CHAPTER FOUR

In December 1917 Joe Lincoln was interviewed by a young reporter on the Boston Herald. Although neither the interviewed nor the interviewer was aware of it at the time, the young reporter was to become one of the greatest American poets of the century. His name was Joyce Kilmer, the soldier-poet who was later killed in France during the First World War.

One can imagine young Kilmer, pencil and note book in hand, sitting with Lincoln before the open fireplace at the Lincoln home which was then in Hackensack, New Jersey, and asking the now famous “Joe” questions about his work and career. Fortunate would have been the casual eavesdropper on the conversation to have memories of such a meeting. For America had already taken the work of Joe Lincoln to its heart but was before long to remember the lines of Kilmer’s immortal poem, “Trees,” which is still popular today.

According to Kilmer’s article which appeared in the Boston Herald on January 2, 1917, in spite of its proximity to the humorous body of water called the Hackensack River, there was nothing especially nautical about the home of Joseph Lincoln. According to Kilmer one did not expect to find Cap’n Eri lounging on the porch of this pleasant suburban residence, nor Cap’n Warren and Cap’n Dan caulking the seams of a rowboat on the broad lawn.

Kilmer wrote, “There was nothing nautical about the house: that is, except its owner. Mr. Lincoln could not, if he would, disclaim the title of Cape Codder.” Kilmer described him as, “thick-set and broad shouldered, a good build for pushing a whaleboat through the breakers and his skin was bronzed and his flesh hardened by winds laden with salt spray.”

Kilmer went on to say that Lincoln at that time was unique among contemporary fiction makers in having written from the first the things he liked to write about. He had no tale of woe to tell about relentless editors who had forced him to continue the annals of Cape Cod fishermen when he wanted to write about Parisian sculptures or London flower girls, or something of the sort.

“I am a Cape Codder,” Lincoln said as he sat with Kilmer before the fireplace, which strange to say, was not of driftwood. “My people have been Cape Codders for many generations. They have lived at Cape Cod when they were at home, but most of the time, of course, they were out at sea. I was born at Cape Cod and spend my summers there. I cannot imagine myself tiring of Cape Cod.

“I didn’t,” Lincoln continued, “set out writing about Cape Cod. I wrote about it because it was the place I knew best. My first book was a book of poems entitled ‘Cape Cod Ballads.’ I continued to write about Cape Cod and Cape Codders, not because I was forced to by editors but because I wanted to.

“It has been said that magazines commercialize literature and force writers who do one thing well to do that thing all the time,” Kilmer said. “What do you think about this?” the young reporter asked.

“Well,” said Lincoln, “I don’t think there is much in it. I think a lot of nonsense is written and spoken about the commercialization of genius. I don’t think that a writer can prostitute his talent successfully.

“There is very little real commercialism in genius, and the reason is that commercialization of genius doesn’t pay. A man who is successful believes in what he is doing when he is doing it. You hear people say: ‘What dreadful stuff so-and-so is turning out, and what amazing success it is having! I could write stuff like that with one hand behind my back.’

“But so-and-so’s critics couldn’t write successfully what he is writing. They couldn’t do it because they couldn’t believe in it--and if a writer doesn’t believe in his work the public won’t believe it, won’t read it, and won’t buy it.”

“Then you don’t think that the magazines are harmful literature?” Kilmer asked Lincoln. Evidently at that time stories in magazines were considered doubtful literature in the beginning of the twentieth century.

“Not at all,” replied Lincoln. “They pay the writers more money now than has ever been paid them, but I can’t see it does any harm. I don’t see how some people figure out that writing for money harms an author’s work. It seems to me that the spur of the necessity of making a living is a fine thing for a writer’s creative powers. Writers who are subsidized, who are paid a regular salary irrespective of the amount of work they turn out, would certainly not write as much as people who are writing for a living, and I am inclined to doubt that the quality of their work would be as high.

“Robert Louis Stevenson said that every good thing that was done was done either directly or indirectly for money. And certainly the greatest example of a man writing for money was Shakespeare. He wrote to make a living and he had no hesitation in writing to order. When Queen Elizabeth liked ‘Henry the Fourth’ she said to its author: ‘Let me see the fat knight in love.’ And Shakespeare didn’t draw himself up and say: ‘I will not commercialize my genius!’ Instead he hurried home and wrote ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor.’

“And coming a little closer to our own time than Shakespeare, what about O. Henry? Surely if any man ever wrote for money, he did,” Lincoln continued.

“I think,” said Mr. Lincoln, “that a man can write a novel more easily if it has been ordered before hand than if it has not. Once a famous publisher in New York asked me what work I was doing. I told him I was busy with a novel. ‘Have you thought about a publisher yet?’ he asked. I told him that this was all attended to and the contract signed. ‘I don’t see how you can write to order that way,’ he said. I explained to him that the contract specified nothing about the plot or style of the novel, and that I could write it much more comfortably if I didn’t have to worry about finding a publisher for it. But I don’t think I put his mind at rest.

“There may be a little truth in the theory that magazines harm literature, but there is a great deal of nonsense to it. And of this I am sure, that no literary career had ever been ruined by the magazines. You may be sure that a man who is writing successfully for the magazines believes in what he is writing, and is doing the best work he can.

“Some publishers tell us, however, that the magazines harm literature in this respect--A novel that has been serialized in a widely circulated magazine does not sell well when published as a book. But other publishers say that serialization helps the sale of the book by advertising it. One publisher told me that the ideal plan was for a writer to serialize his first two novels, thus advertising himself and his work, and getting paid for the advertising, and then stop serializing, bringing out his subsequent novels in book form without giving them to the magazine for publication.”

“What about the fiction of our day?” Kilmer asked Lincoln. “Is it better than it was twenty-five years ago?”

“It’s just as good, anyway,” Lincoln replied. “There are more short stories and they are better paid for than they used to be. The writers are getting a squarer deal than they ever got before. If a writer has a good story to tell he will find no difficulty in getting it before the public. The editors are more eager than ever to discover and encourage young writers.

“Much of this talk about the lofty mission of the writer is nonsense. A writer’s mission is simply to do as good work as he can, and that’s all there is to it.

“As to those editors who are blamed for insisting that authors continue to write a certain kind of story--well, we must remember that the editor is merely the interpreter of the public. He knows what the public wants and the public wants what they know to be the author’s best work. Editors ask me for Cape Cod stories, but I get many more requests for Cape Cod stories from the public. People write to me almost every day telling me to stick to Cape Cod. So I can’t blame the editors.

“While I was working in a bank I wrote ‘Cap’n Eri,’ giving my evenings and Sundays to it,” Lincoln went on. “After it was published I gradually gave up my editorial work, going to the office at first three days a week, then two days a week, then not at all. Since that time I have devoted all my time to writing. Now I write novels instead of short stories most of the time--I have written only two short stories in a year and a half.”

Lincoln mentioned with amazement the industry of one of the most popular and highly-paid of modern writers of the time who sometimes wrote for fifteen hours a day. “When I have worked four or five hours,” he said, “I think that I have done a good day’s work.”

“What do you think of the custom of dictating fiction?” Kilmer asked Lincoln in the interview.

“I tried it,” replied Lincoln, “But I had to give it up. I like to write with a pencil. I correct as I go along. I change a sentence perhaps a dozen times, and then I let it stand--I don’t revise the complete story. And that is a hard thing to do in dictating. But I know there are writers who get the best results by dictating their work. James did this--he dictated, whether or not he got his best results that way--and Thackeray dictated most of ‘Esmond’.”

Lincoln’s interview with Kilmer took place in December, 1917. Not long afterward young Kilmer went off to war as a member of the Rainbow Division and gave his life for his country on the battlefields of France, leaving his wife and four small children behind. Had he lived the full span of life he would have undoubtedly himself written an even greater chapter in the annals of American letters.