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Transcriber’s note: The Table of Contents was added by the Transcriber
and placed into the Public Domain.


Contents

    Fiction
    Makers of Modern American Fiction
      Booth Tarkington
      Robert W. Chambers
      Richard Harding Davis
      Jack London
      Rex Beach
      Stewart Edward White
    Makers of Modern American Fiction
      Norris’ Realism and McCutcheon’s Romanticism
      John Fox and Harold McGrath
      A Group of Popular Story-Tellers
      Dreiser and Dixon
      Harrison and Bacheller
      Fiction Notes in Varied Keys
      Fiction of Adventure
      Each Holds a Place of His Own
      Supplementary Reading
    The Open Letter
      The Couriers of the Postal Service
      The Mentor in the Desert
    Transcriber’s Notes




[Illustration:

    LEARN ONE THING
    EVERY DAY

    SEPTEMBER 1 1918      SERIAL NO. 162

    THE
    MENTOR

    MAKERS OF MODERN
    AMERICAN FICTION
    (MEN)

    By
    ARTHUR B. MAURICE

    DEPARTMENT OF
    LITERATURE

    VOLUME 6
    NUMBER 14

    TWENTY CENTS A COPY
]




FICTION


There is a popular notion that anyone can write a story. A good novel
is easy reading, and it seems, on that account, to be easy writing.
Many a reader, in the comfortable enjoyment of good fiction, misses the
genius of it altogether. He is like the skeptical young man who could
see nothing difficult in the art of sculpture. “All you need to do,”
he said, “is to get a block of marble, then take a hammer and chisel,
and knock off the parts you don’t want.” So stated, sculpture does seem
very simple. But, after all, there is some importance in knowing what
parts of the marble to knock off.

       *       *       *       *       *

Many of us feel, at times, an inward stir that prompts us to express
ourselves in the written word. We are quite sure that we could write
a novel or a play. That we don’t do so is simply because we are so
busy--or something else. “I could write plays as well as Shakespeare
if I’d a mind to,” said someone years ago to Charles Lamb. “Yes,”
answered the gentle humorist, “anyone could write plays as well as
Shakespeare--if he had the mind to.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Some take their pen in hand to prove to themselves how easy it all is.
When they have tried out several of the productions that they have
dashed off so readily, they sometimes discover that what was easy
writing for them was hard reading for others, and the wise ones then
come to realize that the good fiction that makes such easy reading is
often the finished and refined product of double and re-doubled labor.

       *       *       *       *       *

For those that are determined to win their way in fiction, the means
for study and observation are ample. There are many books on the art
of writing to inform and guide the aspiring author, and there is a
wealth of fiction literature ever at hand to supply him with examples
of good story writing. In a helpful, informing book on the technique
of fiction, Professor Charles F. Horne makes clear the essential
elements of the novel--which he finds to be six in number: (1) Plot,
(2) Motive or Verisimilitude, truth to life, (3) Character Portrayal,
(4) Emotional Quality--Sentiment, Passion, (5) Background, (6) Style.
“A novel,” Professor Horne writes, “cannot consist simply of a fixed
picture, a description of a man in repose. It must show him acting
and acted upon. In other words, it deals with man in his relation
to his environment. Hence it must have two essentials: the man and
his movements; that is, the characters and the story. The causes and
effects of these two essentials give us two more. The man can only move
as he is swayed internally by his emotions; and the movement can only
be seen externally in its effect on his surroundings, his background.
These four form the positive elements or content of the novel, and they
must be presented under the limitations set by man’s experience of life
or verisimilitude, and by his modes of conveying ideas, his style of
speech.”

            W. D. M.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION

  ESTABLISHED FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A POPULAR INTEREST IN ART,
  LITERATURE, SCIENCE, HISTORY, NATURE, AND TRAVEL

THE MENTOR IS PUBLISHED TWICE A MONTH

BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC., AT 114-116 EAST 16TH STREET, NEW YORK,
N Y. SUBSCRIPTION, FOUR DOLLARS A YEAR. FOREIGN POSTAGE 76 CENTS EXTRA.
CANADIAN POSTAGE 50 CENTS EXTRA. SINGLE COPIES TWENTY CENTS. PRESIDENT,
THOMAS H. BECK; VICE-PRESIDENT, WALTER P. TEN EYCK; SECRETARY, W. D.
MOFFAT; TREASURER, J. S. CAMPBELL; ASSISTANT TREASURER AND ASSISTANT
SECRETARY, H. A. CROWE.

    SEPTEMBER 1, 1918        VOLUME 6        NUMBER 14

  Entered as second-class matter, March 10, 1913, at the postoffice
  at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Copyright,
  1918, by The Mentor Association, Inc.





_MAKERS OF MODERN AMERICAN FICTION_


[Illustration: BOOTH TARKINGTON]

_Booth Tarkington_

ONE


Towards the close of the last century Booth Tarkington wrote “The
Gentleman from Indiana.” It is _as_ the Gentleman from Indiana that Mr.
Tarkington has been widely known ever since. There was a time, some
fifteen or twenty years ago, when every native Hoosier was supposed to
have the manuscript of a “Best-Selling” novel concealed somewhere about
his person. Some of the authors died, and some of them went into other
occupations, and the state has managed to live the belief down. But Mr.
Tarkington remains the most conspicuous living figure linking Indiana
with letters.

Born in Indianapolis on July 29, 1869, he studied at Phillips-Exeter,
and later at Princeton. In both places he was recognized as one likely
to go far. Princeton he entered as a junior, but “made” the editorial
boards of both college publications, the _Tiger_ and the _Lit_--his
sketches for the former being rather better than his literary
contributions to the latter. He wrote the play for the Triangle
Club, and, at graduation, was voted the most popular and promising
man in the Class of 1893. There followed,