when the good dr. holland passed away, his mantle descended upon the shoulders of mr. r. u. johnson, the foremost of his disciples, and one who had literally sat at the feet of the great master of the eighth decade of the present century, and learned from his lips the deathless principles of modern magazine editing. since then mr. johnson has, in his capacity of associate editor of the century magazine, so skillfully blended the methods of the canny scotch ledger editor with those of dr. holland that he has not only kept his own periodical well in the lead, but has also set the pace for[pg 63] american literature and compelled his rivals to watch his movements at all times with the closest care, and frequently to imitate him.
i first heard of the existence of mr. johnson, who is unquestionably the one dominant figure in american literature of to-day, about fourteen years ago, just as i was beginning to learn something about the trade of writing. i had placed in the hands of a literary friend—now well known as one of the most successful of the modern school of story-writers—the manuscript of a story which dealt with the criminal life of the lower east side of the town, and was wondering how soon i was to awake and find myself famous when my manuscript was returned to me with a brief note from my friend, in which he said:
“i read your story through yesterday, and was so much pleased with it that my first impulse was to take it to the century magazine.[pg 64] indeed, i would have done so had i not remembered at that moment that johnson does not like low life; so you had better try one of the daily papers.”
“johnson does not like low life!”
that was encouraging news for a young man who believed that literary methods had not materially altered since the days when oliver goldsmith wrote the vicar of wakefield.
the pen fell from my hand—it happened to be employed just then on a story dealing with life in a pell street opium-joint—and i said to myself: “merciful heavens! must i devote my life to the delineation of what are called society types, simply because johnson—whoever he may be—does not like low life?”
i think that if i had known then that low life was only one of a thousand things that could not meet the approval of johnson, and that, moreover, bonner was down on fast horses, stepmothers, sisters, matrimonial[pg 65] cousins, and brindle-pups, i would have thrown down my pen and endeavored to support myself in some other way.
but i did not know anything about the practical side of literature then, so i blundered on, wasting a great deal of time over forbidden topics, until i made the acquaintance of jack moran and others of his school, who welcomed me to bohemia, and generously bade me share their treasure-house of accrued knowledge of editorial likes and dislikes. my low-life story—in my sublime faith i had written it on the flimsiest sort of paper—traveled from one office to another until it had eaten up $1.28 in postage and looked like prince lorenzo in the last act of the mascot. then, held together by copper rivets, it sank into its grave in the old daily truth, unwept and unsigned.
i came across this forgotten offspring of my literary youth not long ago, and[pg 66] candor compels me to say that if mr. johnson had read that story and printed it in the century magazine he would not be to-day the dominant figure in the literature of our country that he is. my romance was not nearly as good as a great many that i have read in daily papers from the pens of clever newspaper men who know what they are writing about. in point of intense dramatic interest it was not within a thousand miles of the sun’s masterly history of the career of george howard, the bank burglar, who was murdered in the westchester woods about fifteen years ago. the story of howard’s life and crimes was told in a page of the sun, i think by mr. amos cummings, and if i could find any fiction equal to it in one of our magazines i would gladly sound the praises of the editor who was courageous enough to publish it.
i can afford to smile now as i recall[pg 67] the bitterness of spirit in which i used to chafe under the restrictions imposed upon us by the all-powerful barons of literature. i used to console my wounded vanity then by picturing to myself a bright future, when johnson would stretch out his hands to me and beg me to place on the tip of his parched tongue a few pages of my cooling and invigorating manuscript. and with what derision would i have laughed then had any one told me that in the years to come i would be the one to accord to mr. johnson the honor which is his just due, and to recognize the wisdom which he showed in rejecting my story of low life!
a truthful portrayal of life among the criminal and vicious classes would be as much out of place in the century magazine as one depicting the love of a widower for his own cousin, whom he took out to ride behind a horse with a record of 2.53, would have been in the old ledger;[pg 68] and i am positive that such a thing will not occur until after the close of the present literary dynasty.
there is an excellent reason for this prohibition, too. there are no people in the world who have a greater horror of what they consider “low” or “vulgar” than those who are steeped in mediocrity, and who, in this country, form a large part of the reading public. in england they are known as the “lower middle classes,” and they exist in countless thousands; but they have a literature of their own—ouida, the family herald, ally sloper’s ’alf ’oliday,—and writers like george meredith and mrs. humphry ward and george du maurier pay no attention to them or to their prejudices. nor does it seem to me that these writers are as grievously hampered by consideration for the peachy cheek of the british young person as they claim to be.
the fact that johnson was down on low[pg 69] life made a deep impression on me, not so much because of what, i must admit, is a most reasonable and proper prejudice, but because i soon found that every literary man of my acquaintance was fully aware of his feelings in the matter, and therefore took pains not to introduce into a story any scenes or characters which might serve to render the manuscript unsalable in the eyes of the century editors; and as years rolled on i could not help noticing the effect which this and other likes and dislikes of this literary gessler had in moulding the fiction of our day and generation. and it is because of this century taboo, which had its origin in the ledger office, by the way, that i know of hardly a single magazine writer of to-day who has made himself familiar with the great wealth of varied material which may be found in that section of new york which it is the custom to refer to vaguely as “the great east side.”
[pg 70]it was not very long after the receipt of the letter which thrust upon my bewildered senses a nebulous comprehension of mr. johnson’s influence and importance in the domain of letters that a fuller recognition of his omniscience was wrung from me, all-admiring, yet loath to believe. mr. h. c. bunner had written a story called “the red silk handkerchief” and sent it to the century office for approval. the story contained a graphic description of the flagging of a train to avert a disaster, in which occurred the following passage:
“... and he stood by the platform of the last car as the express stopped.
“there was a crowd around horace in an instant. his head was whirling; but, in a dull way, he said what he had to say. an officious passenger, who would have explained it all to the conductor if the conductor had waited, took the deliverer in his arms—for the boy was near fainting—and[pg 71] enlightened the passengers who flocked around.
“horace hung in his embrace, too deadly weak even to accept the offer of one of dozen flasks that were thrust at him.”
now an ignorant layman will, i am bound, find nothing in the quoted sentences that could possibly give offence to the most sensitive reader; but it was precisely at the point where the quotation ends that the finely trained and ever-alert editorial sense of mr. johnson told him of the danger that lurked in the author’s apparently innocuous phrase.
“hold on!” he cried; “can’t you make it two or three flasks instead of a dozen?”
well did the keen-witted johnson know that to many a serious minded gas-fitter or hay-maker the spectacle of a dozen evil-minded and evil-living men riding roughshod through the pages of a[pg 72] family periodical and over the feelings of its readers would be distasteful in the extreme, if not absolutely shocking. two or three flasks would lend to the scene a delicate suggestion of the iniquity of the world, just enough to make them thank god that they were not as other men are; but a dozen was altogether too much for them, and johnson was the man who knew it.
it is only fair to add that the author very properly refused to alter his manuscript, and the story stands, to-day, as it was originally written.
it was the flask episode that really opened my eyes to the peculiar conditions which encompassed the modern trade of letters, clogging the feet of the laborers thereof, and while making the easy declivities about parnassus accessible to every one who could hold a pen, rendering its upper heights more difficult to reach than they ever were before. and[pg 73] it was the same episode which finally proved to me mr. johnson’s leadership in contemporaneous literature—a leadership which he has held from that day to this by sheer force of his intimate knowledge of the tastes, prejudices, and peculiarities of the vast army of readers which the century magazine has gathered unto itself, and still holds by the closest of ties, and will hold, in my opinion, so long as mr. johnson remains at the helm, with his pruning-hook in his hand, and reading, with clear, searching eyes, the innermost thoughts of his subscribers.
the present literary era has given us many things to be thankful for, chief among which should be mentioned the enormous advance in the art of illustration—a blessing which is shadowed only by the regretful knowledge that literature has not kept pace with her sister art. indeed, too high praise cannot be given to the proprietors of the great monthlies for[pg 74] the liberality and good taste which they have shown in raising the pictorial standard of their publications to its present high plane, from which it commands the admiration of all right-minded people. and if we are living in the johnsonian age of letters we are also living in the frazeresque period of art, for i doubt if any one man has exercised a wider influence in the field of modern illustration than mr. w. l. fraser, the maker of the art department of the century. nor should we forget his associate, mr. drake.
to the present literary era, we are indebted, also, for the higher development of that peculiar form of fiction called the short story, the popularity of which has at least served to give employment to a large number of worthy people who would otherwise have been compelled to eke out an existence by humbler and more exhausting forms of labor. no sooner had the short-story fever taken[pg 75] possession of the magazine offices than there appeared from various corners of the earth men, women, and children, many of whom had never written anything before in their lives, but who now besieged the franklin and union square strongholds, bearing in their inky hands manuscript which in many instances they were fortunate enough to dispose of, to the rage and wonder of those old-timers who, having learned their trade under mr. bonner and dr. holland, now found themselves too old to readily fall in with the new order of things.
of this new brood a few were chosen, and among them were the writers of dialect stories, which enjoyed an astonishing vogue for several years, and are now, happily enough, losing ground. i think the banner writer of dialect stories of this period was a certain mr. william mclellan, who contributed a number of unique specimens of his wares to harper’s monthly.[pg 76] he could spell more words wrong than any other writer i ever heard of and i have often wished that i could read one of his stories.
some of these short-story marvels have been extremely successful, and now take rank as first-class writers of fiction. i would have a much higher regard for them, though, if they could write novels—not serials, but novels.
among other notable products of the fecund johnsonian age the future historian of american literature will dwell upon the century war-papers, well calculated to extend the circulation of the magazine over vast areas in the south as well as the north where it had been almost unknown before; the siberian experiences of mr. george kennan; autobiographies of celebrated men and women; and idyllic phases of new england life from the pen of the inimitable mr. gladden.
the kennan articles were of enormous[pg 77] value, apart from their own intrinsic merit, because their purpose was the reform of certain abuses. we americans are so fond of reform that we are always getting it in one shape or another, and the more we get of it the more we want; and these papers were aimed only at the czar of russia and his advisers—men who neither subscribe for nor advertise in american monthlies. i doubt if a proposition to undertake a crusade against plumbers and compel them to lower their prices would awaken a tidal wave of enthusiasm in the century office.
