| THE EYRIE |
Still our readers continue to tell us what's wrong with our magazine—and also what's right with it.
Our Vox Pop mail is heavier than ever; and this indicates that WEIRD TALES is steadily widening its circle of readers. And that, you may be sure, doesn't displease us any.
Some of our correspondents are ecstatically delighted, some are only moderately satisfied, and some are woefully disappointed, with the magazine we're trying to edit. That doesn't irk us either. We shall never be troubled, in fact, so long as people write to us—either in praise or disparagement. That shows, at any rate, that WEIRD TALES is being read and discussed.
But if they cease to say what they think of the magazine—if they ever stop caring about it, one way or the other—why, then, of coarse we WILL begin to worry. We'll know then that something is wrong somewhere.
We've often remarked in these Columns of Canning that nobody can make us sore, no matter how hard he slams our magazine; and we've gone even further and declared that our calumnious letters are read with keener interest than those that flatter us. And, just to prove that we meant what we said, we're going to start The Eyrie this month with all the lampoons we've received in four weeks.
There are only three, as it happens, and here they are:
"My Dear Mr. Baird: 'The Invisible Terror,' in the June number of WEIRD TALES, is much like Bierce's 'The Damned Thing.' 'The Gray Death' is very like 'The Silver Menace,' published a decade ago. 'Penelope,' in May WEIRD TALES, is very like 'Phoebe' of some years ago—the better of the two. Phoebe was the malignant star, and the man married Pheobe.
"'One of the Bunch' wrote you that 'The Phantom Wolfhound’ was 'fairly well written, but mighty unconvincing.' I do not agree with 'One,' so far as unconvincing goes. The child grieved for her dog and dreamed about him. Mr. Ritsky was sensitive and received by telepathy the vibrating thoughts of the child, strongest when she was asleep. They disturbed his rest and probably pricked his conscience, causing distressing mental pictures. . . . The only criticism I have to make of the story is the 'white thing' floating from between the child's lips. Thoughts are invisible. . . .
. . . . . . . "I like 'The Evening Wolves,' 'The Two Men Who Murdered Each Other,' and 'The Guard of Honor.' I don't like brutal murder stories or stories of horrible crime."
That came from a young woman in Hayward, California, who, though signing her name, requested us to credit her criticism to "An Old Fashioned Woman." And the next was written by a gentleman of Jersey City, who likewise asked to have his name omitted:
"Dear Sir: Referring to Mr. Francis Steven's tale, 'Sunfire,' in the July-August issue of WEIRD TALES. This is a good tale, so far, but I would like to make the following comment: I have always understood that the great desideratum in all story telling was an appearance or effect of realism, truth or plausibility, brought about by the adherence of statements as close to actual facts as possible. Now, after several hundred, or possibly several thousand, years of mining, a diamond of half a ton weight, as the diamond in your story, is manifestly absurd; and do you not think that the story would have been better if, say, a nugget or ingot of silver, gold or platinum, all of which are also found in South America, had been mentioned, hammered and polished in mirror form?
"Half-ton (or, as they would say in Latin America, 300 kilograms), nuggets or ingots are not beyond the bounds of possibility, and may have actually been found, hammered or cast. Ingots can be cast of this weight. Or a slab or plate of this weight, set with large diamonds, somewhat on the manner of modern vault lights or sidewalk lights, would have imparted a touch of realism which would also have been sufficiently bizarre or outre to keep the story under the heading, 'Weird,' and furnished enough 'sunfire.'
"But having both the centipede and the diamond oversize to such an extent is piling it on a bit thick, although the centipede, being alive, might possibly have been developed in some way to help out on the weirdness—J. L."
And the third comes from Dick P. Tooker, of Minneapolis:
"I have purchased every issue of your magazine since it was begun, and I believe you are filling a position in the magazine field that has long needed filling. I was disappointed in not getting a complete July issue. Like some of the readers wrote in The Eyrie, I believe the first two issues of WEIRD TALES were the best. You are running a few stories every month that are as good as your first ones, but in the last two issues especially I have caught myself yawning when half way through several of them. But no one would think of yawning while reading 'Shades' or 'The Room of the Black Velvet Drapes.' Please keep on improving your covers."
And now, having disposed of that trio of roasts (which quite failed to blister us), let us turn to those letters another sort. First, we shall consider this one from Joel Shoemaker of 4116 Aiken Avenue, Seattle, Washington:
"My Dear Brother Baird: The big double number, with thirteen thrilling short stories, two complete novelettes and two two-part stories, is before me. It is a fine number. We waited a long time for it. There are six grown-ups in my family—myself and wife and two sons and two daughters—and we all want WEIRD TALES as soon as it reaches the newsdealer.
"Of course, I kept my eye out for the first copy that might land in the city. Every newsdealer heard my voice asking why WEIRD TALES did not show up. No one could give me information.
"Then there came the big July-August number. It was picked up without even the formality of asking the salesman. Then the trouble began, for all wanted to read WEIRD TALES. It was so big, had so many stories, and was so interesting that it was a case of 'finders keepers,' and 'possession is nine points of the law,' while one had the magazine and five wanted to get eyes on it.
"The magazine suits me fine. . . . We need more of the real salt of the earth to go with the iron that we pick up from the raisins, grapes and other sources, and in WEIRD TALES you have struck the vein of salt that preserves life."
And, next, the following from Lee Torpie, of 1204 Mason Street, San Francisco:
"Dear Sir: I used to think reading magazines a waste of time, until last April, when, quite by chance, I bought a copy of WEIRD TALES for March—the first issue. Since then, I've watched for your magazine eagerly each month; I found it filled in pleasantly bits of spare time, too brief for the reading of books. The stories were the sort I liked best, and while I cannot account for the scarcity of such fiction, I know from experience how hard it is to get.
"With my discovery of WEIRD TALES, I felt the problem of finding interesting reading matter for the little leisure I have was solved. Getting my copy for April wasn't all beer and skittles—I secured the first copy in a town where I was stopping at the time, and when I came to look for the magazine in San Francisco, I entered several bookstores and stopped at many magazine stands before I found an enlightened druggist who supplied me with the April number. I went there for the May and June issues.
"To my consternation, when I called for the July number, the druggist said it hadn't come in. Since then, I have haunted that drug store—daily at first, till, the clerk greeted me with a grin and a shake of the head before I had time to ask him the momentous question.
"So I am appealing to you. Perhaps you have decided not to market WEIRD TALES on the Pacific Coast; if that is the reason for my inability to get the July issue. I'll go into the subscriber class, if I may—then I'll be sure to have the magazine each month."
Mr. Torpie, we are happy to say, has since read our July-August issue, and, we hope, the September number, too.
Here is one that we’re not quite sure about. Maybe it belongs in that first batch. Maybe not. At any rate, here goes:
"Dear Mr. Baird; I was not disappointed in the June number of WEIRD TALES. I was only disappointed in not finding that magazine on the newsstands for July. I thought that either you or WEIRD TALES had died suddenly! I was reassured, however, when I beheld its welcome resurrection in August, so I put aside thoughts of mourning weeds.
"I liked the June number very well, excepting the reprint of Poe's Morgue Street Murders, my contention being that everybody who has read anything is already familiar with such literature; that you reprint them for the inconsequential minority, hence the pages upon which they are printed is so much waste paper to the greater number. Miss Burchard, I note, opposes this theory and even suggests that you reprint Sherlock Holmes! Now, I would ask Miss B. who under the canopy is not familiar with those famous stories? Who among the readers of WEIRD TALES hasn't already been satiated with them—'The Speckled Band,' 'The End of the Passage,' and so on?
"In these days, when a subscription to certain periodicals carries with it a set of Poe, Doyle, Bulwer, O. Henry, such reading is within the reach of all. 'The Upper Berth' is an exception, I fancy, and I hope we may have it should you lay hands on it. I am, however, open to conviction, and if yon ever think of taking a census of opinion in the matter I shall bow to the majority.
"P.S.—The July-August number was very interesting in that there was neither love mush nor old junk of the Bulwer type, 'Sunfire' is immense, and the close of 'Evening Wolves' was quite as it should be."
The foregoing was written by Dr. Henry C. Murphy of Brooklyn; and, before we comment upon it, we rise to remark that WEIRD TALES seems to offer a special appeal to physicians and surgeons. They like to read our sort of stories, and they like to write 'em. There is scarcely a day that we don't get at least one weird story written by a doctor. Doctors, it seems, encounter some weird adventures.
With regard to the argument against reprinting weird classics, so ably presented by Dr. Murphy, we'll say there's an even greater division of opinion on this than there is on the matter of serials. Since the publication of Miss Burchard's letter we've received at least two dozen communications informing us that "The Upper Berth" was written by F. Marion Crawford and earnestly requesting us to reprint this story and others like it. Opposed to these, we have some eight or ten letters telling us bluntly to lay off the old stuff. What to do? . . . Well, since Dr. Murphy says he will bow to the majority, I suppose we'd best do the same thing—and give "The Upper Berth" another run. (The Pullman Company should thank us, anyway.)
You may recall the letter from H. P. Lovecraft, published here last month. A bit caustic, that letter; and today we have pleasure in offering another, which, if less stinging, is none-the-less enjoyable. Our friend Lovecraft always has something to say when he writes. Thus:"Dear Mr. Baird: I should apologize if my former letter seemed to tax WEIRD TALES with seeking conventional material. Such was not my intention in any way. I only meant that I presumed you would not wish too subtle or cryptical material for presentation to the general public. There is a difference between mere originality and delicate symbolism, or hideously nebulous adumbration. How many American readers outside the frankly 'high-brow' class, for example, would find any pleasure or coherent impression in Arthur Machen's 'The White People,' or in the fantastic passages of the same author's 'Hill of Dreams'? In a word, I take it that WEIRD TALES wants definite stories, with a maximum of plot, tension of situation, explosive climax, and statement rather than too elusive suggestion—this rather than, the Baudelairian prose-poem of spiritual Satanism, where chiseled phrase, lyrical tone, color, and an opiate luxuriance of exotic imagery form the chief sources of the macabre impression. . . .
"I lately read the May WEIRD TALES, and congratulate you on Mr. Humphrey's 'The Floor Above.' [for a moment I had a shiver which the author didn't intend—I thought he was going to use an idea which I am planning to use myself!! But it wasn't so, after all], which is a close second to my favorite, 'Beyond the Door.' Evidently my taste runs to the architectural! 'Penelope' is clever—but Holy Pete! If the illustrious Starrett's ignorance of astronomy is an artfully conceived attribute of his character's whimsical narrative, I'll say he's right there with the verisimilitude! I wrote monthly astronomical articles for the daily press between 1906 and 1918, and have a vast affection for the celestial spheres.
"Some day I may send you a possible filler, beginning:
"Through the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,
Past the wan-moon'd abysses of night,
I have lived o'er my lives without number,
I have sounded ail things with my sight—
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness and fright."
Mr. Lovecraft you will observe, is quite as deft with poetry as he is with prose; and, as further evidence of this, we submit the prologue to a 300-line heroic poem of his that we may print some day:
"I am he who howls in the night;
I am he who moans in the snow;
I am he who hath never seen light;
I am he who mounts from below.
My car is the car of death;
My wings are the wings of dread;
My breath is the north wind's breath;
My prey are the cold and dead."
As you know, we are publishing a series of Mr. Lovecraft's prose pieces, beginning with "Dagon;" and of this story he wrote us, in part:
"I shall venture 'Dagon' as a sort of test of my stuff in general. If you don't care for this, you won't care for anything of mine. . . . It is not that 'Dagon' is the best of my tales, but that it is perhaps the most direct and least subtle in its 'punch'; so that for popular publication it is most likely to please most. In copying it I have touched up one or two crude spots—it having been written in 1917, directly after a lull of nine years in my fiction-writing. Naturally I was a bit rusty in the management of the prose. A friend of mine—Clark Ashton Smith, the California poet of horror, madness and morbid beauty—showed this yarn to George Sterling, who declared he liked it very much, though suggesting (absurdly enough, as I view it!) that I have the monolith topple over and kill the 'thing' . . . a piece of advice which makes me feel that poets should stick to their sonneteering. . .
"My love of the weird makes me eager to do anything I can to put good material in the path of a magazine which so gratifyingly cultivates that favorite element. I shall await with interest the next issues, with the tales you mention, and am meanwhile trying to get the opening number through a newsdealer. I am sure the venture will elicit some notable contributions as its fame spreads—and the extent of that fame may be judged from the fact that people in Massachusetts, New York, Ohio and California have been equally prompt in calling my attention to it and urging me to try my luck!"
In a way, "Dagon" is a radically different sort of story, even for WEIRD TALES, and those that will follow it are even more so. For this reason, we shall be particularly interested in hearing what our readers think of the Lovecraft tales.THE EDITOR.
