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How the Greatest American Novel, the Last and C
the Late David Graham Phillips, Came to Be Wri
Yet Reverent Presentation ot the Greatest So
Modern
imes, Now Beginning
desire to lnfluen » a bett
that type of won lan who
doubtless realizt 1 that ir
dependence of - omen In
taint of barter s id sale, <
no Incon
, She si
A ND Jesus said unto her. 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 wai the ideal of the lamented young literary geniu^, 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 writing 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 would 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
bo 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 hppeful 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
hidden away in its manuscript covers. It Is now appearing as the most
important serial given to the public in years. The brief scenes printed on
these pages, short as they are, and from the opening chapters of the story,
will serve as the reader’s guaranty that the novel in its entirety is one of
the very few that can be missed without distinct personal loss. Here
indeed is the great American novel at last.
David Graham Phillips lived and labored long enough to find his
writings enthusiastically received by the best class of novel readers. Hardly
ever was a young, living novelist so much written about. It was character
istic of him that he should be deeply embarrassed by these public atten
tions. But they influenced him not at all, except—If that were possible to
Bpur him on to more serious endeavors in his chosen art. Long before a
crank's bullet sent him out of this life every newspaper and magazine
reader knew that he was one of that gifted group of writers born and
reared in the State of Indiana—and a veritable giant among them. They
knew, too, that he was a man of force and deeds, as well as of moving
literary fancies. If august members of the august United States Senate
were found lacking in their duties to the people, Phillips did not fear to
part. If she had
by working for i
choice of a husb nd, or of
to friends, as we 1 as wro
“It isn’t fail because
him that a worm i should
His special version i
woman. He dec ired her
woman inspired by noth!
luxury. He abso red her
allow her that e cuse for
Quite unconi liously, t
and holding the sader’s a
the main purpos of his li
sian novelistw th whost
til long afterwar I. Like
dressed his rettd rs dlrec
discussing with hem the
however, with m st of th
them avidly for he clue
acters and scene .
All this, and the imm
hardly more thai the nec
great theme eve presenl
magnificently de eloped i
Dovel, “Susan Le iox; Hei
The followin ; brief s
here by courtesj of HEA
coloring, lashes and eyebrows remalnet
her eyes and the intense red of her :
vicinage of contrast which is n< cessary
To look at her was to be at on e fascin
violet-gray eyes—by their colo , by th
by their regard of calm, grave nquiry,
tery not untouched of a certaii Badness
thick abundance of wavy hairji lot so It
golden braids, but growing 1 sautlfull;
thinly about her low brow, about h
modeled ears and at the back if her e:
It was not strange or inexci sable—t
and their parents had begun ti pity S
as this beauty developed, and t lis persi
to exhale Its delicious perfume It ’wai
that they should start the w iolq tow
kind to the poor thing.” Ant it was
matter of course that they shoull have a
object—should have impressed he conv
culine mind of the town with such a
“poor thing’s" social isolation ari “impoi
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 had got only far enough from the houBe to be
visible to the second story windows wnen a young
voice called:
“Ruthie! Aren’t you going to wait 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.
on a fine June
the sorrows in which she had been entangled Dy an
impetuous, trusting heart. The apparition in the door-
why was commonplace—the mistresB 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 stretcheB 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. Warhnm, 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 conflict raging behind Mrs. Warham's unhappy
H The finest girl in the world,” cried Stevens, well-
meaning but tactless.
“Girl!” exclaimed Fanny, starting up from the sofa.
v Is it a girl?"
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.
“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
cious old creeper-clad house by long lawns and an
avenue of elms. “I hear the child's going to live,”
Baid he anxiously.
Stevens flushed a guilty red. "It's—it’s—a girl,” he
stammered.
Warham stared. “A girl!” 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 what fear was in his mind
by wheeling savagely on Stevens with a stormy, “We
can’t keep her—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 qwn 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 know ing 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 longer 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, Jell ill. Then George—and Fanny, too—had
striven with her to give them the name of her be
trayer, that he might be compelled to do her justice.
Loretta refused.
JkTOT quite seventeen years later,
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
The Late David 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 mofning as the
up Main street together, Su3an gave h(
the delight of sun and air and of the 1
dens before the attractive housi s they i
1 for he
red of 1
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 w r as meet and
proper and pious to speak well of the dead, but she
felt site 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 harm, and "
Without finishing bis 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 into 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.
’’Now!” 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 end went
in gasps and the sweat was trickling in streams down
his face and neQk. 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, “poor Miss Lorella.” But Lorella Lenox was
forever tsss-fil *■* the sleep that engulfed her and
How Susan Awoke to Life.
**♦"* "i HF child’s dead,” said Nora, the nurse.
I It was the upstairs sitting room in one of the
ft “ pretentious houses of Sutherland, oldest and
■lost charming of the towns on the Indiana bank of
the Ohio. The two big windows were open; their
[imp and listless draperies showed that there was not
the least motion in the stifling humid air of the July
[tternoon
Ruth, with the day quite darl
gone, was fighting against a Tgi
vicious that it made her afraid.
Two squares, and she was pi ssing th
of Sutherland, the home of th! Wrigh
starting on when she saw amo ig the t
man in striped flannel. At be sam
saw her.
After they had shaken hands icross ti
came almost to their shoulders, Susan b
on. Sam kept pace with her oi his sid
fully trimmed boxwood barrier. “I’m go:
In about two weeks,” said he. “It’s aw
after Yale.
At the centre of the room stood an oblong
table; over It were neatly spread several thicknesses
pf white cotton cloth; naked upon them lay the body
if a new-born girl baby.
[At one side of the table nearer the window stood
Kora. Hers were the hard features and corrugated
•kin popularly regarded as the result of a life of toil,
put In fact the result of a life of defiance to the laws
bf health. As additional penalties for that same seif-
tadulgence she had an enormous bust and hips, thin
face and arms, hollow, sinew-striped neck. The young
sown, blond and smooth-faced, at the other side of the
fable and facing the light was Doctor Stevens, a re
pent!' graduated pupil of the famous Schulze of Saint
Christopher who. as much as any other one man, is
Responsible for the rejection of hocus-pocus and the
injection of common sense Into American medicine.
[-For upward of an hour young Stevens, coat off and
Hjirt sleeves rolled to his shoulders, had been toiling
ITlth the lifeless form on the table.
I just blew In—hi’
father yet.”
By this time they were at thd
He had tried
everything his training, his reading and his Experience
biggest cd—all the more or less familiar devices simi
lar to those indicated for cases of drowning. Nora
pad watched him, at first with interest and hope, then
Pith interest alone, finally with swiftly deepening dis
approval, as her compressed lips and angry eyes plainly
revealed It seemed to her his effort was degenerating
Into sacrijege, into defiance of an obvious decree or
[he Almighty. However, she had not ventured to
■peak until the young man, with a muttered ejacula
tion suspiciously like an imprecation, straightened his
Kocky figure and began to mop the sweat Irom his
lace, hands and bared arms.
F When she saw that her verdict had not been heard,
phe repeated it more emphatically. "The child's dead."
Bid she, “as I told you from the set-out." She made
the sign of the cross on her forehead and bosom, while
ter fat. dry lips moved In a “Hail Mary.”
“There’s 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 what 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 his daughter, he must be firm and just.
One morning, as he w'as 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. “I’ve made up my mind
to keep her.”
•(Ske didn't want to live,” replied Nora Her glance
lie somewhat fearfully toward the i-or of the ad
King room—the bedroom where ,-tbe mother lay
1^ " "• wasn’t nothing but disgrace ahead for
Blilsa 'll be glad.”
IWBjk^Jlno '■shv ” muMe—,. r*-? aha-.
HBUdru .
THE MAN.
‘My but you are looking fine Susie,’ said Sam.” A Christy
Illustration from “The Story of Susan Lenox” Republished
by Permission of HEARST’S MAGAZINE.
THE OTHER GIRJi.
Ruth Warham, one of thosL
slender blondes, exquisite
and doll like.”