A Literary Model

THE necessity for the model became more and more apparent to Foster as he became more and more a disciple of the modern school.

The first thing which suggested the idea to him was his story of Against the Tide. In this narrative, the hero, Armstrong, is caught in a thunderstorm while out sailing on Great South Bay, and of course he is wet to the skin. Now, Foster had intended to have Armstrong run in at Babylon that afternoon, to call on the heroine ; but of course no man could expect to be received with any degree of welcome if he presented himself in that drenched and dripping condition, and it seemed for the moment as if the idea must be given up.

“ But the storm quickly passed over,” stated Foster, trying to help his hero on the way to five o’clock tea ; “ and before long Armstrong’s clothes were dried by the sun.”

No sooner had the author written these words than the little Spirit of Realism, which haunted him day and night, whispered gently into his ear that it would probably take a very hot sun and several hours of time to dry the clothes which had become saturated with fresh water under a rainfall of ten minutes’ duration.

“Nonsense,” responded Foster restively, “I don’t believe it. And what if it did ? No one would ever know it. If I choose to say that a man’s clothes will become dry in half an hour, who will challenge the statement ? But what if some inquisitive fellow should test it ? What would become of my reputation as a realist ? Though I don’t know that the clothes would not dry in half an hour ; I don’t know whether they would or not.”

“ Very well,” said the Spirit of Realism ; “ then there is but one course open to you. You must sacrifice a suit of clothes in the interests of literature, soak them in the bathtub for ten minutes, and then see how long it takes them to dry in the sun.”

With a sigh Foster assented to the reasonableness of this proposition, and prepared to carry it out.

The sun ought to have been that of a day in early September, at three o’clock in the afternoon, for that was the time of the storm in Foster’s narrative ; but as it was then only the latter part of February, it did seem as if it would be almost too hard to be obliged to wait nearly seven months in order to verify one sentence in a story which had already been promised to the publishers. The best that could be done was to saturate the clothes as required, notice the time it took them to dry in the latter part of February, and then, making the most accurate calculation possible of the difference in the drying power of the sun in the two seasons of the year, add or subtract the number of minutes, as the case might be.

All this Foster did. carefully and honestly, and as the result of his observations rewrote his sentence thus : “ Armstrong’s clothes were dry in about five hours.” It had been, in reality, five hours and thirteen minutes after taking the garments out of the water and hanging them in the sun, before the realist, handling them anxiously, could say to himself that they were quite dry. But the thirteen minutes he placed on the credit side of the account of the September sun, and was then so far false to his principles as to write “ about five hours,” instead of stating plainly and clearly just how long it took the clothes to dry.

Having done this, however, he began to feel that he could now go on with his story with a clear conscience, when the Spirit of Realism again interposed. It told him, kindly but firmly, that he had not made any allowance for all of Armstrong’s wet underclothes. These the sun could reach only through the outer suit, so that they would necessarily take longer to dry; and while they continued wet, they would retard the drying of the coat and trousers. Then, just as he was bringing his mind to bear upon this underclothes problem, the Spirit reminded him that the warmth of the human body would materially affect the length of time which it would take the sun to do its work of drying ; and that to hang a coat and a pair of trousers, or even the whole paraphernalia of a man’s outfit, to dry in the sun by themselves, would, after all, be shirking the duty of a writer, who must be true to facts as they are, at whatever cost.

At this point Foster almost rebelled. For one little minute he wished that the good old days, in which a vivid imagination was of some small use to a writer of fiction, were with him still; and that realism, with all its painful accuracy and truthfulness, had never evolved itself from the inner consciousness of the latter half of the nineteenth century. But this relapse was for the instant only. Foster knew that he had long since committed himself to the modern methods, and that it was far, far too late to draw back now. So, humbly bowing before the new mandate of the Spirit, he cast about him for some way in which to render his obedience. It was then, in that moment of his dire need, that the thought of the model came to him, bringing with it such a sense of relief in the solving of this and all future problems of a like character that he could only wonder dizzily why it had never occurred to him before.

“ Why,” he asked himself judicially, “should the artist who works with the brush deem it so absolutely essential to the truthfulness of his pictures to have that which he is portraying actually before him, while the artist who works with the pen is supposed to be able to draw his pictures from the memory of previous observations ? Imagine the impressionist who would try to give us a picture of street life in Cairo, drawn from memory, never having taken even a sketch on the ground ; or think of a portrait of a Spanish cavalier, for instance, painted without any model, merely from what the artist could recall of his impressions on that subject, gathered while traveling through Spain during the previous autumn. Yet we realists,” continued Foster, warming to his theme, “ we pretend to study life, and to send forth our word-pictures of men and things as they actually are. We observe, certainly, — we make it our business in life to study character and conditions ; but that is not enough. I begin to see for the first time,” he assured himself, “ that that is not enough. We too need the model; and a model, I, for one, mean to have for the remainder of my realistic life ! ”

This having been decided, the author at once went forth to seek his model for the storm scene in Against the Tide. This should have been very simple, as it seemed to Foster at first. No particular intelligence would be necessary, he thought, no insight and no training; nothing hut a constitution strong enough to enable a man to endure a bath with all his clothes on, and the subsequent five hours’ drying in a February sun. Surely, any man out of work would be glad to take the contract, and would not object to earning the honest penny simply because the work required was perhaps a little out of the ordinary line. So it would seem, certainly, but the realist found it otherwise.

He had in his mind, at first, a colored man whom he had befriended from time to time, and who, he thought, would be glad of the chance to earn two dollars, and at the same time to help his benefactor out of a difficulty. So he sent for Rastus, and Rastus promptly presented himself.

“ Rastus,” said Foster, “ I have a little work which I should like to have you do for me.”

“ Yes, sah,” responded Rastus, rolling his eyes, and displaying a gleaming expanse of white teeth.

“ It will not take you long,” continued Foster, — “ about five hours, or less ; and I shall pay you two dollars for it.”

‘“Yes, sah,” again responded Rastus, with more alacrity than before, and this time with a facial expansion of" about eight inches. Rastus usually worked all day — a darky’s day, from nine to five — for a dollar and a quarter ; but Foster was now engaging him as a model, and a good model, the author knew, would be cheap at that price.

Foster then carefully explained to Rastus the nature of the work which he wanted him to do. The negro’s eyes opened wider and wider, but the grin as steadily faded away ; and before the realist had finished his exposition the desired model was a black statue of gravity, whose head was being slowly shaken from side to side.

“ You wan’ dis chile to put on dese yere t’ings,” pointing to the clothes which Foster had laid out in readiness for his experiment ; "an’ den you wan’ me git in de baftub wid ’em on ; an’ den I set fo’ five hours in ’em, till I jes’ dry in de sun.” Here the head-shaking became even slower and more solemn. “ No, sah, Mistah Fostah, sah ; I couldn’ do it, nohow.”

“ But why, Rastus ? ” expostulated Foster. “ Why can’t you do it? You’d like to earn the two dollars, would n’t you?”

“ Oh yes, sah.”

“ You have n’t anything else to do, have you ? ”

“No, sail. Dese yere hard times, cyarn’ git nuthin’ to do, nohow, sah.”

“ You ’re not afraid of catching cold, I hope ? ”

The grin, so modified as to be scarcely recognizable, illumined Rastus’s face for a moment, but almost instantly disappeared.

“ No, sah; not afraid oh teckin’ col’, sah. Dis chile nebber teck col’.”

“Then why, in the name of common sense, do you refuse to do what I ask of you ? Give me some reason ! ”

But Rastus was dumb, while the headshaking was continued for some moments in solemn silence.

“Well?” cried Foster at last, impatiently. “ Well, will you do it, or won’t you ? ”

Rastus rolled his eyes, his countenance expressive of the deepest regret.

“ Ve’y sorry, sah. Like to ’bleege you, Mistah Fostah, sah, but I couldn’ do it, nohow.” And Foster felt that further argument would be superfluous.

This experience with Rastus was a little disappointing; for once Foster had conceived the idea of the model, he had anticipated no difficulty in carrying it out, supposing that Rastus would be only too happy, technically speaking, to pose. The event undeceived him, but did not result in the abandonment of his project.

He next sought an Irishman whom he had employed at various times to take care of his furnace, and to him he unfolded the plan in all its details, and offered him two dollars and a half if he would do the work required. The man listened with shrewd attention until the point was reached at which Foster developed the bathtub and drying process. Then he interrupted him with, “ An’ fwliat wud Oi do that for ? ”

Foster explained that he had a particular reason for wanting to know how long it would take the clothes to dry.

“ An’ fwhy don’t yez jist hang thim over a chair till yez can say that they ’re dhry ? ”

“ I wish to know how long it will take them to dry on a man’s body.”

“An’ it’s mesilf yez wants to put on thim things, an’ to git into the wather with thim on, is ut ? An’ to set in the chair beyant an’ shiver for foive hours, is ut ? Thin it’s Pat O’Reilly as wud n’t demane himsilf by doin’ ut, for yez or for anny other man in the wurruld, by all the powers ! An’ it’s ashtounded at yez Oi om, Misther Fosther, as has always trated me loike a gintleman till now ! ” And, with this outburst of selfrespect, Pat O’Reilly stamped heavily down the stairs, and was out of the house before Foster could recover from the stupefaction in which this second defeat had left him.

No one need come to me with any more absurd stories of hard times, and of the thousands of men who are willing to do anything, but can find nothing to do ! ” raged Foster to himself that evening. “ It’s all nonsense ! Do anything ! Why don’t they do it, then, when they get the chance ? ‘ Wud n’t demane himsilf by doin’ ut’! ” he repeated scornfully. “ Well, what I want is a man with sense enough to appreciate the fact that in doing what I ask he is not only helping himself by earning honest wages, but he is also serving the best spirit of his time in promoting the interest of realistic literature ! ”

But where to find this man of sense and literary ardor ? Foster thought of the columns in the daily papers, headed, “ Help Wanted : Males,” and tried to write an advertisement which would appeal to the proper spirit in some intelligent man out of work, and which would at the same time convey a perfectly clear idea of what would be required of the applicant; for any repetition of the experiences with Rastus and Pat O’Reilly was a thing to be avoided, if avoidance were possible.

So he began to write : —

“Wanted — A man to act as model for an author. Must be willing to ” —

Here he stopped, and repeated the last four words to himself. “Must be willing to — Must be willing to— Oh, must be willing to what ? ” he demanded, in desperation. “ I can’t explain what I need in a newspaper advertisement; and if I don’t explain, I shall be besieged by men with no more perception of the real importance of the work than Rastus or Pat had. And I see plainly that no man who is incapable of understanding the spirit of the thing will do what I want,”

With this the realist went to bed. At three o’clock in the morning he awoke suddenly, and at once the solution of the problem was in his brain, having come to him as such things do. He went to sleep again, and slept until eight o’clock. At that hour he arose, dressed and breakfasted calmly, and then betook himself with great confidence to the rooms of the Young Men’s Christian Association.

“ I have been told,” he said to the secretary, who came forward to meet him, “ that scores of men sleep on the floor here every night; that many of these are intelligent and even cultivated men, who in ordinary times would be filling responsible and lucrative positions, but who, owing to the hard times, are now out of work, and are willing to sweep the city streets for a dollar a day.”

The secretary, wondering if he saw before him a street commissioner or a philanthropist, responded briefly, “ You have been correctly informed, sir.”

“ Very well,” continued Foster ; “ then it seems to me that I must have come to the right place to engage a man to do a little work for me. I am an author.”

“ Yes ? ” questioned the secretary.

“ Yes,” repeated Foster. “A realist,” he added.

“ Ah! ” returned the secretary. “ You have come here for — er — in search of local color, perhaps ? ”

“ Oh, not at all,” disclaimed Foster hastily, “ not at all! ” He explained to the secretary exactly what he wanted, and the young man was deeply interested at once.

“ I think I know the right man for your purpose,” he said, — “a man who will take an intelligent interest in the work, and at the same time be one whom it will be a pleasure to you to assist pecuniarily ; for just at this time he needs money very much indeed. His name is Haskins, — Henry Haskins. He will be here after six o’clock, and I will ask him to call on you this evening.”

Foster thanked him, and then, elated by even so much success, he went home to await the coming of him who was to be the right man in the right place.

Before ten o’clock, that evening, the model was engaged. About eight Mr. Haskins presented himself, and the interview was satisfactory to both of the men. The realist explained at great length his idea of a literary model, and Haskins entered into the plan with the most intelligent enthusiasm.

“ I see exactly what you need,” he exclaimed, “and I wonder that no one has ever thought of it before ! Why should n’t an author use a model as an artist does, and for the same reasons? But how did you happen to think of it ? ”

Foster told him about Against the Tide, and read the story aloud up to the point of the thunderstorm and Armstrong’s predicament. Haskins was much interested, and said that it would be a pleasure to him to feel that he was necessary to the completion of the narrative. The realist told him of the contrary opinion of Rastus and Pat ; but Haskins replied that of course men of that mental calibre could not understand the significance or necessity of the work required, and that therefore they would not have made satisfactory models, even if they had been willing to do what the author asked of them.

“ For I suppose,” continued Haskins thoughtfully, “ that you will not always require a model for such experiments as this. I should think a sympathetic model could pose for a great many situations which only a man who realized the literary value of what he was doing would be capable of representing. There must be numberless instances in which a model would require insight and sympathy in order to coöperate intelligently with the author in his plan.”

Haskins then went on to give Foster some account of his previous life, and of the circumstances which had brought his finances to their present condition. He said that he had been born on a farm in Columbia County, and that he had lived there until he was nineteen. Then the country boy’s longing for the life of a great city had drawn him to New York, and for several years he had made his way there with encouraging success. At the end of the first year of struggle he had obtained a position with a Wall Street broker, and had kept it until the failure of the firm, almost at the beginning of the hard times, had left him with nothing to depend upon except what he had saved. He had lived upon that for nearly a year, having been utterly unsuccessful in his efforts to get anything to do. No one wanted him; there were a hundred men for every vacant place. At last, when his money had given out, he had applied to the Young Men’s Christian Association for help, and had been permitted to sleep at night on the floor, at the rooms, while his days were spent in doing anything that would bring in enough money to buy food.

“ You would be amazed, Mr. Foster,” he said to the realist, “ if you knew some of the men who are doing just what I am doing, in these times. Every day I see men whose education and training and experience have fitted them to fill responsible positions, but who are now glad to get any kind of work, at almost any pay. For my part, I never expected to be as hard up as I have been for the last two months. Of course I could have gone home at any time, or my friends would have sent me some money if I had written for it; but I would n’t.”

So Foster’s offer of good pay for work which he would enjoy for its own sake was a sea-breeze on a hot day to Mr. Haskins, and his ready acceptance of the offered position was equally refreshing to Foster. The realist and the model elect parted at ten P. M., mutually satisfied.

Promptly on the morning following his engagement, the model made his appearance at the author’s rooms, ready to pose for Against the Tide. He put on the clothing (including the underwear) which Foster had provided for the experiment, and then stepped into the tub of cold water as cheerfully as if it had been his lifelong habit to indulge, with all his clothes on, in a plunge bath immediately after breakfast. He remained in the water until he and all his garments were as wet as they would have been had he just been exposed to a thunderstorm on Great South Bay. Then he emerged, and placing his chair upon a large piece of oilcloth, in order that the water which was dripping from him should not injure the rug on the floor of Foster’s study, he lighted a cigar, and, sitting there in the bright sunshine of a south window, calmly awaited results. Foster had noted the exact moment of his model’s emergence from the water, and was prepared to go on with his story in confidence as soon as the drying should be complete, and he should have ascertained the precise length of time consumed by the process. In the mean time, he and Haskins had a long and interesting conversation about the author’s new idea and the possibilities of its future development.

“ After all,” remarked Haskins, “ there will always be limits to a model’s ability to pose, because there will always be certain situations and conditions in which it will be impossible for him to place himself.”

“ Yes,” assented Foster thoughtfully, “ that is very true. Suppose, for example, that I wished to make a careful study of the influence of remorse, or of the spirit of revenge or of gratitude : I don’t see how you could possibly be of any assistance to me.”

“Or,” continued Haskins, “suppose that in the course of one of your stories your hero or your villain should be guilty of murder in the first degree. You could hardly expect me to pose for such a situation as that ? ”

“ Oh, well,” answered Foster, “as to that, a realist does not deal very largely with murders. We seldom have a villain in our stories, and often not even a hero. We have left those characters, for the most part, to the dramatist; and of late even he is beginning to look askance at them.”

At last the model’s clothes were dry enough to have justified a man in calling upon a woman who he had some reason to suppose would welcome him in almost any circumstances. Upon assuring himself of this fact, Foster looked at his watch.

“ How long has it taken ? ” asked Haskins, with interest.

“ Four hours and twenty-two minutes,” announced Foster. “ And now,” he continued, “ the question is, would it have taken a longer or a shorter time for the clothes to have become dry out of doors, in September ? ”

“ I don’t believe there would be very much difference,” replied Haskins, “It seems to me that you have done all that any one could be expected to do, to verify your statement; and if I were you, I should go on with the story upon the basis of the result of this experiment.”

“ Very well.” answered Foster ; “ then I will say that the clothes were dry in four hours’ time.”

He did so, and pictured the drenching and subsequent waiting for the clothes to dry in words which made one sneeze as he read of the wet garments clinging to the body, and then becoming gradually free from moisture during the four hours’ evaporation of the water. With the intelligent coöperation of his model, the author’s work had become a pleasure to him, and the Spirit of Realism was quiet for many days and nights at a time.

Thus Against the Tide was finished at last, and was mailed to the magazine for which it had been written. It was published not long afterward, and Foster received a copy of the number in which it appeared, accompanied by a note from the editor.

“ You will notice,” the editor wrote, “ that I have taken the liberty of making a slight change in one paragraph of your story. You say that although the storm did not last long, it was four hours before Armstrong’s clothes were dry enough for him to make his call at Babylon. Now, when you think of it, I believe you will agree with me that the heat of a September sun in our climate would effect the drying process in a much shorter time than that which you have mentioned. It is a minor detail, of course, but knowing as I do your desire to be perfectly accurate even in the small matters, I meant to have called your attention to this statement before the story was put into print. I am sorry that I neglected to do so until it was too late ; but I hope that you will have no objection to the words which, at the last moment, I substituted for yours.”

Foster took up the magazine, and, turning to his story, he ran his eye down the printed columns until he read these words : —

“ But the storm quickly passed over, and before long Armstrong’s clothes were dried by the sun.”

Mary Boardman Sheldon.