Part 16 (1/2)

Nevertheless, a reverse or tas due Not that his success was having any undesirable effect upon him; his Dutch common sense saved hie it is not good for any one, no s come his way too fast and too consistently And here were breaks He could not have everything he wanted, and it was just as well that he should find that out

In his next quest he found hiain opposed by his London friends

Unable to secure a new _Alice in Wonderland_ for his child readers, he deterive them Kate Greenaway But here he had selected another recluse Everybody discouraged him The artist never saw visitors, he was told, and she particularly shunned editors and publishers Her own publishers confessed that Miss Greenaas inaccessible to them ”We conduct all our business with her by correspondence I have never seen her personally myself,” said a member of the firm

Bok inwardly decided that two failures in two days were sufficient, and he made up his mind that there should not be a third He took a bus for the long ride to Hampstead Heath, where the illustrator lived, and finally stood before a picturesque Queen Anne house that one would have recognized at once, with its lower story of red brick, its upper part covered with red tiles, its s of every size and shape, as the inspiration of Kate Greenaway's pictures As it turned out later, Miss Greenaway's sister opened the door and told the visitor that Miss Greenaas not at home

”But, pardon me, has not Miss Greenaway returned? Is not that she?”

asked Bok, as he indicated a figure just co down the stairs And as the sister turned to see, Bok stepped into the hall At least he was inside! Bok had never seen a photograph of Miss Greenaway, he did not know that the figure co down-stairs was the artist; but his instinct had led hiood fortune ith him

He now introduced himself to Kate Greenaway, and explained that one of his objects in co to London was to see her on behalf of thousands of A for the illustrator to do but to welcoarden, where he saw at once that he was seated under the apple-tree of Miss Greenaway's pictures It was in full bloo loveliness Bok's love for nature pleased the artist and when he recognized the cat that sauntered up, he could see that he washead-way But when he explained his profession and stated his errand, the ated Miss Greenaway conveyed the unmistakable impression that she had been trapped, and Bok realized at once that he had a long and difficult road ahead

Still, negotiate it he arden, with the cat in his lap, Miss Greenaway perceptibly thawed out, and when the editor left late that afternoon he had the proazine work for him That promise was kept monthly, and for nearly two years her articles appeared, with satisfaction to Miss Greenaway and with great success to thethe fiction in his ht his t stories; he secured from Bret Harte a tale which he had just finished, and then ran the gamut of the best fiction writers of the day, and secured their best output Marion Crawford, Conan Doyle, Sarah Orne Jewett, John Kendrick Bangs, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Hamlin Garland, Mrs Burton Harrison, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Mary E Wilkins, Jerome K Jerome, Anthony Hope, Joel Chandler Harris, and others followed in rapid succession

He next turned for a ious depart of interest, and secured Dwight L Moody, whose evangelical as then so prominently in the public eye, to conduct ”Mr Moody's Bible Class” in the azine--practically a study of the stated Bible lesson of the month with explanation in Moody's simple and effective style

The authors for who attracted the attention of all the writers of the day, and the supply of good reat for its capacity Bok studied the mechanical make-up, and felt that by some method he must find more room in the front portion He had allotted the first third of the eneral literary contents and the latter two-thirds to departmental features Toward the close of the nule columns with advertise a story by Rudyard Kipling which had overrun the space allowed for it in the front The story had coazine had gone to press The editor was in a quandary what to do with the two rees open, and these were at the back He rees 6 and 7 to pages 38 and 39

At once Bok saw that this was an instance where ”necessity was the mother of invention” He realized that if he could run some of his front material over to the back he would relieve the pressure at the front, present a more varied contents there, andtheazine

In the next issue he combined some of his surated theover into the back” which has now becoer size At first, Bok's readers objected, but he explained why he did it; that they were the benefiters by the plan; and, so far as readers can be satisfied hat is, at best, an aard method of presentation, they were content To-day the practice is undoubtedly followed to excess, sohty and ninety columns over from the front to the back; from such abuse it will, of course, free itself either by a return to the original method ofplan

In his reading about the America of the past, Bok had been i personal material that constituted what is terinal events of treured but which had not sufficient historical importance to have been included in American history Bok deter back to the past and at the saeneration with the picturesque events which had preceded their time

He also believed that if he could ”dress up” the past, he could arrest the attention of a generation which was too likely to boast of its interest only in the present and the future He took a course of reading and consulted with Mr Charles A Dana, editor of the _New York Sun_, who had become interested in his work and had written hiave material help in the selection of subjects and writers; and was intensely amused and interested by the manner in which his youthful confrere ”dressed up”

the titles of what ht otherwise have looked like commonplace articles

”I know,” said Bok to the elder editor, ”it smacks a little of the sensational, Mr Dana, but the purpose I have in reat things happened before they cae seereed with this view, supplemented every effort of the Philadelphia editor in several subsequent talks, and in 1897 _The Ladies' Hoan one of the most popular series it ever published It was called ”Great Personal Events,” and the picturesque titles explained the ”When Jenny Lind Sang in Castle Garden,” and, as Bok added to pique curiosity, ”when people paid 20 to sit in rowboats to hear the Swedish nightingale”

This was followed by an account of the astonishi+ng episode ”When Henry Ward Beecher Sold Slaves in Plymouth Pulpit”; the picturesque journey ”When Louis Kossuth Rode Up Broadway”; the triumphant tour ”When General Grant Went Round the World”; the forgotten story of ”When an Actress Was the Lady of the White House”; the sensational striking of the rich silver vein ”When Mackay Struck the Great Bonanza”; the hitherto little-known instance ”When Louis Philippe Taught School in Philadelphia”; and even the lesser-known fact of the residence of the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte in A of Spain Lived on the Banks of the Schuylkill”; while the story of ”When John Wesley Preached in Georgia” surprised nearly every Methodist, as so few had known that the founder of their church had ever visited Araphic happening, and never was unwritten history , or the memories of the older folk more catered to than in this series which won new friends for the azine on every hand

CHAPTER XV

ADVENTURES IN ART AND IN CIVICS

The influence of his grandfather and the injunction of his grandmother to her sons that each ”should make the world a better or a an to be randson

Edward Bok was unconscious that it was this influence What directly led hied was the wretched architecture of sh the United States he was appalled by it Where the houses were not positively ugly, they were, to him, repellently ornate Money asted on useless turrets, filigree work, or machine-made ornamentation Bok found out that these small householders never employed an architect, but that the houses were put up by builders from their own plans

Bok turned to _The Ladies' Ho the small-house architecture of America better He realized the limitation of space, but decided to do the best he could under the circuht serve thousands of his readers if he could make it possible for thened houses by the leading domestic architects in the country He consulted a number of architects, only to find them unalterably opposed to the idea They disliked the publicity of azine presentation; prices differed too much in various parts of the country; and they did not care to risk the criticis” their profession!

Bok saw that he should have to blaze the way and deuments At last he persuaded one architect to co-operate with hian the publication of a series of houses which could be built, approximately, for from one thousand five hundred dollars to five thousand dollars The idea attracted attention at once, and the architect-author a his plans