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How the Greatest American Novel, the Last and C
the Late David Graham Phillips, Came to Be Wr i
Yet Reverent Presentation of the Greatest So
Modern
HEARSTS MAGA
imes, Now Beginning
CL A ND '* esu3 sa 'd unto h er ' Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no
more.”
^ * Many a pulpit discourse has been drawn from that text.
Many a book has been written upon the species of human frailty which in
spired its utterance by Divine lips. But it is a literary event when a nov
elist of these times ignores his opportunity of profitable appeal to sensa
tion seekers, and makes his whole effort conform to such a compassionate
purpose and example of our Saviour.
That was the. ideal of the lamented young literary genius. David Gra
ham Phillips, when he wrote his last and greatest work of fiction called
"Susan Lenox; Her Fall and Rise.” He had pondered the theme since the
beginning of his waiting career. Its problems pursued him in the midst of
his labors on the published novels which brought him high recognition and
a competence. He had the genius to feel that the complete development
of this idea in a novel would be his worthiest undertaking, his master
piece, upon which his fame would rest securely long after its author had
ceased to be.
Phillips firmly believed that this book would serve a high moral pur
pose; that it wouid help to right one of the most lamentable wrongs which
are due to phariseeism, the stupid conventions and the heartless artificial
ity of modern society. For six years he worked upon its text It was to
be his crowning work—and it proved to be his last.
By no means the least part of the tragedy which saw Phillips, at the
height of his powers, the victim of a worthless assassin’s bullet lay in the
cutting off of a hopeful and purposeful young life; it was a tragedy which
robbed the world of serious, eager minds looking for the truth from one
who in many ways was best gifted to present it to them. Probably there
exists no honest critic of seasoned judgment who would not willingly tes
tify that David Graham Phillips was a genius—the novelist of brightest
promise produced in America in his generation.
He lived to finish his great novel, “Susan Lenox,” but his life was
blotted out before he had made any arrangements for its publication. Still
a literary work of such value, such practical usefulness, could not long be
desire to in flue: :e a bette
that type ol wo tar who i
doubtless realizi i that mi
dependence ef ■ omen in
tain: of barter i id sale, o
part. If she hat no incom
by working for i . She sh
choice of a husb nd, or of
to friends, as wt 1 as wrot
“It isn't fai: because
him that a womi i should 1
His special version a
woman. He dec ired her
woman inspired by nothii
luxury. He abst red her c
coloring, lashes and eyebrows ■emained
her eyes and the intense red of her li
vicinage of contrast which if n ;essary v
To look at her was to be at on e fascina
violet-gray eyes—-by their colo, by the
by their regard of calm, grave nqulry, t
tery not untouched of a certaii sadness,
thick abundance of wavy hair.| pt so lo
golden braids, but growing I sautifully
thinly about her iow brow, ibout ht
modeled ears and at the back f her ex
It was not strange or lnexc sable—th
and their parents had begun t pity Su
as this beauty developed, and I lis perso
to exhale its delicious perfume It. was
that they should si art the w ole tow:
kind to the poor tiling." Atm tt was
blue that matched her eyes and harmonized with her
coloring. She was looking her best, and she had the
satisfying, confidence-giving sense that it was so.
She bad got only far enough from the house to be
visible to the second story windows wiien a young
voice called: *
“Ruthie! Aren’t you going to watt for me?”
Ruth halted; an expression anything but harmonious
with the pretty blue costume stormed across her face.
• • •
The truth is, Susan was beyond question the belle
of Sutherland. Her eyes, very dark at birth, had
changed to a soft, dreamy violet-gray. Hair and
How Susan Awoke to Womanhood
JOT quite seventeen years later, on a
the sorrows in which she had been entangled by an
impetuous, trusting heart. The apparition in the door
way was commonplace—the mistress of the house,
Lorella's elder and married sister Fanny—neither
fair nor dark, neither tall nor short, neither thin nor
fat, neither pretty nor homely, neither stupid nor
bright, neither neat nor dowdy—one of that multitude
of excellent, unobtrusive human beings who make the
restful stretches in a world of agitations—and who
respond to the impetus of cricumstances as unresist
ingly as cloud to wind.
As the wail of the child smote upon Fanny’s ears
she lifted her head, startled, and cried out sharply,
"What's that?”
“We’ve saved the baby, Mrs. Warham,” replied the
young doctor, beaming on her through his glasses.
“Oh!” said Mrs, Warham. And she abruptly seated
herself on the big chintz-covered sofa beside the door.
“And It’s a lovely child,” pleaded Nora. Her
woman's instinct guided her straight to the secret of
the coufilct raging behind Mrs. Warham’s unhappy
face.
“The finest girl In the world,” cried Stevens, well-
meaning but tactless.
"Girl!” exclaimed Fanny, starting up from the sofa.
“Is It a fllrl?”
Nora nodded. The young man looked downcast;
he was realizing the practical side of his victory for
science—the consequences to the girl child, to all the
relatives, especially to this woman' and her own little
daughter, Ruth. J
"A girl!” moaned Fanny, sinking to the Sofa again.
“God have mercy on us!”
• • •
When young Stevens was leaving, George Warham
waylaid him at the front gate, separated from the spa-,
clous old creeper-clad house by long lawns and an
avenue of elms. “I hear the child's going to live,”
said he anxiously.
Stevens flushed a guilty red. “It’s—it's—-a girl,” he
stammered.
Warham stared. "A fflrl!" he cried. Then his face
reddened and in a furious tone he burst out, “Now
don’t that beat the devil for, luck. .... A girl!
Good Lord, a girl!”
"Nobody in this town’ll blame her,” consoled Stevens.
"You know better than that, Bob! A girl! Why,
it's downright wicked ... I wonder what Fanny
allows to do?" He showed w T hat fear was in his mind
by wheeling savagely on Stevens with a stormy, “We
can’t keep het^—we simply can’t!”
“What’s to become of her?” protested Stevens
gently.
Warham made a wild, vague gesture with both arms.
“I’ve got to look out for my own daughter. I won’t
have it. I won’t have it!”
Stevens lifted the gate latch. "Well
“Good-by, George. I'll look in again this evening.”
And knowing the moral ideas of the town, all he could
muster by way of encouragement was a half-hearted
“Don’t borrow trouble.”
But Warham did not hear. He was moving up the
tan-bark walk toward the house, muttering to him
self. When Fanny, unable kyiger to conceal Lorella's
plight, had told him, pity and affection for his sweet
sister-in-law, who had made her home with them for
five years, had triumphed over his principles. He had
himself arranged for Fanny to hide Lorella In New
York until she could safely return. But Just as the
sisters were about to set out, Lorella, low in body and
in mind, fell ill. Then George—and Fanny, too—had
striven with her to give them the name of her be
trayer, that he might he compelled to do her Justice.
Loretta refused.
fine June
** morning, Ruth Warham Issued hastily from the
house and started down the long tanbark walk from
the front veranda to the street gate. She was now
nineteen—nearer twenty—and a very pretty young
woman indeed. She had grown up one of those small,
slender blondes, exquisite and doll-like, who can not
help seeming fresh and sweet, whatever the truth
about them, without or within.
This morning she had on a new Summer dress of a
I)avid Graham Philips Whose Greatest Story, “Susan Lenox” Is Now
Being Published in HEARST’S MAGAZINE.
From the Initial Instalment of ,( The Story
of Susan Lenox--Her Fall and Rise.”
Printed by Permission from the June
Number of HEARST’S MAGAZINE
On that bright June morning as the <
up Main street together, Susan gave he
the delight of sun and air and nf the 11
dens before the attractive housj they w
for her
metrical form—symmetrical to her and the doctor’s
expert eyes. “Such a deep chest,” she sighed. “Such
pretty hands and feet. A real love child.” There she
glanced nervously at the doctor; it was meet and
proper and pious to speak well of the dead, but she
felt she might be going rather far for a “good woman.”
"I’ll try it,” cried the young man in a resolute tone.
“It can’t do any harmj and ”
Without finishing his sentence he laid hold of the
body by the ankles, swung it clear of the table. As
Nora saw it dangling head downward like a dressed
suckling pig on a butcher’s hook, she vented a scream
and darted round the table to stop by main force this
revolting desecration of the dead. Stevens called out
sternly: "Mind your business, Nora! Push the table
against the wall and get out of the way. I want all the
room there is.” •
“Oh, doctor— for the blessed Jesus’ sake ”
"Push back that table!”
Nora shrank before his fierce eyes. She thought his
exertions, his disappointment and the heat had com
bined to topple him over iuto Insanity. She retreated
toward the farther one of the open windows. With
a curse at her stupidity Stevens kicked over the table,
using his foot vigorously in thrusting it to the wall.
"NowI” exclaimed he, taking his stand in the center
of the room and gauging the distance of ceiling, floor
and walls.
Nora, her back against the window frame, her
fingers sunk in her big, loose apron, stared petrified.
Stevens, like an athlete swinging an Indian club,
whirled the body round and round his head, at the
full length of his powerful arms. More and more
rapidly he swung it, until his breath came and went
in gasps and the sweat was trickling in streams down
his face and neck. Round and round between ceiling
and floor whirled the naked body of the baby—round
and round for minutes that seemed hours to the horri
fied nurse—round and round with all the strength
and speed the young man could put forth—round and
round until the room was a blur before his throbbing
eyes, until his expression became fully as demoniac
as Nora had been fancying it. Just as she was re
covering from her paralysis of horror and was about
to fly shrieking from the room she was halted by a
sound that made her draw in air until her bosom
swelled as if it would burst Its gingham prison. She
craned eagerly toward Stevens. He was whirling the
body more furiously than ever.
“Was that you?” asked Nora hoarsely, “or was it”—
She paused, listened.
The sound came again—the sound of a drowning
person fighting for breath.
’ It's—it’s”— muttered Nora. “What is it. doctor?”
"Life!” panted Stevens, triumph in his glistening,
streaming face. "Life!”
The bedroom door opened. At the slight noise
superstitious Nora paled, shriveled within her green
and white check gingham. She slowly turned her
head as if on this day of miracles she expected yet
another—the resurrection of the resurrected baby’s
mother, '=930: Miss Lorella.” But Lorella Leuox was
forever tranquil la tags »fcnai Out engulfed her and
How Susan Awoke to Life
HE child's dead,
said Nora, the nurse.
E I It was the upstairs sitting room in one of the
“ pretentious houses of Sutherland, oldest and
flfeost charming of the towns on the Indiana bank of
jfhe Ohio. The two big windows were open; their
f .ni|i and listless draperies showed that there was not
: jhe least motion In the stifling humid air of the July
fitter noon. At the centre of the room stood an oblong
Bible; over It were neatly spread several thicknesses
ffif white cotton cloth; naked upon them lay the body
|jgf a new-born girl baby.
■ At one side of the table nearer the window stood
Hlora. Hers were the hard features and corrugat id
-? kin popularly regarded as the result of a life of toll,
wut In fact the result of a life of defiance to the laws
J&f health. As additional penalties for that same self-
^Bdulgence she had an enormous bust and hips, thin
See and arms, hollow, sinew-striped nock. The young
jfiwn, blond and smooth-faced, at the other side of the
Sble and facing the light was Doctor Stevens, a re-
J ently graduated pupil of the famous Schulze of Saint
Hfcrlstopher who. as much as any other one man, is
-Ssponslble for the rejection of hocus-pocus and tho
[RjecUon of common sense into American medicine.
■tF&r upward of an hour young Stevens, coat olT and
[Spirt sleevee rolled to his shoulders, had been toiling
Hth the lifeless form on the table. He had tried
gBerything his training, his reading and his experience
■quested—all the more or less familiar devices simi-
Jgtr to those indicated for cases of drowning. Nora
M watched him, at first with interest and hope, then
®lth interest alone, finally with swiftly deepening dis-
Hhproval, as her compressed lips and angry eyes plainly
Hfcvealed. It seemed to her his effort was degenerating
Sato sacrilege, into defiance of an obvious decree of
tfae Almighty. However, she had not ventured to
fj£>eak until the young man, with a muttered ejacula
tion suspiciously like an imprecation, straightened bis
pocky figure and began to mop the sweat from his
Lice, hands and bared arms.
JPWhen she saw that her verdict had not been heard,
Ale repeated it more emphatically. "The child's dead."
•4? aid she, “as I told you from the set-out.” She made
pile sign of the cross on her.forehead and bosom, while
S-er fat, dry lips moved in a "Hail Mary.”
f Stevens was not listening. “Such a fine baby, too,”
said, hesitating—the old woman mistakinglv fan-
fl ed it was her words that made him pause. “I fee)
3Wy> good at all,” he went on, as if reasoning with him-
jaftlf. "No good at all, losiDg both the mother and the
ghild”
it didn’t want to live,” replied Nora. Her glance
|( w-5 oi&ewhat fearfully toward the door of the ad-
®.ihn»8 PBotn—the bedroom where the mother lay
ft bid "There wasn t nothing but disgrace ahead for
H ith of them. Everybody’ll be tv.sai '
t I “Such a fine baby.” muttered the abstracted young
■ KUor
children always is.” said Nora. She was
***** *■•** --i-lv down at the tiny, sym-
Ruth, with the day .
gone, was fighting against a ha r ed of h
..1.1 iU-i is. j _ 1 1 j ' 1
and she was pi ising th<
Wright
g the ti
At 119 same
vicious that it made her afraid.
Two squares,
of Sutherland, the home of th
starting on when she saw amo
man In striped flannel,
saw her.
After they had shaken hands
came almost to their shoulders,
on. Sam kept pace with her 01 his side
fully trimmed boxwood barrier. “I’m gob
In about two weeks,” said he “It’s aw
after Yale. I Just blew in—hiven’t ee'
father yet.’’
By this time they were at th( gate. I
•* P
'■* -
"There’B nothing can be done to make things right
for a girl that's got no father and no name.”
The subject did not come up between him and his
wife until about a week after Lorella's funeral. He
was thinking of nothing else. At his big grocery
store—wholesale and retail—he sat morosely In his
office brooding over the disgrace and the danger of
deeper disgrace—for. he saw what a hold the baby
already had upon his wife. He was ashamed to ap
pear in the streets; he knew w'hat was going on be
hind the sympathetic faces, heard the whisperings as
if they had been trumpetings. And he was as much
afraid of his own soft heart as of his wife’s. But for
the sake of bis daughter, he must be firm and just
One morning, as he was leaving the house after
breakfast, he turned back and said abruptly: “Fan.
don’t you think you’d better send the baby away and
get it over with?”
"No,” said his wife unhesitatingly—and he knew his
worst suspicion was correct, "l’vo made up my mind
to keen her."
THE MAN.
‘My but you are looking fine Susie,’ said Sam.” A Christy
Illustration from “The Story of Susan Lenox” Republished
bv Permission, of HEARST’S IVLAGAZINEL
THE OTHER GIRI,.
Ruth Warham, one of thos^, small
* slender blondes, exquisite'
and doU-lika.”