MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE. VOL. I. NOVEMBER, 1893. No. 6. REAL CONVERSATIONS.-III. A DIALOGUE BETWEEN FRANK R. STOCKTON AND EDITH M. THOMAS. RECORDED BY MISS THOMAS. Nature provides no lovelier mise-en-scène for a story, a poem or, a "conversation" than is to be found in the sylvan and pastoral world that looks out upon the gradual crescendo of the Blue Ridge mountains in northern New Jersey. Tall beeches, hickories, chestnuts, and maples, too, rise on all sides to clothe fertile slope or wilder acclivity. Those who have never experimentally proved what riches the landscape-loving eye counts for its own in this portion of the State may still hold to MISS EDITH M. THOMAS, the calumnious tradition that all Jersey is flat and unprofitable to the searcher for the beautiful in pictorial nature. There is no hilltop of this gracious country that does not rise to salute some yet more sightly hill; no sunny hollow or winding dell that does not seem the key to some Happy Valley beyond, where a Rasselas might be content to abide forever; no woodland glade that would not satisfy Leigh Hunt's description, "Places of nestling green, for poets made." Yet it would hardly be judicious for a poet to live here, lest he should be diverted altogether from thoughts of work, and, like the bees in Florida, lend himself to present enjoyment, without forecast of the morrow. Give me health and a day," says Emerson, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous." While we venture no such reduction of royal heads, we are rich in the sense of privilege and of immunity from all the troubled voices of the world, given such a scene, such a fair September morning. The Holt, the wooded hill on which stands Mr. Stockton's home, rises on three sides-gently, leisurely; nothing abrupt, but as befits the site for an ideal homestead. Even were no houses made with hands erected in this place, the noble grove, com Copyright, 1893, by S. S. MCCLURE, Limited. All rights reserved. prising the whole congress of good trees and true, that yield fuel and timber for man's use, would enclose and tapestry around a sort of spacious woodland chamber for the abode of contemplation and comfort. In truth, close beside the ample piazza, a group of stately pines, joined in brotherly love, securely roof over a little parlor where the gentle shower would scarce admonish a loiterer in a rustic seat. Down this easy slope the trees descend to make a green, dream-lighted dell, through which we see the winding course of a wood-path, where the pilgrim of a day may saunter. So sauntering, or tarrying, the pilgrim proceeds leisurely along; at last, a little climb and a deft turn of the path deliver us into a sweetly secluded nook christened "Studio Bluff." And now to return to the sheltering eaves of the "Holt" and repair to the study. Yonder is the great desk, as full, it may be, of hives and honey as were the pockets of the Bee Man of Orn! 66 There is the bookcase, containing, among its volumes of reference and service, sundry eccentricities of literature: "Mr. Salmon," for instance, with his exhaustive Geographical and Historical Grammar," sandwiching between its useful rules and tables tidbits of valuable information, including such subjects as " Cleopatra's Asp;" adding also a few paradoxes," otherwise childish riddles, wherewith the simple olden time was wont to amuse itself. Here, on the walls hangs the sampler of one of the ladies Stockton, long since skilled with the "fine needle and nice thread." Close beside this notable needlework hangs a parchment, the will of one of the forefathers of the house, who held it no "baseness to write fair," if this scarcely faded engrossing bespeaks the writer's creed in penmanship. Here, a grim, gaunt candlestick does picket duty all by itself: it is a bayonet taken from the last battlefield of the South-a bayonet inverted, the point thrust into a standard, the stock serving as socket for the candle. In this rapid survey of the room, the lines of old Turberville attract the eye, where they appear inscribed over the mantel: "Yee that frequent the hilles and highest holtes of all, Assist mee with your skilful quilles, and listen when I call." It is On the mantel reposes a wickedly crooked dirk, sheathed and quiescent now. the weapon that slew the redoubted Po Money, a Dacoit chief, of whom the missionary who consigned it to the present owner naively observes, on his card of presentation, Since he would never repent, it seemed best that he should be out of the world." By this window are flowers, a few; by choice a vase for each; for here the individuality of a flower is prized, and the crowded and discomfited loveliness of flowers in the mass is not tolerated. So a day-lily, or an early dahlia, may have its place, by itself, in undisputed queendom. A branch of vari-colored "foliage plant" completes the decorative floral company. But who is this-coming as in dyed garments from Bozrah-that reposes among these pied leaves, beneath their "protective coloring"? A cramped prisoner but a few hours before, in the world, but not of it. The bright creature rests in the sunny window until its wings gain strength to lift and bear it away. Guest. And so you will give me the fancy of packing the butterfly back into his case? Host. Yes, I give up all claim upon it. It is yours to have and to hold only see that the poor fellow isn't hurt in packing him up. Guest. That deserves caution. This is the second lucky suggestion that has come in my way to-day. Both are too good to be lost. The muse learns thrift and treasures up all suggestions. Host. How does your muse ordinarily get her suggestions? Guest. Oh, in all sorts of ways; from reading, from some one's mere chance expression; sometimes from the particular insistence of some object in nature to be seen or heard; as though it had been waiting for its historian to come along. Usually, with the object is associated some slight touch of pathos. Dreams, too, offer suggestions. These suggestions, of course, are fantastic. They often have a touch of absurdity which the muse wisely omits, generally taking them for their allegorical face value. I dreamed once of seeing a rich cluster of purple blossoms, heavy with dew. The name, I learned was "honeytrope," and so I transplanted the flower, root and branch, into a small garden plot of verses. I would think some of your whimsical situations and characters Host. No, I don't remember deriving suggestions from actual dreams; but I owe a great many to day-dreams. I used to entertain myself in this way constantly when a schoolboy. In walking home from school I would take up the thread of a plot and carry it on from day to day until the thing became a serial story. The habit was continued for years, simply because I enjoyed it-especially when walking. If anybody had known or asked me about it I should have confessed that I thought it a dreadful waste of time. Guest. But it proved, I dare say, a sort of peripatetic training-school of fiction. Host. Perhaps it might be called so. At any rate, years after, I used to go back to these stories for motives, especially in tales written for children. But there was another way in which, in later years, I have made use of daydreams. I often woke very early in the morning-too early to think of rising, even if I had been thriftily inclined-and after some experiment ing I found that the best way to put myself to sleep again was to construct some regular story. Guest. (Stockton stories do not have that effect in the experience of readers!) Host. Some regular story carried through to the end. I would begin a story one morning, continue it the next, and the next, until it ran into the serial. Some of these stories lasted for a long time; one ran through a whole year, I know. I got it all the way from America to Africa. Guest. Perhaps you anticipated reality. For a friend of mine who reads every book of travels in Africa which she can lay hands on, firmly believes that the Dark Continent will be opened up as a pleasure and health resort for the whole world! But what became of the story? Host. Well, a long time after, a portion of it came to light again in "The Great War Syndicate." The idea of "Negative Gravity" was taken from another day-dream, the hero of which invented all sorts of applications of negative gravity, and from these I made a selection for the printed story. Guest. Delightful-for we may hear from this hero again. I hope he is inexhaustible. How fortunate to have a treasure-house of characters and exploits. You have only to open the door and whatever you want comes out! You don't have to go to any "Anatomy of Melancholy" or Lemprière, or Old Play, where somebody else is going, too, and will anticipate. you-the hard luck of some of the rhyming fraternity! Host. Of course, some suggestions are wholly involuntary. You do not know how or whence they come. I think of a good illustration of this involuntary action of the mind in conjuring up suggestion for a story. Some time ago, as I was lying in a hammock under the trees, I happened to look up through the branches and saw a great patch of blue sky absolutely clear. I said to myself: "Suppose I saw a little black spot appear in that blue sky." I kept on thinking. Gradually the idea came of a man who did see such a little spot in the clear sky. And now I am working up this notion in a story I call "As One Woman to Another." less than the conditions given for describing a circle, for you had but a simple point to start with. One might conclude, all that is necessary is to fix upon some central idea, no matter how slight, and then the rest will come, drawn by a kind of mysterious attraction toward the centre. Host. Ah, but it will not do for the professional writer to depend upon any such luck or chance, for if you wait for suggestions to come from the ether or anywhere else, you may wait in vain. You must begin something. If the mind has been well stored with incident and anecdote, these will furnish useful material, but not the plot. It is often necessary to get one's self into a proper condition for the reception of impressions, and then to expose the mind, thus prepared, to the influence of the ideal atmosphere. If the proper fancy floats along it is instantly absorbed by the sensitive surface of the mind, where it speedily grows into an available thought, and from that anything can come. Guest. But with the maker of verse such a resolution sometimes so offends Guest. You literally had given you the muse that she turns upon her |