“bonner is down on stepmothers!” “all ledger horses must be called dobbin, and there is a heavy fine for driving them through a poem or serial faster than a walk, or, at best, a slow trot!” “don’t write anything about cousins marrying unless you want to have them back on your hands again!” these were a few of the beacon-lights that shone on the literary pathway of twenty years ago, and i know of more than one successful writer whose early footsteps were guided by the great artistic principles first laid down by robert bonner and religiously followed by the makers of prose and verse who[pg 25] brought their wares to him every friday morning. but poor jack moran did not live to become a successful writer. he dropped out of the ranks just as the rest of us were passing the quarter-post, but it was the first hurdle that really did for him. i have often thought that if jack had taken his friend’s advice and “changed his poem round so as to make the stepmother a beast,” he might have lived to fill a responsible position in the franklin square prose and verse foundry, or at the eagle verse works in jersey city. but jack was a poet, and therefore did not know how to “change his poem round,” and besides he hated to go to work every morning with his dinner-pail in his hand, and there were cakes and ale in bohemia in those days for such as he.
as for the poet who tried to guide jack’s footsteps in the path that led to fame, he is alive to-day, and a highly[pg 26] esteemed member of the guild. indeed, a more industrious, sober, or thrifty man of letters never put on a pair of overalls or crossed the north river in the early morning boat with a basket of poems, jokes, and stories on his arm.
one friday morning, many years ago, i went with this poet to the ledger building, and there found half a dozen writers gathered together in an outer office, anxiously watching the dark shadow of a man that was thrown upon a partition of ground glass that extended from floor to ceiling across the room and separated it from the private office of the great editor.
the dark moving shadow on which every eye was fixed was that of robert bonner himself, and as it was seen to cross the room to a remote corner—growing smaller and fainter as it receded—every face brightened with hope, and forms that had seemed bent and dejected[pg 27] but a moment before were suddenly straightened. an instant later the door opened and the editor of the ledger crossed the threshold, handed a ten-dollar bill to one of the waiting poets, and then hastily retired to his own den again.
then my friend showed me how the watchers could tell by the movements of the dark shade whether a poem had been accepted or refused. if the editor walked from his desk to the remote corner of his private office they knew that he did it in order to place a poem in the drawer of an old bureau in which he kept the accepted manuscript; but if, on the other hand, he came directly to the door a horrible feeling of anxiety came into every mind, and each poet uttered a silent prayer—while his heart literally stood still within him—that the blow might fall on some head other than his own.
on this occasion my friend received ten dollars for his poem entitled “when[pg 28] the baby smiled,” and in the fullness of his heart he invited the author of the rejected verses on “resignation”—who, by the way, was uttering the most horrible curses as he descended the staircase—to join us in a drink.
it was on this occasion, also, as i distinctly remember, that my friend the poet put the whole trade of letters in a nutshell:
“there are plenty of people,” he remarked, “who can write good good stuff, but there are not many who can write good bad stuff. here’s one of those ‘two brothers’ poems i told you about, and if that isn’t good bad stuff, i’d like to know what is.” he handed me a printed copy of the poem, and i can still recall the first verses of it:
herbert to the city went,
though as sturdy was his arm
as plain tom’s, who, quite content,
stayed at home upon the farm.
[pg 29]
herbert wore a broadcloth coat,
thomas wore the homespun gray;
herbert on display did dote,
thomas labored every day.
these lines have clung to my memory during many changing years, and i quote them now with undimmed admiration as almost the best example of “good bad stuff” that our literature possesses. and if the lines compel our regard, what must be our respect for the genius which could extract sixteen ten-dollar poems from the one primitive idea of the two rustic brothers?
the bard who penned these deathless stanzas has progressed with the times, and now writes many a poem for the century and scribner’s, but i never see his name in one of the great monthlies without thinking of the days when he used to sit in the outer office of the ledger, with half a dozen of his contemporaries, wondering whether he would get a ten-dollar[pg 30] bill or his rejected poem when mr. bonner came out to separate the chaff from the wheat.
some of my readers may wonder what became of all the poetry that was rejected by mr. bonner, and to these i would reply that it was seldom, indeed, that any literary matter—either in prose or in verse—was allowed to go to waste. the market was not as large then as it is now, and a serious poem could “make the rounds” in a very short time. if it failed as a serious effort it was an easy matter for a practical poet to add to it what was called a “comic snapper,” by virtue of which it could be offered to puck or wild oats.
for instance, a poet of my acquaintance once told me that he wrote a poem about “thrifty tom,” as he called him, who insured his life for a large sum of money, paid the premiums for two or three years, and then died, leaving his[pg 31] wife and children comfortably provided for. now it happened that the great scotch editor did not believe in life-insurance as an investment—the ledger published no advertisements of any description in those days, so he was enabled to view the matter with an unbiased mind—and therefore he declined the verses, not wishing to promote the interests of a scheme which he could not indorse. and straightway the poet sate himself down and gave to his stanzas a comic snapper which told how “idle bill” proceeded to court and marry the widow, and passed the remainder of his days in the enjoyment of the money which the thrifty one had struggled so hard to lay aside for his family. in its new form the poem was sold to puck, and the word went out to all the makers of prose and verse that bonner was “down on life-insurance.”
is there any demand for “good bad stuff” nowadays?
[pg 32]there is an almost limitless demand for it, and there always will be, provided the gas-fitters and the paper-hangers and the intelligent and highly cultivated american women continue to exert the influence in the field of letters that they do to-day.
the “good bad stuff” of the present era is printed on supercalendered paper, and illustrated, in many instances, with pictures that are so much better than the text that it is difficult to comprehend how even the simplest observer can fail to notice the contrast. moreover the good bad stuff of to-day commands much higher prices than were ever paid during the ledger period, and it is not infrequently signed with some name which has been made familiar to the public ear—if only by mere force of constant reiteration—and is therefore supposed to possess a peculiar value of its own. nevertheless it is good bad stuff all the same,[pg 33] and can be recognized as such by those whose eyes are too strong to be blinded by the glare from the pictures and the great big literary name.
don’t understand me to say that there is no good prose or verse to be found on those highly glazed, beautifully printed pages to which we of the present generation of readers turn for our literary refreshment. on the contrary, the modern magazines give us so much that is admirable, so many thoughtful essays and descriptive articles, that one wonders only why so much of the fiction which they offer should be of such poor calibre.
but the editors and publishers of the great monthlies know what they are about as well as mr. bonner ever did, and they know, too, the immense value of the good bad stuff which they serve to their patrons in such tempting and deceptive forms.
