from the solitary idea of the two country brothers. why, i know of one or two poets whose verses enjoy the widest sort of publicity, and who, i am sure, cut an idea into thirty-two pieces instead of sixteen.
