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8/01 c'JCIRCIDIIQDuo.pss-p.15

 

 

 

 

 

A BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL STUDY
O!
RING LARDNER

by
Hanna: Rudolph Street

A EHESIS
Suhnlttad to tho Graduata sahool or Hlahtxaa
stata Collage of Agriculture and Appllo
Solonaa in partial fulfillment of tho
toqnlranonta for tha degraa of
MASTER OF ARTS
Department of English

19“

PREFACE

Thia etudy or Ring Lardner hea four purpoaea: to
oupply a more oonpleto biographioal aoeonnt of hi-
than hae been pnbliehoa; to put in one voluno the main
pointe of the moat unportant oritieal eotlnatoe ot hie
work; to indicate Lardnor'o poaition in the Anoriean
etroan of humor; and to ohoo the oontraet hetwoen.hie
tietion and hie non-riotion.

The biographical oootion haa poeaihly the loot
value, iaaennoh aa the pnbliahoe material on hie lite
aeeno to hare been derived true aovapapor artialea
written immediately after hie death. The artieloo.
with perhapo certain oxeoptiona in the Nileo‘ggilz
A§§g£, nnitornly ignore Imoh or his early life. ‘In
thia etudy the etandard material on Lardner haa been
oonoiderably oupplemeatea by the poroonel rooollooo
tione or hie oieter. Mile Leno Lardner, by information
from the aerapbook ahe has kept. and by lottere and
veraoo Lardner eent to her. In addition, the notorial
available in the Fort St. Joaoph Bietorieal Mueoul.anl
in the Nileo library hao been need.

to in the eaeo ot1Ioet humorioto, Lardnor'o
recognition ae an important literary figure aane alou-
ly, and it ie not only helpful to etudento to knot who

wrote that about him, but it ie aleo interesting to
note the tendenoy or eritiee to get on a literary
bandwagon in a hurry, whether it to playing the entire
tune, or merely the main hero.

Determining Lardner'e poaition in.Amorioan
writing hoe the value or ahoeing the poaeihle in-
tluoneoe in hie work. It ia ohvioue that he one!
mthing. it not nuah, to early purveyore or nie-
epollod humor.

The reason for including a new appraieal of hie
eork ie that the oritieal eetimato or Lardner hoe teen

haeod mainly on.hie tietion; no a eoneequenee, hie
reputation as a oatiriet in the tradition or swift hae
been firmly oot. me oonveniont negleot or hie non-
i'iotion oheouroe a large part of Lardnor'e aork, and
rootere a partially erroneoue view or a oeotion or hie
writing. The’ following etudy attonpte to ”my that.

Aeknoelodgonent ie aede to Hiloe reeidonte for

their eooporatioe. and their rillingnoee to raniniaoe.
Speeial aeknooloegement ie aleo due Mien Lona Lardner.
Ring Lardner'a eiater. ehoeo eoraphooh, lottere, and
poreonal knoelodgo or Lardner provided meat or the
neteriel tor the biographioal eoetion.

11

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chanter .2259.

I 3105:.ph’ooeeooeoeeoeeooooooeoooooeeeool

II The Poeition or Ring Lardner in
the meriean Tradition of Hunor.....la

III The critieien or Lardner..............u
N Luaur'. workeoeeoeoeooeooooooeooooooas
' OGIOIUIAOEeoooeeooooooooooooooaeoeoeoo"

BiuAOUCPh’oooooooooooeoeoooeeoioooooeoeeo"

CHAPTER ONE
BI comma?

The life of Ringold wilner Lardner wae, in many
waye, a eontraet to the ueuelly aeoopted eotieete or
hie work. The eaJority or oritioe, heeieg their ver-
diet neinly on hie tietion, label Lardner a eiean-
thropo, a «rage eatiriet or people. Clifton radieae
m. aoee eo tar an to eay that he hated himself aa
roll no the people he wrote ahaet.1 Yet nah oi'
Lardner'e work, and oertainly hie lottare. the her-
eony or hie family life. and the ooneern whioh he
ehoeod tor hie tour eone, point to a kind, etrons,
witty pereonality.

Lardner wee horn nareh 6. 1885. in the Lardner
houee on Bond Street, in Niloe, niehigae.2 He no
the youngest of tire ehildron, all or when were
talented in either writing or nueie. Hie birthplace
etende eereee i'ra the high tank or the at. Joeeph
river, a pleaeent eettiag that reniada one or
vaeatioe daye, ei’ oool ehade and muddy river hanke.

Hie edueation eae gained by mean or tutoring

I. "’ 'fifng Lardner de
The Nation, CXXXVI (March 23, 1933), 315.
""' ' 2. "S'tanloy .r. Kunitz and Howard Hayoratt
Teentieth Century Authors (New York: Wileon, l5“),

 

until the age or twelve. Hie tutore were Barry
manetield. a well-knoenrflilee teaeher. and hie nether.
Lena Bogardue Phillipe Lardner. The etteot of
Lardner'e nether on him on hardly be over—oetieated.
She was gifted in both eueie and writing, and woe an
extremely well-read woman, with interoete that in-
oluded the religioue and hietorieal ae eell no the
musical and literary. Two publiehed volunee at vereo
and prose reveal her profound roligioue toolinee,
balanoed by a light humor. She had the eaee raoility
in verse that Lardner had, and the eeee aptitude for
pune that Lardner exhibited in hie work. ”Thie‘gpggy
25 Western glue,“ the tiret or her volueea, telle of
a dreantin'whioh aha vieite the dwelling or lead
authore:

'Ella t' ealled loud a Philietine;

But ehe was not in eight «-
‘I thought it had Ben.Hur I ween
Your footsteps are eo light
wallaeo t' The Sage of Grawtordevillo
Replied 'Juet wheel-er here. 3

311be .‘15 BM’I half way up th. “11o e e e
The linee on Theodore Rooeevelt, in the eene peel,
oleo reveal her punninc:

Till 'Teddy' oame, with haety etride,

.dnd reaehed out for hie gun;
'Oh i I forgot.' he eeid (and lighed),
'My etronuouo lite ie Dunne.‘

The foreword to hie eother'e eeoond book, Sparta

 

 

5. {How tori: Broadway,l§5§T:p. d.
lb;de

4e

from.the Yule-lo , shows the smooth varsitying:

Dreamily Watching the tirelipht'n glow
teavee my fancy ite web or rhyme;
Blent together the colors grow 5
or Ghriotmae eeeeon and summer time.

At the age of twelve the tutoring wao abandoned,
and Ring entered Nilee High Sehool. He took the
"Latin Course" and was graduated on June 14, 1901,
with a olaee or eirteen.° Apparently hie varsityiag
abilities were welluknown, beeeuee he was ohoeon to
write the olaee poem. It will he notieod that he wee
punning reopeotahly even at the age or einteen:

Up Learning'e ladder, round by round
We've climbed with many a fall;
But, through the toil, eonpanionehip
Hegeg‘menda for all .

Now tron our giddy heights we glaneo,
With eelm thoughte and eerene

Onee more at thooe we leave today -
Our olaee of sweet eixteen.

I want to take you with.me through
The ranks of our emall orowd;

And, it you'll lieten carefully,
You'll know why we are proud.

Grace, on our goodly president,
Hae eorved her eeeond year;

In einging, epeaking, poetry,
She etanda without e peer.

Blanohe ie the eunehine or our elaee,
She driven dull earo away.

Her laughing eyee, her smiling taee,
Have gladdened many a day.

Alioe, the oahe, the dignified,
5. IESw'YorE: firoadwai, i554).
l

6. From the Lardner action in the Fort St.
ioeiphrflietoriealiuueeuee It ineludoo hie high eehool
1]) me

 

1 know we'll ne'er forgot;

Var Viewe are wide -- but, beat of all,

£‘.he ie the teacher’s pet.
eweeeoeOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOIOOOOO.

Hath ia a clever, pretty girl,

so everyone ramarke,

Yet livee in constant danger - what 7
The danger of her “Sparke.'

Will in the pride or all the girle,
The elave of every teacher,

than eomeone wante a window cloned,
She calla on 'Jube,' poor oreaturo.

Oleyt ie the lad who'e in to win,
He ie the teachere' boy.

and though at tinee hie taco ie and,
Bio heart ia full of 'Joy.‘

Gertie hae node a record proud,
She eeldon failed in alone.

She atudied hard these laet tour yeare
and well deeorved to paoo.

Bertha, the ainger or our claee,
now diligent ehe'e been i

one did her share or whilporing,
But then that'e not a ein.

Been in the cleee hietorian.

That office, roll, she'll till.
she'o ' Jortoro' eot in all her way,
And has an iron 'uill.'

Lawrence ie the one who thinke,

He'e been our comrade long;

Hie favorite atone, an 'Opel' bright
He’e bloat with an 'Arn.etrong.'

sweet Genevieve haa worked and toiled,
her honor'a Juetly won,
And every teacher in our eehool

will any her work'e well 'Dunne'

And now thero'o only one romaine,
he ehould have come before;

file name in John, hie hOpee all lie
In a corner grocery etoro.

.\

 

And now, I've mentioned everyone,

I hope no one reele elighted,

But it one doee let hin.approaoh,
Hie wronge will econ be righted.
At last your poet ande hie lay,

He'e nothing more to tell,
But leaves the class of ninetsen-one
With bleeeinge and farewell.

Exeept for hie edueation, his boyhood .‘.. not un-
ueual. He liked aporte, but a alight nalfonnation of
one foot node it inpoeeible for him to partioipate ae
i‘ully as he would have lined. Hie primary eport inc»
tereet wee baaeball, but hie eiater etatee that he
aleo liked tennie and football. At night the roeroep
tion wae often winging; Hing had a good baritone and
liked to uee it, and the group he went with would
gather at eoeeone'e houae or on the etreot and render
the popular eonge or the day. Judging troerhie
artiele "What I Ought to or Learnt in High 8ehool,"
the nueieal etreot exouraione were often reooivod with
a minim oi’ enthueiaan by the no ighbore.8

Hie interest in nuaio, whieh toward the end of
hie oareer overehadowed even hie intereet in.writing,
wee olwaye etrong. He was a member or the Anerieea
Hinetrele, a troupe of Nilee reamonte that put on
their performances in the city's Opera houee. The
fort 8t. Joeeph Historical Mueeun.etill hae the pro-
grea for the eoeie opera ggngibgr, a gaudy book

“—m .11“ all Star lJun‘e‘ 11, “$9117.;
5. Agggiggn azIne, (Rovembor, 1983), ll.

 

printed in blue lottere against a yellow background.

The opera was performed on April 14, 1903, and woe

apparently well-eupportod, einee the prograe oarried

a good deal or advertieing. The eoeplete perforaanee

wee a eonbination ninetrol ehow and oceio opera:
Grand Spectacular Firet Part

Painted Especially for this Production by
A. M. Foereter

 

The Popular Convarsationaliat, Harry B. Schmidt

BONES TAHBOS
George Dougan Bert Broil
Tam Swain Ring Lardner
Carl Schmidt \ Glarenee Oberlin

Vocal Contingent

Earl Wood, Ed Wurz, Fred Eagleefield, Worth Landon
Rex Lardner, Paul Foereter and Iran.Wurn.

Knott'e Orchestra, under the leadership of Prof.
Fred Ingereoll, accompanied by the popular
pianiat, Mrs. Earl wood.

PROGRAM

Opening Chorue of Popular Selections by the eons
mee
First edition or and men.
TOM SWAIN and RING LARDNEB

I Could Rover L016 L135“ Th.teoeoooeeee
I'n . Jon“ maneeoeeoeeoeoOOoeeeeeeeeeB1u Law:
The Land of the Gene and the Corn.....
A.Soldiar of Love Am I................Worth Landon
Th. POO'B‘h 01" Blndkvllle Tomeoeaeeoocul 301111“
irrital or the Premier Comediane.

GEORGE DOUGAN and BERT BROWN
In tho Valley at Kentuckyeeeeeoeeerr.d E.gl.“1.1‘
E"....U.O...C..le0.0...’............G.or8. Doug“
I Love You More Than Ever..................Ed Hurt
I Sing a Little Tenor...................
TroubIOeaeeeeoeeeeoeoooeoooeaeoeeeooeeooBert Bro'n

Loraine..................................Iurl Wood
Finale of operatic eire by the eoepany
Song of the Eorcador.................... ..Trotere
hr. Lawrence Davieb

Thie impressive program.waa followed by Zgggibar,
”n.0onio Opera in Two Aote. Book by Harry B. Sohmddte
Lyrico and.hueic by Bing Lardner."1° The conga
Lardner wrote were "The Belles of Zanzibar,” ”Evan
Dahkey ie a King," "U111," ”In the Isle of Zanzibar,“
”The Tale of the Cow,” "I'e.Lcader of the Zoneiberin
Army,” "He Did it no Politely," He aleo wrote the ‘
following two chorueee: ”Ki-yi-yi" and ”Hail the
Sultan. .11

The Kinetrele were well organised. They had an
executive etaff that ineluded a manager, treaeurer,
mueioal director, stage manager, mentor of prepare
tiee, etage oarpentor, and electrioian.

According to hie friends, in high eehool Lardner
wee rather cilant,.and hie infrequent foreye into eon,
veroation were aarked by a dry witticien, delivered
than, an later, without expreeeion. He had.eany
friende. The Lardnere were elwaye hoepitebleg the
houeo wee big, and it wee a favorite gathering point.

Although the land surrounding the houee wee
hardly large enough to be termed a.fara, hie father
"TTTTDTTTFron.the progran.in‘thi_Fort'Et. Joeeph
Hietorioal Mueode.

10. Ibide
ll. IBIae

 

kept horeee, cows, and chickens. Sometimes the work
wee too much for the eingle hired man, and the lili-
ing and other chorae had to be done by one of the
boye of thefamily. In Miles the etory ie told that
when Ring finiched.milking, he invariably carried in
the milk pail by way of the front door. Thie
tendency to dignify the unexalted in a humoroue way
was echoed in the story Grantland Rico, one of hie
inthnate friende, told of Lardner:

. . . A southern eolonel, after a mint
Julep or two, had been addreeeing a enall
audience in new Orleans concerning hie die-
tinguiehed family origine. Hie grandfather
it seemed, had been Governor of South Carolina;
Hie uncle wae, currently, the Governor of
Virginia; hie father had been Mayor of How
Orleane; hie nother'e grandfather had intro.
duoed Louieiana to horse-racing, 23_cetera,
et eetera. When he had at laet tricEIed out,
‘IEaner - who was preternaturally dark and
tragical in appearance -- etcod up and 139
trodueed himself; 'My name ie Lardner. I
wee born in Nilee, Michigan, of reepectable
colored parente !'

Probably the heat brief account of Lardner'e
aetivitiee from 1901 to 1907 ie the autobiography
he wrote for the Chicago Tribune in 1920, and which

it reprinted after hie death:

' 'White. Married. American. College:
One eemeeter at Armour Inetitute. Graduated
from Niles High School in 1901. Game to
Chicago that eunmer to get Job. Got Job ae
office boy in.McCormiek Harvester officee.
Fired after two weeke at $5 per week. Loafed

 

I!.‘fihagazine article—InlEiee'Lardner'e ecrap-
book. It wae probably written in September or
October of 1933.

two weeks. Went to work for Peabody,
Houghteling & Co. as office boy and tele-
phone girl; $4 per week. Fired in two weeks.

'Went back to Niles. Got a Job in fall
of 1901 as clerk in freight house. Sent a
pound of butter to Jackson that should have
gone to Battle Creek and was fired. Salary
of this position was $1 a day while hustling
freight and nothing per day while clerk in
the office.

'Came to Armour Institute for a mechani-
cal engineering course. Took rhetoric and
mechanical drawing and shop work. Passed in
rhetoric and quit school by request. This
was winter of 1901-1908. Stayed in Niles and
did nothing for nearly a year.

'passed civil service examination as
postoffice clerk and carrier and carried.mail
in Niles as a substitute at odd times. In
1903, got Job as bookkeeper in Niles gas comp
pany's office. Held this Job till landed '
with South Bend Times.‘

'Gas company ob started at $5 per week
and was raised to 6 the second year. Job on
South Bend Times was sporting editor, base—
ball writer, general sporting writer, dramatic
critic, society reporter and court house re-
porter.

'My brother Rex and I arranged our
vacations in the fall so we could take in the
world's series between Cubs and Detroit.
Series started in Chicago. Got an introduc-
tion to Hugh Fullerton, who was then on the
Examiner. Asked him.if he knew of any Jobs.
Said He thought 80. {Made date to meet him.in
Detroit at a series gems, and there met Duke
Hutchinson, who signed me for the Chicago
Inter-Ocean. Record:

Tobe. Fired Per Cent
22 5 .28813

Lardner's use of practical Jokes, which he often

employed in his stories, is still remembered in Niles.

I3. Chicago Tribune (September 26, 1955}.

 

e
t
e

e

e

I
a .
e
e
e
D
' y
e
A
, n .
r
.
I
.
e
e
I
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.
o
. u
' e

 

 

10

one incident is reminiscent of "My Roomy,” his story
of a ball player who was slightly crazy. Lardner at
one time worked in Buchanan, a near-by town, and
usually came back to Niles on weekends. Occasionally
he would write his friends that he would be unable to
make the trip the following weekend, and would sign
the note with the name of a well-known Niles hslfv
wit.

A more detailed record of hie activities includes
the story of his final departure fro-.Niles:

'. . . I set a representative of the "South
Bend (1nd.) Times," who had some up to Niles to
sign up my brother Rex. I knew that he was tied
up in contracts with "The Niles Sun" and “The
Kalamazoo Gazette," so I stole th-Job. I got
"812 a week SEE worked there for two years.

'my first assignment was to cover the wedc
ding of Mr. and fire. Clement Studebaker, of the
automobile family, which formed the backbone of
South Band's social existence. I amassd.my
editor by coming back with exactly five lines
of news. He didn't fire me, but assigned me to
cover a.musioal show that opened that evening.
Instead of giving the entertainment the boost
customary and expected of all small town
:heazricel critics, I roasted the piece to

eat .

'This brought an avalanche of criticise
down on.my head fron.the owner of the theater,
Joseph E. Reward who also owned and wrote the
show. I survived the store, however, and the
boss put me to work covering the state league
ball games.

'Altcgether I had a lovely time on that
paper. In the morning I covered the police
stations and courts. Then I would drop over
to the Circuit Court to get the divorce news.

11

In the afternoon I went to the ball park. The
press box was a little sewing table right out
on the field and I had a grand time ducking
foul bells. When fouls were few the players
would come up and abuse me for not praising
them.enough in.my stories. In the evenings I
covered shows. Then I would go to the office
to write the day's events.

'. . . I got a Job [on the Inter-Ocean]
at $17.50 a week and wrote football. One of
ey first assignments was to cover the Carlisle
Indians, who were running through signals at
Lake forest in preparation for a game with
Chicago the following Saturday. I was stand-
ing on the field with Glenn Warner, their
coach, when we heard some girls behind us
talking. one said, "He must have sole white
blood in him." They were talking about me.

'After a while I was offered $25 by the
”Chicago Examiner" to go South with the Ihitc
So: for the spring training. That was in
1908. I sent back scleccmmic sketches of the
bell players which the sports editor threw
away. I don't blame him. They were terrible.
I admit it. After that I went with the
“Chicago Tribune.”

'In 1911 I narried.Miss lllie Abbott of
Goshcn, Ind., and found a Job with a weekly
in St. Louis called "The s orti News," so
I wouldn't have to .csrrsrfisti'%§ go out of

O'He

.. 'After that I worked on ”The Boston
American" as copy reader. My copy reading
days aided when I printed a story that To-
Shcvlin was dead. It later developed that
it was Shevlin‘s father who had passed on.
After a brief spell on ”The Chicago Herald-
Exaniner' I went to the "Chicago Tribune,“
where Tron 1913 to 1919 I conducted the ”In
the Wake of the News" column.

Lardner'e "In the Wake of the news" replaced
Hugh E. Kecgh's sport cclumn.*By Hck" when.Keogh

 

'11. cw or or r une ep em er ,

18

died. Sines Keogh‘c column "was considered the best
thing of its kind in the country,“ Lardner's assignp

lent to it was an unqualified recognition of his

ability as a sports writer.16

'While on "The Tribune" I met a ball
player who couldn't read or write and used
to bring me letters from his wife to read
and answer. The fellow was a great alibi
artist and always had an excuse for not send-
ing the money she continually pleaded for
and most likely needed.

'ue had a lot of fun kidding him.on
dining care during the out-of-town trips the
team.mede. He was a terrible cater, but
never knew what to order, as he couldn‘t
read the menus. He'd wait for us to order
and then say, "I'll take the same.” When we
knew he was starving we'd wait till he was
seated at the tefgc and then decide not to
order anything.‘

The New York Times noted that originally Lardner
used from necessity the sort of materialtthat later
made him.the country's leading humorist:

It was in an effort to turn out seven
columns a week that Lardner hit upon the method
which was to make him.fsmous. In hotel lobbies,
clubhouses, dugouts, he had been listening to
talk among the ball players -~ using slang and
singular nouns and plural verbs mixed together.
One day in an effort to fill out his piece he
wrote a short dialogue supposedly between two

,players engaged in,a Pulhman ear poker game.
It was the mixture as noted above, with shrewd
touches of character and the natural speech of
the lowbrow. . -

The innovation was favorabl received.
In the world's series he invent a left-handed
pitcher of the Giants, who reported the games

15. New TorE Times IgeptemTer WI.
10. New Ibrk.EE§EId-Tribune (September 26,1933).

 

 

win.the Lardner style. Fans began asking who
the author was, and a friend, the late Charles
I. van Loan, advised him to send some of his

work to the Saturday Eveni Post. He did so,
and a check an a call for more some back.

for the next six years Lardner continued
to fill his column on the Chicago Triggge and
to write magazine stories. In 191 e cft
the paper to Join a newspaper syndicate [hell
and moved to Great Neck, L. I. In the peri
before coming East he published a.number of
books on 'Bib Ballads,' 1915; 'YOu Knowiue,
Al,‘ 1915; 'Gullible's Travels,’ 1917; 'Cwn
Your Own Home,‘ 1917; 'Treat 'Em Rough ' 19183
'The Real Dopc,’ 1918; 'ly Four hacks n
Iranoe,’ l9 8; and '{hc Young Immigrants
[Emmigrunts ,' 1919. 7

At this point in his career Lardner was tremenn

dously popular. A.spectacular demonstration of this

came at the Democratic convention of 1920 in San

franciscc, where the Missouri delegation east ene-

hllf vote for hum.

18

According to the New York Times Lardner had

only one reason for preferring New fork.to Chicago:

His coming to New York was . . . for no
other reason than to be near the headquarters
of the theatre. His weekly sketch for the
syndicate could be written in Chicago as
easily as in new York. anorris Cost, on a
visit West had 'gambled' and had 3110!.htl a
five-year contract -« but that impresario did
not like Ring Lardner's plays.. Other
managers refused them also.

In 1928 Walter Huston appeared in 'Elneg
the Creat.‘ This was satire, making the
thick-Headed pitcher the butt of more than c
passing Joke. And then, a year later, came .
. . 'June Moon,’ which was suggested to George

 

 

1’. How YorE Times {Septembcr;§v:'1935).

18. New York mediums. (September senses).

1‘

S. Kaufman and Mr. Lardner by one of the
latter's short stories. He wrote the songs
:0: 1" “'0.

Also in his period of the theatre belong
Mr. Lardner's sketches and lyrics. Back in
1922, in the Ziegfield Follies of that year,
was a Iardner baseball scene, with none other
than Will Rogers as the veteran pitcher. ,A
bit later in the season he was represented in
'Thc d9ers,' his contribution being an epic
oT—three fishermen well out beyond the three-
mile limit. There were several sketches by
him in 'The Nine Fifteen Revue' or 1930, and
a number—3f lyrics In.'SmII;;T of the same
year.

An article on his song writing, incidentally,
was the only one of Lardner's writings ever rejected.
The story of its rejection reveals Lardner's ironiosl
attitude:

. . . It was ordered by the late Jehn
Siddall, editor of 'Thc American Magazinc,'
which at the time specialized In Tsuccess
stories. As he had not conveniently come up
from the gutter Lardner decided that he
would write on {My Success as a Song Writer.‘
Computing his time as worth 10 cents an hour,
he figured that he had lost something like
$4,300 in attempting to compose songs.
Siddall . . . sent it back.30

 

Songs, sketches, and a.weekly radio column eon»
stitutcd his last pieces of work. His campaign
against pornographic songs was a high light of the
radio column, which appeared in The £21 19359;.

no matter how melancholy his work may appear to

be, Lardner himself was a charming person. He had

15. New YorE Tiiic (September 27, I533).
20. New York EeraldoTribunc (September 26,1933).

 

 

15

few close friends, but he kept them. Even after he
left Niles permanently he never forgot the people
there. The following excerpt from a letter written
to a former Niles acquaintance at Christmas time
during his early days in Chicago shows his thought-
fulness and charm:

I am in my boarding house and next door
to me a young married pair are having the loud-
est quarrel I ever did hear. She claims he
left her downtown without surfers and he claims
she is a liar. thereupon she claims he_is much
more of a liar. I gather two morals -- never
let your wife go downtown and never board. . . .

'TWes the night before Christmas,
And all through the house

A creature was squealing

So loud like a mouse.

Her husband had left her
Without the oarfare

To bring her from downtown
Where she had been there.
The 110 it was passe

In two voices immense

And the cause of it all

Was the sum of five cents.
The moral of this

I will tall 123 alone --

Be sure that your wife 21
Has some sense of her own.

His letters to his sister, Miss Lena Lardner,
show his great regard for her. At Christmas time
it was an amusing habit of his to send her the
season's greetings in.verees of his own making. In
1018 and 1926, for example, he sent the following
lines:

El. *Frcm_a’letter infthefiardner“collacticn,
Fort St. Joseph Historical Museum.

 

16

A CHRISTEAS WISH

That Lena Lardner, Niles, Mich.,
hay never stick her nose in a pickle dish.

A Christmas Just rocking with Joy angzsmilee
ind anything else there is in.Niles.

Among the bits of verse she received is a parody

of The Rosary:
The hours I looked for thee, dear so:
Ara as a constant pang to me,
I sort them over in my stocking box,
My Hosiery
Each heel a hole, each toe a tear,
Which hurt the feet moat awfully.
I find one which looks good, and there
A TBOIMYe
Oh, memories of breakfast passed,
on, cup of tea and tender rolls,
I grab a pair and strive right hard, at last,
To miss the holes, sweetheart,
To miss the holes.

According to his sister, Lardner was exceedingly
generous with his friends. in article in the his
York Herald-Tribune also testified to Lardner's
generosity:

. . . when he achieved affluence he cone
tinually spent large sums backing unsuccessful
plays and musical comedies, . . . paying for
the eduestion of struggling musicians, and as
helping out almost any one she approached him.
Lardner died at East Hampton, New York, Septsnp

her 25, 1933. The funeral rites were extremely
simple:

There was no minister, no eulOgy, no

 

55. From.Miss Lardnerls scrapboct.
83. (September 86, 1933).

17

flowers. The little group of class friends
not at his home at 2 p. m., entered the house
and locked the door.

Fifteen minutes later they came out and
accompanied the body of the famous humorist
to Kiddie Village, Queens, where it was
cremated.24

 

24. Detroit free Press (September 29, 19335.

CHA'P‘TER T‘r’v’ O

Tflfi FOSITION OF RING thrnah IN TEE
AEERICAN TRhDTTICfi 0F HUROR

The favorite type of humorist in America has
been, at least until recently, the homely, straw-
chewing rustic exemplified by the late Will Rogers.
In the early days of the country, even before these
humorous cages were created on paper, the oracle-
style humorist promised to become a national in-
stitution. One of the early portrayers of the
Yankee conic spirit was the actor George Handel Hill.
he traveled over the country giving monologues, and
was well-received everywhere, particularly in new
England, where he gained.most of his knowledge of his
character. ”Bis Yankees, quiet and low-voiced . . .
whittled a great deal and talked quite as much, but

1 So accurate in his portrayal of

never_very loud.”
the native American that during a performance in
Reine one of the Yankee farmers ”thought that Hill
had failed to arrive and that the part was being
taken by one of his own neighbors." Hill ”was full
of simple satire, and gave many a sly thrust at New

‘ England pride before his native audiences, even touch-

 

l. Constance Rourke, anericgn gumor, p. 19.

 

18

19

ing on the character of the original Pilgrims, when
he appeared to regard with bored irreverenee."2
During the late 1820's, about the same time that
Bill was revealing the‘Yankee on the stage, sebe
Smith was creating a similar character in 6 Portland.
Maine newspaper. The character was Jack Downing.

"The Downing papers . . . were as Yankee as the week
lectures of Hill, and read as though they were spoken

or drawled. . . . In them.the Yankee emerged in a new
role, as oracle.”3

Then, as later, the topics of attack were polities

and war:

During the Mexican War Jack Downing re.
fleeted, ’Some think the business[of annexetion]
isn't profitable: but it's only because they
haven't ciphared into it fur enough to under-
stand it. Upon an average, we get at least ten
to one for our outlay, any way you can figure
it up -« I mean in the matter of people. Take,
for instance, the City of Mexico. It would sost
us only two or three thousand men to annex it .
. . and we get at least one hundred and fifty
thousand in that city. . . . Some find fault
with the quality of people we'd get in this
country, Jest as if that had anything to do
with the merits of the case. They ought to re-
member that in a Government like ours, where'Hn
pecpla is used for voting, and where every nose
counts one, it is the number we are to eten"
about in annexin' and not the quality. . . .

After Downing same Sam.slick, who first appeared
in 1836. Although he was the creation of a Canadian,
Thomas 0. Haliburton, Slick's fundamental characteris-

 

g. HOEEEQ, flan—535;, Ppe 19-256:
s. M” p. 25.
4. Ib1de. De 2“-

ties were dhernined to a great extent by his stkec
newspaper predecessor. "he possesses all that

shameless opportunien of the earlier Jack [poenina].
with the contentious wisdom of a Franklin."s His
subject matter included "internal improvements,

slavery in the states, relations between the colonies
and the nether country, the foibles of wonankind, the
virtues of a provident farmer."6

Downing and Slick were followed by Lowell's
vereifyine hoaea Bigleu in 1846. Many of the
qualities that ensured the popularity 0: Downing end
Slick were also present in.Luwell's character:

Like Slick and Downing, Hosea . . . was an unp

schooled Yankee with wine and amusing things

to say about politics. Like Downing, he in-

augurated his career as a writer whose efforts

were appreciated and printed byte newspaper
editor. Laughable turns of Yankee speech end
illiterate spelling, portraits of politicians
which had the amusing quality of well-executed
caricatures, crackerbor.wit and political
commentary attracted readers.

The number of lisepelline humorists in the
crackerbox tradition increased. "For forty years or
lore after Jack Downing's first appearance, the ‘
country was never without e Yankee oracle or even
belt e doses.”a Among the oracles was irtemne nerd,
whose "slow still arrows . . . struck deep into ‘

5. Janette Tifizyt'firackarborfrhiloeofihers,

De 39c
6e Ibide. De 41c

7. ‘Eiiter Blair, letive Amerigan.§umog. p. 47.
Be ROUTE..,22e , e. pp. 3 ' e

 

21

social and political absurdities."9 There was
Petroleum V. Nasby, who, like hard, nixed polities
and mispelling with a fine art:

1st I sent a offis

2nd I need a cffis

3d 1 offis wood suit me; theref re

4th I shcod like to hev a cffis. 0

Following the steady line of such purveyors of
holespun sisdom.as hard, Nasty, Josh Billings, 8111
Eye, Bill irp, Eli Perkins, and ecuntless others,
Finley Peter Dunne created the lrish-oracle, Mr.
Dooley, who kept the nation unused and enlightened
for sell over twenty years. Bore recently, the souls
monologue in the crackerbox tradition was used.en the
radio and stage by Will Rogers.
Lardner was in this tradition, with a difference.

To appreciate this difference fully, it must he noted
that the satire of the tradition was at botton.kindly.
Its keynote was that shile the world and its denisens
needed a verbal scolding now and then because of too.
frequent backslidings, on the whole things were going
along fairly well. In l9ll Mr. Dooley could sonnent
on the country's illogical thirst for a better order
in this manner:

on, f'r a.Moees to lead us out of th'
wilderness an' elane th’ nugeeyan stables an'

5. Rourke, 32. cit., p. 251. “T
10. Ibide' p. 222‘ e

 

22

steer us between Silly an' What's-it's—nans

an' hoist th' snow-white banner iv civie

purity an' break th' feathers that bind a

free people an' seize th' bellun iv state

fr'm th' piratical crew an' restore th'
heritage iv our fathers an' cleanse th’

stain fr'm.th' fair name iv our er-reat city

an' aura th' evils iv th‘ body pollytick an'

cry havic an' let loose th' dogs iv war an'
captain th' uprisin' iv honest manhood agin
th' cohorts iv corruption an' shake off the.
collar riveted on our use a by tyrannical
bosses. Where is hoses ?

It will be noted that the philosophy inherent
in this is that while the situation is bad, it is
not hopeless; it might, with help, even.inprove.
That same feeling was a part of till Rogers' char-t
It is the charm of being able to laugh at the bases
race without despising it, without bitterness, or
despair.

This was what Lardner, at least in the main
body of his fiction, was incapable of doing. He
lacked optimism. Unable to see the social order is
any other period than his own.moncy~grabbing,
laterialistio age, where every family had a stash»
Iarket chance of becoming wealthy without effort.
and having only contempt for the status quo, he
pilloried both his contemporaries and his tines,
apparently not pausing to consider whether people
had always been as self—centered and morally dis-

honest.as he saw them, or whether society night con»

 

II. Mark innivan,_0ur Tina, vol. 47p. 124.

i

ceivably change by norshipping some other god than
the dollar. he knee the self—satisfied people of his
own are too well. His Knowledge came from.what he
saw, and what he saw his eye fixed on without shift.
1nd:
Was there need for a nobler view of man's
activity ? that could be more inspiring than
Chrysler's glistening tower ? If you wanted
new feelings, you voyaged to new vistas, with
General Rotors. that institution was solider
than Prudential Life, with its Rock of
Gibraltar embedded in mortuary statistics 9
At the identical moment American Tel and Tel
could line your purse and transmit your Joy to
the four corners of the universe. It was the
playtime of streamlining capitalism. . . .13
Lardner's tragedy .- if it was one -- was that
he sould see more clearly than any of his cantons
poreries, but could not reason beyond his eight. He
could penetrate the muddy current of existence that
people fouled with their cheap ideals, but his
searching eye always halted where the spiritual filth
was deepest, and, to him, bottomless.

It was here that Lardner left tradition and took
a lonely bypath. Where these who had gone before hi-
had'caught the scattered life of the time not realis-
tically but with preposterous inflation,” his own
sharper ear and eye used language to catch.lore
accurately than any one before him the nuances of
American speech, and, more important, the real

Ii. Maxwell Geismar, writers lgifirisis, p. 5.

 

24

character of the people using it.13 Instead of be-

coming the urbane, kindly critic, he ”became the

mordant chronicler of‘c moribund social order."14

Constance Rourke speaks of this quality in Lardner:

Like the characters of the early eomie
tales, his people are nomads. They have Just
moved into a neighborhood and are soon to
move away; they lack backgrounds, they are
seen only in pairs or trioe, seen'without
families often, or only with a boresome friend.
Old couples out of their native habitats sun
their bones among other old couples Just as
homeless along the curbs or in the parks of
Florida“: winter resorts. Even those tales
which have to do with a group are projected
against a void, or against some transitory
scene like a hotel, a train, a baseball perk.
Here indeed are familiar subjects, familiar
turns of story«telling, with intensificaticns
of mood and a considerable difference in the
effect of final character and the sense of
character. . . . These people might be the
final product of e humor that had worn easy
idiosyncrasies, taking with it all the edged
elements of character. They are American;
they are nothing but American and essential
to all parts of the country.15

Lardner, Miss Rourke notes, retains the conic
basis, but his final effect is destruction, not
laughter:

All his stories turn on humor; practiesl
Jokes make the substance of many situations
as in an earlier day, but in the end the
brutality which underlies them is exposed.
That innocence which once was made a strong
strain in American portrayals is seen used-p
bined with shrewdness and revealed as abysmal
stupidity. . . . Lardner has pushed the mono-
logue to an ultimate revelation by a series
of negations; his tie is with that Yankee art

 

”If. BourkeTgp. 143.: p. 223". v
14. Geisnar,,2n. cit., p. 3.
15s Rourko. 22c OPE. DP. 292.93e

 

which as . ,d, its effects by negation and a
pervasive,‘ heme. Derisioa because an out-
ward shell covering a multitude of suherged
sections, rage, fear, bewilderment, an awh-
serd love; the blank formula takes on in-
tensity; suction is still inarticulate, as
earlier under the conic sway, but it surges
toward the surface.10

 

 

IE. ficurke, op. cit., pp. We.

CHAPTER THREE
THE GBITIGISM OI LARDNER

The tardy recognition of Lardner for what he
was, a sctirist first and c huncrist second, is
cvidsncs that the opinions of critics are not always
to be taken at face value. There were, however, ssny
reasons for the universal.nisundcrstcndine of
Lsrdnsr's work; the fact that he sane into the
literary world wearing the Iotlsy of nisspcllisa,
usually the carb of the huncrist; the dunbncss of his
bushcr hero, Keefe: the fact that his first stories
dealt with baseball, a background which previously
had never been used.fcr serious writing; and, lastly,
the sheathing of honor that covered his tales. It
was undoubtedly the honor that deluded the ascssins
readers; what deluded the critics is anyonc's guess.
it any rate, Lsrdncrrwcs not given any critical eon»
sidcrstion until H. L. usnekcn recognised the
artistry beneath.thc misspelling.

In late, after speaking disparagingly of the
l niddlc layer of American literature, contained in
populcr'nsscsinss and bcst~scllsr books,ihcncksn
said:

. . . a great deal of it -- for example,
the work of Mrs. Rinehcrt, and that of Oorrc

 

Harris, Gouverneur Morris, Harold HacGrath

and the late 0. Henry -- shows an unmistakable
technical excellence, and even a certain
civilised sophistication in point of view;
Moreover, this literature is constantly
graduating adept professors into something
finer, as witness Booth Tarkinton, Zone Gale,
Ring I. Lardner, and Montague Glass.l

In 1923 Sherwood Anderson wrote a very repression,
istic estinate of Lardner.. It was hardly an

analysis: it was rather a eulogy and an apology, and
it nerely skirted the underlying intent of Lardnsr's
writing. Anderson felt that Lardner had 'nore under~
standing of life, more hunan synpathy,‘ than Sinclair
Lewis, and that he had as lush knowledge of the nan
in the street as hark Twain. But because of Lardnsr's

super-sensitiveness and fear or being hurt, Anderson

stated, the sympathy was not revealed in his stories.‘

In 1933 Carl Yan.noren stated:

. . . hr. Lardner in his books at least, gives
no sign of any cathetic or intellectual concern.
He laughs at affeotation; he is Jovial toward
foolishness; he portrays dullness without anger.
His instincts for the facts of life and for the
soledy of facts is too strong for hha to feel
obliged to bring his lore serious reading of
existence into his accounts. is his hard-boiled
heroes take their look at the world, uninfected
by its novelty or by its oasplerity, he forgets
how thick-skinned they are, because they tickle
his so hush by their self-reliance.3

At the tine this was written Lardner's busher
stories had been running in.§he Saturday Eveniag Pogt

1. Ffeiudioes (End series), p. 35.

8. “ our {meriean.llprcssions,' Egg Re ublic,
XXIII (October 1, 1922), 71-73.

3. "Beyond Cranmer," ficniuzz,LXIIIV (July,
1923), 474.

 

 

since 1914 and had cons out in book for-4 Gullible's
‘l‘rgvelg had been published, along with mm 92
‘gggg. In reading those, at least now, it is difficult
to agree with the statement that Lardner "forgets how
thickmskinned' his characters are. Lardner never
forgets the armor-like ego of his heroes; on the con»
trary, he proves its indestructahility by his constant
attacks on it. After Fred Gross -- and the name scene
to be significant «- in £33 193; 9.19. £19.53 gets his
house built and finished his dealings with the bank
and the architect and the landscapers and the plmabers,
the honor of the story also ends. The rest of the
story is a recital of the practical Jokes that Gross
plays on his nestedoor neighbor, and the Jokes can be
classed only as noronic. Even Martin, supposedly a
sore intelligent person than Gross, although the
latter is a detective, hangs black crops on Gross'
door to keep his guests away, and gets the fire de~
partnent to flood the first floor of Gross' house.
It is hard to believe that Lardner was ”tickled“ by
characters of that kind.

More accurately, I believe, hr. Van Doren goes
on to say:

the aio£t'n:::r§:a%§f7%§§d§§:;: :%:§;?‘::.tg:;.

have their lack of personal dignity, undis-

turbed by the figure they cut when buffeted or
tumbled about. And this is because, like the

 

characters of fares, they give the unpressicn
of living in space, but not in tine. In the
world of reality and of realistic art the
peeple who live there are forever growing,
beconing. They cannot stand still, like
puppets ready to be dressed up for any plot
or like weathervanes revolving with whatever
wind nay blow. .It is Mr. Lardner's failure
to perceive this, or to act upon the percep-
tion if he has it, that excludes hin froa

the rank to which his capacities should ad-
nit him. He has created convincing characters;
he has put convincing words into their nouths;
he has set then going in a convincing dance of
life. But there he has stopped too often
content to play old tricks until the action
seems mechanical and his audience wonders
whether his characters are convincing, after
all. He has still to rid himself of the
ephemeral qualities both of the sporting page
and of the conic strip.

Lardner never wholly lost the "colic strip
quality referred to; the reason, apparently, lay in
the funds-entally pesshnistic quality in.hinself.
It is clear, at least in his acre purely satirical
work, that Lardner had no faith that the average
lnerieas ”grows". To say that he was contemptuous
of his fellow nen would probably be too strong a
statement, but if he car than without costs-pt, he
also saw then.aceurately, and they remained forever
the same in his eyes: sasll-souled, egotistical,
dollar~loving. His characters lacked substance be.
cause people themselves were nere voids, nouthing
inanities and banalities consistently and endlessly.
l.elose study of the petty ideals of the characters

 

 

 

d. ”fiiyond 5rannar,' Eentur , 475.

30

in,§gllihle{g Travels, of Roots the bushar, reveals
the vacuumplike personalities of Lardner‘s people.

Gilbert Seldes, speaking of Lerdner'e gift for
reproducing American speech, asked: "What is the
use of Babbitt in five hundred pages it we have
Lardner in five hundred words '2'” Beldes further
cemented that "It may check Hr. Lardner to know
that he has done in little what Mr Joyce has done on
the grand scale in Ulysses."6

Seldes speaks of Lardner's satire is more detail:

Indeed I feel that there nust be hidden
parody in the earlier eritings of Mr Lardner
too, because he is so clean in his handling it

now. Satire in detail he had .- there is a

dictionary of it in his one word 'he-ll.’

Elsewhere, in a series later than You Know Me,

Al he has described a half-futuous, Eelfu

‘EErdheaded roughneck dragging his silly and

scheming wife and sister-in—law through the

hotels and apartments of the backwash of

.society, and the story grew more and more car-

donie, sore and more entertaining; little of

the aimless, sickly, trivial life of the ~
merely prosperous escaped hin.’

In 1928, in a review of'What‘gf‘Lg 9 by "D. 3.”,
Lardner was termed the reigning Jester, and the
decent was still on his funninees.e In 1926,
Lardner's f'Hairout" was called by Robert Littell "a

couplete, rather sardonic, rather touching story. .

 

5.71‘EeSevcg Live}. Arts p. 11K.

3' ram. 1). Int—1““ “v'

8. r1TheBeigning Jester," _’I_'____he Independent,ch
(u., 23, 1925), coo.

31

. ."9 Littell went on to say that "his humor is

native . . . but it is not light, frivolous; rather
does it seem weighted with the realisation that men
are.men and women women, tragic and sonic all at
once. . . ."10 Suchliterary evasiveness is a.good
example of what happens when a writer obviously
changes colors but is still regarded in the light of
the original valuation. Lardner started with the
reputation of a humorist, and nest of his critics
and reviewers were reluctant to relinquish their
first, and easier, evaluation of his work.

In 1927, Stuart Shernan wrote:

. . This picturesque, garrulous,
slovenly speech which he inputes to nest of
his persons is not a mere transcription of
the vulgar tongue, it is an artful selection
from the popular speech, creftily employed
in the business of evisceration.

In 1928, Wyndham Lewis said of Lardner:

. . . He is colossal without being dull --

that is what he sins at and that is what he
achieves. If he does not spell properly
well, the Fathers of English Literature tan
ironic reference to Ezra Pound's championing
of a literary cult that writes by "instinctil
couldn't either; and if he can spell, but
won't, well, then he's like” a lot of other
people. My money is on Lardner for beigg
read longer than his competitors. . . .

In 1929, T. S. Mathews wrote:

 

 

5. a. . .And other Stories, a New ufiepublic
nun (September as, use), us. '
{3' Maj—“gm“ 1 tr 170 '71

. n S can pp. - .
13. jfieotorn.han, p. cc.

. . . He writes for money -~ as what
sensible author does not .. but he has often
been able to twist the pattern of his stories
into a really artistic form, and still,
strangely enough, make the stories salable.
Angels can do no more. Shakespeare could do
no more. But the sale of art is too much
regarded nowadays as a miracle, or a scandal.13

Referring to Round g2, hathews went on to say:

. . . The pepulsr and the anti-popular
are curiously mingled in his latest book. In
some of these stories he has undoubtedly gone
too far for his original public. It would be
interesting to know, for instance, what editor
first accepted 'The Champion' or The Love
Nest,‘ or 'A Day with Conrad Green! ~~ more
interesting, perhaps, to know what editors
refused to printthcnele

In another review of Round 22 in 1929, Allan

Nevins stated:

. . . If not precisely an urbane satire,
it is nearly always kindly. There is nothing
sardonic, nordant, or superior about it. . e
. than he goes deepest, you find that his
note is rather amused pity than secrnful
amusement.15

Comment of this kind, even for a book review,
is almost inexcuseebly bad. ”Champion," one of the
stories printed in 39333 $12, is coupletely savage
and.serciless. The portrait of.nidge Kelly is that

155 fiardner, Shakespeare MCEekhbv," he
Republic, LIX (May 22, 1929), 36.
. Ibid. The question raised by Mr. Mathews
'as answered In part by an article in the th‘Iork
Herald Tribune September 86, 1933. It stated: “'The

Saturday Evening Post' . . . turned down.'Harmony,
e o den HoneymoonT and 'Champion,’ but the first

two were eagerly snapped up by Ray Long, then editor
of 'The Coemopolitan'. . . . " 1 -£'

lb. "The American.Moron " Saturday Rev ew 0
Literature, V (June 8, 1929),'lo .

 

53

of a person without one saving grace; he starts his
career by robbing and hitting his crippled brother;
by striking his mother and then leaving home. He
deserts his pregnant wife after he has been forced
to marry her; he accepts a bribe to throw a bout '
early in his boring career: he ignores, while a
champion, all appeals from his family for financial
help; he breaks a verbal agreement with a manager
who has guided him.to the championship; he throws
over a girl he has been keeping, and steals his new
manager's wife. There is certainly nothing kindly
about that satire. 'A.Day with Conrad Green” is in
the same vein. Green, a theatrical producer, welshes
on a bet; he underpays his employees; he uses other
men's ideas for scenes after he has refused to con-
sider themrworth buying; he is unfaithful to his
wife. The only thing a person can be sure of about
Green is that he will break his word. ”Amused pity"
is hardly an accurate description for stories like
that.

‘Much more accurate is Clifton.Fadiman's review
or seen In:

. . . essentially he is not a humorist

at all. I can laugh at P. G. Wodehouse and

A. A. Milne, but I drew only one real guffaw

from 'Round Up'. Mr. Lardner is the dead.

liest because the coldest of American

writers. Unlike Sinclair Lewis, he is with»
out a soft streak. he really hates his

34

characters, hates them.so much that he has
ceased to be indignant at them. There is
almost no emotion left. his satire is ab-
solutely negative; that is why it will
never cause a revolution in American
manners as 'uain Street,‘ in its minor
way, did. . . . I speak here of course,
only of those half dozen really amazing
stories that hate issued from the deepest
layer of Mr. Lardner's mind: Haircut, Champ
plan, A Day with Conrad Green, The Love
heat, The Golden Honeymoon, and My Roomy
(which, superficially a Four Marx Brothers
comedy, is really one of the most coldly
horrible stories ever eritten).l$

The critical opinion of Constance Rourke has
been expressed in'a previous chapter. Her ggerigan
33222 was published in.1951, and she, like Sherman
and Fadiman, noted the brutality contained Lardner's
work. Fadiman's analysis of Lardner is perhaps the
most unocmpromdsing:

The special force of Ring Lardner'e work
springs fron.a single fact: he Just doesn't
like people. Except Swift, no writer has
gone farther on hatred alone. I believe he
hates himself; more certainly he hates his
characters; and most clearly of all, his
characters hate each other. Out of this
integraletriune repulsion is born his icy
satiric power.

Speaking of Lardner's mimicry of American speech,
Fadiman is equally positive:

. . . he usesCAmerican conversation] as a
prime means of showing up, without consent, the
fuzzy, flat,miserable mind of the American
boob. . . . Lardner never wastes a word; each
twisted idiom, each horrible neclogimm, is a

 

Is. j‘ncninzmpi‘v The fiation, CHVXI than. 19297?
537.

17. ”Ring Lardner and the Triangle of Hate,” The
Nation, cum (March as, less), sis. ""

35

stab, an expression of his fascinated hatred.

To see how implemental, how purposive is
his style it is only necessary to note the
twist he lends to our traditional humor of
exaggeration. hhcn.hark Twain exaggeratcs
it is to procure an effect of comic absurdity;
but when Lardner says, 'he give her a lock
that you could pour on a waffle,‘ the mad
metaphor has the power to fill us With an in-
stantaneous horror of all sentimental
affection.15

 

'. IE. "hing fardnor and the Triangle of Fate,“ TEe
Nation, 31’s

C HAPTER FOUR
LARDNER ' S W ORK

Lerdner produced three teirly die tinct kinde of
writing. One wee pure end eereileee eetire, end ie
ecnteined elncet wholly in hie fiction; the eeeond,
lore ehereeterietie or hie nonai‘icticn, eee eleo
eetire. but much more hunene end kindly; the third
wee wildly extrewegent noneenee reliniecent of
Certain: M in Wonderlend. In eriticel eppreieele
or Lerdner'e work the tiret kind, the eleerly brutel
eetire. hee been eupheeieed noet. neuelly et the ex-
penee or the other two. to: thet reeecn, the follow-
in; ehepter will eoneiet or e eoeperieon or the
eetire oi‘ hie etoriee end the eetire or hie non-
tietioe, with e i'ieel comment on hie tereicelity, e
quelity in Lerdner thet eeemed eo et werience with
the eewegery or hie fiction. By neing the nethcd
or. eide-by-eide eeeperieon, it ie hoped thet e more
rounded picture of Lerdneriewriting een be obteined.

I
Setire on Men
Lerdner'e chief object or etteck wee nen'e ego.

There ere eeny etoriee that reweel thie. The plot

 

36

37

of “The Meyevillc Minetrel' ie heced on e practieel
Joke thet temporarily convinece e gee conpew worker
thet he is encther Eddie Gucet, e conviction eedc
poeeihle by the nen'e belief thet writing poetry ie
feirly «or. "i Oeddy'c Diery" elec reveelc it. in
the neive eeeunption of the ceddy thet writing '1. e
neg." thet cen be ecqnircd without too Inch trouble.
Prohehly the meet direct end conetent reveletion of
ego ie in Lerdner'e etoriec of (feel: Keefe.
0n hie wey to Frenec, Keefe writce Al: ”Between

you end I Al whet 1 en eeercd of exact ie thet Flcrric'e
mind will be effected if enything heppene to le . . .

01 -

Every girl who leoke et hie or epceke to hie, for
whetcvcr rceeon, ie concidcrcd by Keefe ee hevinc e
crush on him

Well they wee 3 Jenee on the Job [in the
Red Green] end 8 of them would be cefc ony-
wherce you put then but the other one ie Gleee
A . . . and the minute we blowcd in she didn't
heve no cyce for only me. . . . I eeiled beck
et her end efter thet Oerccn night ee well of
been lowing the lewn out in Nchody'e 1.....8

The herdcr he trice to evcid en effeir, the lore
ccrtein he ie to bcccne involved:

But it dece me like fete or eceething
thet the herdcr I try end not get nixed up in
e flirtetion I cen’t turn eround you might ee:

~71.— .fia . . to. ~
2. $143+ lap—5.4”

 

 

but what the 'e come gel popping up on my
‘3‘11c c e e

Keefe ie poeitivc thet hie pereonality ie ee
irrceietible to the men cc to the wancn:

. . . I end Alcock are on epeeking turne
egein and I en.gled to not be ecraping with
hin.bceeuee I donit never feel right unleee
I an pele with everybody but they can't and
body etey core at me very long and even when
cone of the be e in baseball use to ewell up
when I pulled of my gage on them.it
wouldn't lest long beceuec I would Just elile
atlthem and‘would half to enile beck and be
PCeeee

In exehengce of repertce with hie buddiee Kecfc'c
enewere ere remarkable only for their unoriginelity,
but in hie opinion they are elweye dcvaetetingly-
brilliant. He dcecribee one of thee.to A1, with the
ueuel resulte:

well we was kidding back and fourth
about winning meddles today end one of the
Inert elex in our Go. a bird named Johnny
Alcock that in alweye trying to kid cone-
bcdy ell the time he eeid to me 'Well I
euppoee they will half to build more ton-
cage: to cerry ell the meddle: you will
win beck to the etateei' So I eeid 'Well
I gueee I will win as many of then.ee you
will win.‘ That ehut him up for a wile
but finely he eeye 'You have got enough
chest to weer e whole Junk in it.‘ So I ee
eeid 'Well I en.not the baby that can't
win thee.‘ So he eaye 'If you ever happen
to be whooping around the bash tranche
when Fritz clhebe over the top you will
cone beck eo feet that the Keieer will
went to know who was that speed merchant
that led the charge end decorate you with
e iron croee.' So I acid 'I will decorate
you right in the eye one of thccc deye.’

3. Ego iteélT p{;31. I
de . pefie

 

So he had to abut ug and all the other boye
give hue the laugh.

Hie belief that he ie one of the greetcet bell
pleycrc in hietory ie unaeeaileblc. He ie forever
leaving whatever topic in under diaeueeion and
launching into his beecball exploits. He ie a hero
in all hie etorice, and when a game he is pitching
in lost. it ic alwaye because cone tcae.ammbcr let
him.down, or the wind 'crcatce havice' with fly
belle, or elec the umpire euddenly hee parelyeie of
the right arm and calla nothing but belle. Keefe
triee to create the impreeeion that he epeake of
hie beccball experiencee only with the greatest rc-
luctencc. but invariably he rcveale hie true charac-
ter in the proceee:

. . . the boye ie putting on a enter-

‘CtMCI‘ 0'“ t0 ‘1). Ya Me Cc 1e e c a lid

they asked me would I give them.a little

talk on baseball and I eeid no at firet but

they begged me and finely I give my consent

but you know how I hate nakcing speechee

and etc, but a man don't hardly feel likg

rcfueing when they want no eo bad. . . .

Keefe not only givee the speech, but, with the

cane reluctance. writce an article for the company

paper on "war and Baecball 8 gamce where breine wine."

After the article ie printed Kcefe'e fellow-acidic re
eend him e.lctter which ie eigncd "Black Jack

 

 

'"“"f:3"TEE;§§E§:fioEe, pp. 53:33}

4O

Pershing, Foliee Bergere, Paris, France." In it
Keefe is requested to supply Pershing with any
"etretejy" in baseball that night apply to warfare.
Keefe is an easy victin.and writes several letters,
and to the and believes that Pershing would have seen
him personally except for the fact that he missed
rifle practice on the day the general inspected the
00mp.nye

The main safeguard for Keefe's ego is his short
memory. It is this characteristic which the Doren
referred to as "the comic strip quality of Lardner's
characters.“ During the first part of the trip Keefe
had told ll that he has a hunch that the convoy will
so down, leaving Florrie a widow. is they near port,
however, his attitude changes:

Well old pal . . . we are out of the

danger zone and pretty near in.port . . .

and I guess the boys feels a whole lot

better then when we was out there where

the subs could get at us but between you

and 1 Al I never thought about the subs

all the say over only when I heard cone-

body else talk about them. . . .

Al apparently dose not answer many of Keefe'e
letters. Keefe's explanation is probably wide of
the truth, but it is true to character: ”. . . I
know why you don't write much because you haven't
got nothing to write staying there in Bedford. . . ."a

' 7. The ResIIESQe, pp. 56-27.
8e TBIde. De 36s

 

 

41

In the same letter he adds: ”But of course its
different with a man.like I because I am always
where they is something big. . . ."9

In contrast, Lardner's non-fictional satire
is more pointedly humorous, as well as lore kindly.
The barbed point is still present, but the emphasis
is on the laugh. and the feeling imparted is a more
tolerant one. His “In Conference" brings out the
ludricousness of business conferences. A Mr. Harvey
Hester attenpts to see Mr. Lansing, and the latter's
secretary informs hin.that Mr. Lansing is in confer-
ence, and it is against the rules to disturb company
officers while they are in conference. The I“'coa.»
ference' is a discussion of that to do about an un-
stamped letter which the company has received notice
is waiting for thsa.at the post office. The main
question is whether the letter is worth the tins
and expense of sending for it. The talk soon turns
to what the conference members were doing fifteen
years ago. to poetry, to home life, to mutual ac-
quaintances, to baseball, to Scotch and light winesamd
beer. In the meantime, hr. Hester gets inpatient:

'Pleass have Hr. Lansing's secretary
come out here again,‘ he said.
'A. M. or A. T. 7’ asked the girl.

'A. T.,' said Hester.
The secretary came out.

m. .753?

 

 

48

'Listen,’ said Hector. '1! I can't see
Mr. Lansing right this minute it'll be too
lflus'

’I'a sorry, but I can't interrupt bin
when he's in conference.‘

'All right,‘ said heater. 'hill you
please give him this message ? You’ve got
my name. Mr. Leasing and I were in school
togezher and were more or less friendly.
tell, I was tipped off this morning -. I
don't need to tell you how .9 I was tipped
off that Mrs. Lansing is leaving for Chicago
on the 13:05 train. end she isn't leaving
alone. She's sloping. I thought Mr.
Lansing night want to try to stop her.’

*What time is it now ?”

'Seven.minutes of twelve,' said heater.
'He can Just make it.‘

’But he's still in oonfereace.’ said
the secretary.10

Describing the atteMpts men make to quit when
ahead in poker, Lardner lists the following:

Like for inst. I was amongst the heavy
sugar men in a so-called friendly stud game
2 or 3 weeks ago and one of the other boys
was also behind and I was setting almost opp.
him and I never seen nobody so wide swans and
finely he win 5 pots in succession and was
more winner than he had been loser and all of
a sudden he was ceased with a attack of sleep.
ing sickness though it could not of been.nors
than 4 o'clock and when he yesned you could
of thrown a basketball down his throat and
they had to dash ice-water in his face when
it was his turn to deal.

.30 he had to cash in and go to bed and
the only wonder was that he could make such
a accurate count 0 his cheeks wile prac-
tally unconscious.

II
Satire on‘Wamen

In Lardner's story-world husbands do not enjoy

 

 

10. that gf‘ft ?fpp. tan-87.
11. First and Last, pp. 91-93.

43

their wives; they merely endure them. There are few
admirable women in his gallery of portraits. Lardner
almost invariably accented the worst in than: their
financial greediness, exemplified by Grace in "Cheap
plan”; by Helen in"June Moon"; by Ella in "Big Town“;
their narciseus natures (true of most Lardner shares?
tors, but brought out most frequently in his women),
such as that of Florence of RE: Parts", Bess of ”Water
Cure”; their eattiness, as in Mr. Martin, of 933 Leg;
‘gggg, "the Misses" of Gullible's 1gevels,.miss
Gillespie of ”Sons Like Them.Cold", and Miss Lyons,
the nurse of "Zone of Quiet;" their soeial-clhnbing
urge, best revealed by the Missus in Gullible's
Travels and Ella in ”Big Town." In addition, Lardher
sstirizes their stupidity, their heartlessness, their ‘
inane conversation - practically every unlovable
quality they possess.

Grace, in "Champion,” has been kept by Kelly
from the time he has gained a name for himself in
boxing. The emphasis is that she is a blood—sucker
attached to Kelly's bankroll, which is considerable.
because he is a headliner in his class. The first
indication of Grace's financial sense comes when she
writes Kelly on the eve of a bout. She says:

Well hon I will send you a telegram
Saturday and I ahmost forgot to tell you I

44

will need some more money, a couple hundred
say and you will have to sire it to me as
soon s you get this. You will won't you
hon.

Kelly's manager renonstrstes when Kelly tells
hil.to wire dress the amount, recalling that he sent
her three hundred a week ago, but she gets the money.
In order to get more money, Grace convinces Kelly
that he should break his verbal agreement with Haley,
his manager, who takes twenty-five per cent of his
earnings. Kelly does this, and the result is sheen
when Grace returns from a shopping trip:

'Well 7' she said.

'well,' said Midge, 'I got rid of hils'

'Good boy i' said Grace. 'And now I
think you light give me that twenty-five per
cent.‘

'Besides the seventyufive you're already
gsttin' ?' said Midge.

'Don't be no grouch, hon. You don't look
pretty when you're groushy.‘

'It ain't my business to look pretty,’
Midge replied.

'hgit till you see how I look with the
stuff I bought this mornin'.’

Midge glanced at the bundles an the
lounge.

'There's Haley's twinty~five per cent,'
he ssid,'snd then some.’ 3

Eileen in lung 3.1935, the successful Broadway
play written by Lardner and George 8. Kaufinsn, has
' been the mistress of a well-known theatrieal producer.
When the play opens, hoover, she is in the discard
and looking about for the next best opportunity.

 

Its Bang :12. pp. 120.fie
13e ibide. De lags

45

A young and promising lyric writerweeems a possibility.
One of his songs is accepted, andgilaen.immediately
inveigles him into a promise of marriage; after that she
persuades him to ask for adVance royalties, until he
has borrowed more nosey than the song will probably
earn. She also persuades him into planning a honey-
moon trip to Europe.l‘
Neither Ella nor Kate or ”Big Town" can lose nosey
without verbal fireworks. This is in spite of the
fast that each or them.1s worth about seventybfive
thousand dollars. Accompanied by her husband, Elle
attempts to get her sister Kate a husband. They
meet Daley, a wealthy sportsman who owns a string or
race horses. Daley is infatuated with Kate and
supplies the three with several money-making tips on
the races. All goes well until he advises than.to
bet twelve hundred dollars on his best horse. lie
Jockey double-crosses his and the horse loses.
Ella's husband tells the result:
We come back to our table. The gels
sunk down in their chairs. Ella was blubhero
ing and Kate was white as a ghost. Daley
finally joined us, looking like he'd a stroke.
He asked for a drink and I give him.ny flask.
'I can't understand it i' he says. "I
don't know what happened i'
'You don't !' hollered Kate. 'I'll tell
you what happened. You stole our money i
Twelve hundred dollars 1 You chest 3' 5

14. Mm.ppo:51’fi:-
15a hound E2. p. 543s

 

 

 

45

Cold-blooded greed is evinced by Kate when she
is being courted by Codd, a famous young aviator
who has invented a new airplane that promises
millions. In demonstrating it he is killed. The
accident, however, does not upset Kate:

Wile I and Ella was getting ready for
supper I made the remark that I s'posed we'd ‘
live in a vale or tears for the next few days.

'No,' said Ella. '51s is taking it pretty
calm. She's sensible. She says if that could
or happened, why the invention couldn't of
been no good after all. And the Williamses
probably wouldn't of give him.a plugged dime
tor it.'16
One or the major motivations of Lardner's

women is their self-love. The girl in "who Dealt ?"
has acquired a husband because of an unfortunate
love affair of his. Because he knows he has been
drinking too much, he promises her he will quit,
stating that if she sees him take another drink she
will know that he no longer cares for her. The
story is a monologue or the wife's, told while she
and her husband are playing bridge with the girl
her husband lost, and the girl's husband. The
wife's chatter reveals her husband's attempts to

' rebuild his life in spite of the wife he has chosen,
end how he has catered to all or her unreasonable
dmmands. In the end her garrulousness proves her

undoing; in telling everything -- and everything in

 

 

Id. khound U , pm. . W

47

her estimation is proof of her husband's devotion
to her ~- she breaks down his determination to keep

the surface of the marriage happy, and he starts

drinking.17

Florence of "Ex Parts" has a phobia for Early
American furniture. Her husband, not Knowing this,
buys an expensive new house with.modern furnishings.
When he shows Florence the house, ". . . she acted
all the while as 1: she were playing the title role
at a funeral.”18 It doesn't matter to Florence that
her husband doesn't lihe renovated barns, or that he
has bought the house to please her. They visit some
friends or Florence's and Florence is ecstatic over
their "period" house and furnishings. When they
return home there is a week of feminine eilence,
after which the husband finally rebels:

At lunch on Saturday I said: 'You knee
I like the silent drama one evening a week,
but not twenty~four hours a day every day.
What's the matter with you ? If it's larynw
gitis, you might write me notes.‘

'I'll tell you what's the matter 1' she
burst out. 'I hate this house and everything
in it 1 It's too new 1 Everything shines i

I loathe new things i I want a home like
Mildred'e, with things in it that I can look
at without blushing for shame. I can't in»
vite anyone here. It's too hideous. And I'll
never be happy here a single minute as long as
I live 3'19

as a result of this, the husband gate drunk on

 

 

IV Roundiflg, pp. 517-326.
18: T5I3., p. 214.
19. m” p. 219.

48

some "Early emerieen rye" and comes home armed with
a blow torch and an axe and begins to "antique” the
dining room. Florence leaves him.

Self-love is further demonstrated by Boss in
”Water Cure”. She is assisted in her search for a
husband by her sister, but the sister's husband,
foreaeeing that if Bees is successful he will have
her as a neighbor the rest of his life, does his
best to prevent the match. Boss's suitor doe. not
like water, so a boat trip is arranged, the main
idea being that if Bass and her suitor are thrown
together with only each other for amusement, any
love they have will die from.the effects or over-
aoquaintaneeship. The plan is Iuoeeesful, and BOII
states the reason: "I never cared nothia' for hm-
end he never cared nothin' for me, because he's ins
capable o' earin' for anything —- only himself.”20
The reason for her outburst is that her swain pays
lean and less attention to her, and whenever a nun
1n Lardner'a stories does that to one or the pursu-
ing women, he is oelfceentered, worthless, and no
longer considered a member or the human race.

Gettineas is present in Lardner'e women in.many

stories. hrs. Eartin. who "dresses as good is a

 

w__ i0. gglfihle;g Travels, p. 205.

49

course girl," has Fred Gross and his wife Grace as
guests. Gross states the conversation that took
place:

She took quiet a shine to Grace right a
way and eat her did she sew her own close or
where did she get them and Grace says no in
deed she hadent had no time to saw her can
close sauce 3 yrs. a go when little Ed was
born and Mrs. Martin says she thot may be the
close was made beffore that and the reason
she thct Grace must of made them was on acct.
of she never seen nothing like them in the
stores wile she was shopping.21

Later Gross says that hrs. Martin is ". . .

after Grace to leave her berry l‘hf her dresses Ind

rare it to a mask reid.'22

”The Missus" in Gullible'vs he...” wants to so
to Pahm Beach to most ”real peepls." She says:

'We ain't swelled ca curself,’ she says;
'but I know and you know that the friends we
been associatin' with ain't in our class.
They don't know how to dress and they can't
talk about nothia' but their goldfish and
their meat bills. They don't try to get no-
wheres, but all they do is play runny and
take in the Majestic. I and you like nice
peeple and good music and things that‘s
worth w'ile. It's a crime for us to be
wastin' our time with riff and raft that'd
run round barefocted if it wasn't for the
pclice.'3¢

Miss Lyons, the nurse in "Zone of Quiet,” also
demonstrates cattiness. She comments to her patient
about her girl friend's engagement to semen she has
tried unsuccessfully to steal:

’. . . She told me about it night before

 

21. Own'Your ownfifiome, p. 53.
88. ms g pom.
23. Gullibls's Travels, p. 84.

50

last. I told her congratulations. Because
I wouldn't hurt her feelings for the world 3
But heavens : what‘s mess she's going to be
in, married to that dumb-bell. But of course
some peeple can't be ohousey. And I doubt it
they ever get married unless some friend
loans him the price of a liscense.'34
Msbelle Gillespie, of "Some Like Them Gold,"
is also a herd loser. Corresponding with a song
writer she has met in a railroad station and Spoken
.to for half an hour, she hes been doing her best to
build up her matrimonial chances with him.by s can-
stsnt emphasis on her fondness for home life, her
thriftiness, her sense of humor, and other good
qualities of a wife. Finally she gets a letter from
Lewis informing her that he is changed to another
girl, who, he tells Mabelle, has agreed to merry him
under the following conditions:
. . . that she would not have to be a
slave and work round the house and also I
would have to take her to a show or some-
wheres every night end if I could not §§k°
her myself she would 'run wild' alone.
miss Gillespie's answer is brief:
Allow me to congratulate you on your
engagement to Miss Sears and I am sure she
is to be congratulated too, though if I
met the lady I would be tempted to ssh.her
to tell me her secret, namefix how she is
going to 'run wild' on $60.
Lardner is harsh toward the feminine socislo

climbing urge. ”The Miesus" or Gullihle's Travels

 

24s 11011115133, 1). Tie
25s Ibiae. p. 572s
26. 18130. p.575e

51

to ot Poln.Boooh tor the purpooo or gotting ooquoxnp
too with tho boot oooioty. Sho ond hor hoobond aro
oitting 1n tholr hotol roan:

Tho Mioouo oanploinod or it boln' hot
and aponot tho door to loovo tho hroono go
through. Sho woo o1tt1n' in o chair noar
tho doorway, protondin' to road tho Pol:
Boioh Nowo. All or o ouddon oho Jumpoa up
on in! o' hioood at no.

'Whatlo tho mottor ?' I ooyo, opringin'
tron.tho loungo.

'Gone horo l' oho ooyo, and wont out
tho door into tho holl.

I got thoro to root oo I oonld.
thinktn' it won a rat or o fire. But tho
Mioouo Juot pointed to a lody wolkln' own:
from no, o1: or oovon dooro down.

'It'o Era. Pottor,’ oho ooyo; 'tho
Mro. Pottor frou.Chioogo t'

'Oh !' I ooyo. puttin‘ oll tho oxolto-
moot I could into my voioo.

Ana I too Just otortin' book into tho
room.whon I aoon.Mro. Pottor stop and turn
round and oolo to'rd no. sho otoppod ogoin
onho twonty toot rrml whoro tho Mioauo woo
otondin'.

'Aro you on this floor ?' oho anyo.

Tho Mlosuo ohook llko o loot.

'Ioo,’ ooyo sho, so low you couldn't
hordly hour hor.

'Ploaoo ooo that thoy'o oono towolo
put 1: 5 ,' ooyo‘ghg Mrs. Pottor tro-
Ch1.IGOo

Lordnor oot1r13oo oo-on'o oonvorootxon oonoo
ttoolly 1n "Dinner". Harry Horton. a hannoano
hooholor, oooopto . dinnor invitation roluotantly,
and on o rotord 1o put botooon tho too g1r1o who
oro tho guooto of honor. Miss Boll, l.hulon phono~

groph whooo ooro havo opporontly atrophxod. opoako

l7. EuIIIEIo'o T§avo1o, p. 155. "'”

52

first:

. 'Gruco tolls no you're a great bridge
ploycr,',flioc loll said.

'No, but I like ~~-'

'Which do you consider tho groatoot au-
thority, Lonz or Work: or Whitehall 7 I
don't know anything about it myself, but I
hour pooplo arguing about it at hooo. I
loan I liwo in Chicago. I belong to a bridgo
club thero and I was Juot getting so tho
othoro didn't laugh ot mo when oonohody in»
troduoed this horrible contract and I shoply
goyo up. That's tho gamo, you know whoro
you don't hid anything but oluns and I Just
haven't the norwo, I moon in hridgo. I
don't want you to think I'n.a coward in
ovorything.‘ '

I CC---

'Bocauoo I'n.not. I lodo a flight with
Lindbergh in Washington. It was arranged
through Congroocmon Burloigh. Ho'o a great
triond or my father's. You know, Burloigh
the paint pooplo in South Chicogo. Oh, it
was too thrilling tor wordo 1 But I tolt
Just as oaro as it I'd hoeniin a oar, ooror
hocouoo onoo I was in a torriblo smash-up
out in Lake Foroct and tho doctor said I
won lucky to oocapo without at looot a tow
trokon rite.

'I woo a littlo bit ooorod whon.wo rirot
otartod, but thon I thought to nyoolt this is
the man who flow from Detroit to Paris and
why should anybody to trightonod Just flying
twonty minutoo owor Waohington with hio.ot
tho whool. Hawo you ewor boon up ?'

'1... I coo-o--.

iThen you don't know what a roal thrill
io. Boneotly, it Just lukoo you gasp, liko
tho tirot tino you dive in Lake Michigan. I
roolly dive and swim.awfully well and oomo
or the men say I owtu awfully woll for o_
girl. Thoro'o one man in Chicago, Loo
Roberto -- ho and his wife oro our boat
rriondo, I moan,my brothor'o and nino -~ Loo
callo mo Gertrude Ederlo; you know uho'o tho
§1r1% who owam across the English Channel and

acts.

28. Round 312, pp. 141-42.

53

hiss Coexley, the other guest of honor, has n
different delivery, but the effect is even more
wearing:

'ur. ourton. I one Just telling hr. halter
about ----- I don't know whether you'd ho ins
terestod or not -- maybe you don't ~~ but
still ewertyhody I've told, they think -~ it's
probably onoo-co- '

'I'u.euro I'd like to hear it,’ said
Harry.

'I hate to bore poopls with -- you know
how it is .. you'd to too polite to -o and
this is so awfully -- well. it isn’t o thing
that -~ it's Juet interesting if you happen -
- peeplo in Baltimore - though wo've only
lived there a tow ------'29

Lnrdner's non~tictionel satire of women is
noticeably sorter:

tires is pcoplo that always wants to go
home when you don't end vico verse.

wives in people that ain't never satis-
fied as they are always too tot or too thin.
or all the wigoo I ever talked to I never
run ecroet one yet that was Just right.

Wives is people that thinks 2 ash treys
should ought to be plenty for e 12 rm. houeo.

hives is people that eke you what time
the 12:55 train note to how York. 'At 1:37,'
you tell them. 'How do you know 7' they ask.

Wives is peeple that you ask them to go
to a ball game and they act tickled to death.
So along about the 7th. ineingo you look at
them and they ore fast asleep and you remind
them with o doliceto punch in the ribs that
they are supposed to be excited. 'Oh, yoo,’
they say. 'I love it.’ So you ask them
whot ie the scars and they 'St. Louis is
ahead, ain't they ?' 'tell.’ you any 'I
don't know it 5:. Louis is ahead or ain't
ahead, but the game you are watching in how
tween Boston and New York.30

 

55. "Round U p. 11?)
30. First and Last, pp. 51-52.

III
Satire on.uorriago
On this subject Lardner is merciless in his
fiction, particularly in’Tho Love Nest" and "The
Golden Honeymoon.” The first story is a highly
emotional tale of a wife who intends to drink her-
self to death to avoid thinking about what norriogo
has done to her. The second is o quietly told
story of the mental degradation that results from
an endless succession of quarrels and boring pas-
times. Another story. "How and Then,‘I is an
example of the slow dissolution of affection brought
on by the proximity concurrent with norriago. "Who
Dealt ?", like the rest, reflects the unhappy
possibilities inherent in marriage. For the reason
that most of the stories mentioned sro already well-
known, they will not be treated in detail. .
Lardner's non-fiction reveals an entirely
different attitude. In regard to a certain Doe
Orano's advice on how to make a success of marriage,
Lardner said. ”I have all ready got the proposition
nasterod without no doctor's prescription. . . :51

His own rules for a successful marriage are both

simple and funny:

 

 

5!. First and Last, p. 573

55

1.

Tbs Ioritol twain should ought to bo
opp. sex if possible and somewhere: near
the other ono's ago. For inst. when a.man
of 15 gets marrked to a gal of 45'why it
may pan out all right for the time being
but don't never forget that when the groom
is nearing the century mark and wants to
know where thoy's a clean bath towel, why
he can't find out without loavsing Thurston
the magician into the secret.

2.

The ideal married life is for the 2
belligerents to live in.the same town so as
when they feel like a brawl they won't be
no toll charges.

The bride ohould ought to have at
loans as such money as the gross and a
salary of her own so as when she feels like .
she has got to buy something she don't want
she will know that it's her money boing
throwod away. All women hates to feel like
they was sphgoing off of their husbands
but the most of then.is such a good actress
that ygu wouldn't never guess how it hurts
then.“

In "Symptoms of Being 55' he says:

. . . at.ss you apeiifihaméloith a big
H. Ito whore you can take off your shoes.
Its where you can have more soup. Its
where you don't have to say nothing when
they's nothing to say. Its where they
don't wait till the meal is all over and
then give you a eye dropper full of coffee
row. Its where you don't half to listen.
Its where they don't smear everything with
cheese dressing. Its where you can pan
everybody without it going no further.

Ito where yhoy know you like doughnuts and
what you think about a banana.

When you was 29 you didn't care for the
band to play Home sweet Hone. It was old
stuff and a rotten tune any way. Now you
hope they won't play it neither. Its a
pretty tune but it makes you bust out cry-
1:135 o ‘

 

 

""“BIT"Fir.t asiIiast, pp.‘”67:§§ .
WEE-1E 5. pa 267o

56

IV
Satire on Neighborlinoss

In Lardner's stories neighborlinsss turns out
to be a demonstration of ogotion. Bridge goose turn
into oquabblos, visits into exchanges of insults.
Fred and Grace Cross of 212 Your 91g Home are enter-
taining the Carrys at oards one evening. The Crossoo
have received an invitation to a society dance by
mistake, and.Graco, who is ignorant of the fast that
it is an error, nontions the invitation. Tho Carryo
state that there must be some mistako. This starts
an altercation. Fred recounts it in a letter to his
brother Charley:

. . . Grass flew up a says your sore be-

cause wear going to the dance and your not

act a then Carry a his wife er. Grace a I all

lost our temper & we had it hot a heavy a . .

. wo didont got none the worst of it. So

finely I told then.to go home and they says

you dont half to tell us to go homo a.whats

lore you wont see no more of us a I says I

lived db yrs. s got pretty fat before I even

soon you.& thats about all that was said a

they beat it and wear throw with then.34

The husband in ”Three without, Doubled,” is at
his first bridge party, and tho evening is admixture
of bridge and pure venom. The husband knows abso-
lutoly nothing about the gems, and that fact is soon
discovered and cclnontcd on. However, tho husband,

the "I" of the story, is not at all abashod, oven

 

"""337"'?T"33.

97

when he is playing against Mrs. Garrett, the best
player in the club:

'Tvo no trunp,‘ says Messenger, and my
pardner says 'PasS'onse more.

'You'll get a sore throat sayin' that,‘
I told her. 'Don't you never hold nothin' ?'

'It don't look like it,' she says.

'Maybe you don't know what's worth
biddin' on,’ I says.

'Maybe she better take a few lessons
from you,’ says Mrs. Garrett.

'NO,’ I says, kiddin' her, 'YOu don't
'want no more female eXperts in the club or
you night have to buy sosdput as once in
e w'ile instead 0' winnin' it.’

Later Mrs. Garrett, who is in the lead for the
prize, becomes his partner. By some exceptionally
stupid bidding he leaves her with a contract that
with his hand is impossible to sake. Mrs. Garrett
explodes:

. . . She slammed her hand down on the
table, race up.

'I won't play it 1' she hollers. 'I
won't be made a fool of i This poor idiot
deliberately told me he had spades stopped,
and look at his hand 1'

'You're mistaken, Mrs. Garrett,’ I says,
I didn't say nothin' about spades.’

'Shut your mouth 1' she says. -' at's
what you ought to done all evenin'.°5

In the non-rietional ”Welcome to our Suburb" the
tolerance is easily discernible. His advice is on
how to get rid of guests:

Peeple makes a big mistake in giving

their country homes names that is too cordial
and seductive. Like for inst. a name 11!»

 

 

““13. sunburn j’f‘ravels, p.123.
56s IBIae. pp. 2W

Shady Rook may sound innocent enough to the
the owner or the place but the passer bys
reads it or hears it mentioned and it lis-
tens so nice and cozy that they can't resist
fron.paying you a call. Think how much more
impossible it is then if you have save your
Joint some such sobriqust as Kum.Inn, Uwanta
Kumbaok, DewlDrop Inn, tell Kum.and etc. It
you have to nickname the place at all, pick
out something neutral like any or the fellows
ing:

Stayaway, Keepaway, Knot Inn, Nobody's
Home3 Nolicker, Key Pout, No Add Mittens, and
.‘Oe

He ends his article in the same humorous attitude:

Tenpthirty is late enough to stay up and
-et that time you remark to the guest that you
are going to bed and you would advise but to
do the same as everybody in the house must be
up by 6 so as the hired gal can get the beds
made and catch the 7:10 for Port Washington
where she is going to spend the day with her
Iieee. Then you show the guest to his room
‘which has previously been arranged for hil.by
{:Egving the bulb from.the only electric

t. '
tor breakrust the next morning you serve
him (1) No. 3 egg and a i cup of sons good‘
coffee substitute.

If it happens to be Sunday you rcad‘hns
all the seminal pictures out loud and then
take him.to church.

Don't make no mention of food or drink
all day long and if the guest starts talking
about them, Just laugh it off.

It takes a good game guest to stick it
out 24 hrs. in the race or this kind of
cordiality. The most or them.mshos their
excuses long are time for the evening noel
and when they go they go for good. And as
they genally always rush of: to tell what
happened to all the rest or your friends, why
it is very seldom.nsseary to give the asst
named a course or the same treatment.

38. .E.' pp. 163-65.

 

59

'V
Satire on Sentimentality

Lardner attacks sentimental thinking in both
his fiction and his nonpfiction. ”The Love Nest" and
”The Golden.Honeymbon" could be considered attacks
on the sentimental attitude toward marriage; "Ex
Parts,” although.much lass emphatic in this respect,
light be similarly classified. ”Reunion,” although
not dealing with marriage, and softer in tone,
nevertheless is an unmasking of the sometimes falla-
cious idea of brother and sister attachment. In
this case the brother and sister have not seen each
othor for twenty years, and because they both feel
they really ought to make an effort, the brother and
his wife travel to Long Island for a visit. The
interim of twenty years has left an unbridgeable gap
of divergent tastes, and the story is a tale of dead
spots in the conversation, no compatibility in amuse-
ments, and, finally, efforts on the part of both
brother and sister to cut short the visit.

Whether “The Young Immigrunts" is fiction or
nonpfiction is debatable, but its sharp stab at the
sickliness of sentiment is more characteristic of
his fiction. A young bride and groom.are taking a
boat ride to Buffalo:

 

60

Some night said the young glum are you
warm enough.

I an perfectly comfortible replid the
fare bride the her looks belid her words
what time do we arrive in Buffalo.

9 oclock said the lordly glum are you
warm enough.

I am perfectly comfortible replid the
fare bride what time do we arrive in Buffalo.

9 oolook said the lordly slum I an
afrade it is too cold for you out here.

tell maybe it is replid the fare bride
and without furtggr adieu they went in the
spacius parlars.

His description of a man's reactions to senti-
sent after reaching the age of thirty-five is
basically the same, but the tone is more bland and
kindly:

For some reason another its necessary
to find some old papers and in going through
the trunk the patient runs acrost a bunch of
souvenirs and keep sakes like a note a gal
wrote him in high school, a picture of himn
self in a dirty football suit, a program.of
the 1907 May festival in South Bend and etc.
*Why keep this junk' he says and dumps than
all in the waste haslcat.‘o

Later in the same article he points out his attitude
toward possible romances:
He sets down after breakfast to read
the paper. The mailrsan cones and brings
him 5 letters. One of them.looks like it ‘1
was a gal's writeing. He reads the paper.
VI

General Noonieticaal Satire

 

so. F‘Eir t ghd‘haét. p. 11.
‘le E.“ De e

61

Lardner's non-fictional work included satire
en’s variety of subjects not dealt with in his fiction:
prohibition, politics, numerology, chain letters,
newspapers, royalty, table manners, etiquette, and
animals. A close study of this section of Lardner's
work will reveal, under the thin.mask of humor, a
frequently sharp irritation with the constant demon,
strations of doltishness evidenced by the country in
its fads, beliefs, gullibility, and general silliness.
The section also shows his kinship with the crackerbox
tradition formed by Downing, Slick, hard, Nye, Dooley
and others.

His attitude toward prohibition is invariably
negative, as it probably had to be for hhm to maintain
his humorous appeal. Nevertheless, the tone often
idicates that he was against it personally as well as
publicly. is comments:

... . It has given lucrative employment

to a great many men that did not have nothing

before only their courage. It has cemented

the friendship between the U. S. and Canada.

It has give gels and women a new interest in

life and something to talk about besides

hair and children. And it has made (govt.

appreciate the enormous extent of our coast

line and how zgugh it would be to defend eels

vs. invasion.

He notes regretfully that in high school he

”. . . passed up chemistry as useless. Nobody had

 

‘2... ePP- ’-

62

43

heard of Voletead at that tin ." In his personal

political platform.he says:

As far as the 18th amendment is concerned,
I would pledge the party to a continuation of
the strict enforcement methods that has been
so effective in the past, but if at the end or
a couple of yrs. there was still a clamor for
beer and light wine, I would put same on sale
for a.nonth or so, long enough to convince
everybody once and for all that they can get“
quicker and outer results under prohibition.

his analysis of the Republican and Democratic
platforms shows complete impartiality; there is, in
fact, little or nothing in Lardner'e writing that
reveals his own political beliefs. It is conceivable,
of course, that he abstained fron.airing his can
political ideas merely avoid risking his popularity,
but this is certainly no more than a possibility.
At any rate, in 1928 he found the platforms revealed
the fellcving facts:

The Democrat party is the part of Thea.
Jefferson and little Lord Fauntleroy while
the Republican party is the part of Jesse
James and Al Capone.

Republicans are down on the far-o

In 1917 the Democrats passed a law for-
bidding the Mississippi River to have any
more floods so last year's floods certainly
wasn't their fault.

Everybody should ought to have a radio.

There shouldn’t be no more ear.

Coal is afuel.

0n the other band, the Republican plat-
form tells that:

Everybody ought to have a radio.

13. "What”l”0uéht to oTLfearnt in EIgE School,“
Amorican.fla.azine, (November, 1923), 80.
14. First fl Last, p. 886.

 

63

The party will investigate the report
that there is a 18th amendment and if so will
try and enforce it.

Last year's Mississippi floods stopped
after a severe reprimand by a Republican
Administration, and it ain't likely they will
try it again for a while.

Negroes shouldn't be lynched.

Farmers are having a tough time.45

International politics were discussed by hue
during the disarmament conference of 1921: .

There may be some of my readers that ie'
dumb enough to no now what this conference
is all about. uel friends it has been called
together to see if they ain't some way of
stepping war and that is what the league of
nations was supposed to do but the league has
been to bat five or six times and ain't even
got a foul.

So the idear is to find a substitute for
the league and a lot of the boys figures that
the disarmament scheme will do the business
so the object of this meeting is to set all
the different nations to quit building ear
ships and.making ammunitions and etc. and ,-
it looks now like they would all agree to the
proposition provided they's an understanding
that it don‘t include they theaselfs.

They's no question but what the United
States would be tickled to death to see all
the shipssank and all the guns and bombs
and brick bats throwed in the ash can. That
would leave every nation in the same position,
namely nothing to fight with except their
fists. And we have got Dempsey.

Jokeing to one side this country goes
into the conference in dead earnest and fully
prepared to cripple ourselves from a fighting
standpoint provided the other nations does
the same and as a evidents of good faith
President Harding is planning a public bonfire
at union he will burn his niblick.45

In spite of his uniformly satirical tone on this
question, Lardner, like the majority of peOple,
15. ”Just solitic3:“ Cellier’s, LXXXITWISeptem-

ber 15, 1923), 12.
46. First and Last, pp.188r85.

 

64

honestly hopes that the conference will accomplish
its object. his feelings in this are motivated by
his attachment to his children. The end of the
article uncovers this funamental feeling:

Seriously speaking, I am.for secret
sessions if secret session is going to acoone
plish what the boys has eat eat to accomplish.
They's nobody in this country or anywheres
else that is pulling harder for war to be
stopped than this native son of Berrien coun-
ty, Mich. Because I have got a little male
quartette in my home which in 20 yrs. free
now they will all be draft age at once and it
ain't on the cards that the whole four of
them will be lucky like their dear old dad
and have falling arches.

The science of,nunsrology he eatirises with a
fine disregard for everything except the basis silli~
ness of the fed:

1 person can amuse themeelfs a whole
evening figuring out what different persons
names should really ought to be according
to their birth number. For example we found
out that Judge Iandis by birth is a 7. A 7
'denctes self-satisfaction and poise, but is
not likely to bestow glory or renown.' Then
we went ahead and figured that the Judge
could overcome this and maybe got himself
some glory and renown by changing his name
to Paula Landis.

His views on chain letters are more disparaging.
They contain little humor except the misspelling, and
his impatience with the mass foolishness of the fed
is stated with, for him, surprising feelinge.
tell friends as I say this business has

 

1’s ifrst Mlfi’t, pejé‘e
48c ibiae. p. 251.

been going on since about the l of September
and up to date I ain't said nothing and have
kept my mouth shut and took things as they
come in the hopes the storm would blow over
like the nullc fed in bridge shiet but it
begins to look now like this thing is libel
to deve10p into a permanent plague unlest
somebody steps forward and puts the quietus
on it and wile I don't pretend to have in-
fluence enough with the gen. public to in-
fluence than one way way or the other still
and all I feel_like I wouldn't be doing my
duty was I to remain in silents and not
state my stand in regards to the matter of
those here endless letter chains.

ball then friends anybody that wants
one of these here letters to go one time
around the world to say nothing of three
times around the world is going about it
in the wrong way when they mail one of
them to me because as far as one of these
letters is concerned I on what you might
call a terminus. bhen one of these letters
reaches my house the conductor may as well
get up and holler this is as far as we so,
all out and don't forget your packages and
umbrellas.49

During a national paper shortage he states his
opinion of newspapers very trenohantly:

from everywheres comes the cry to save

white paper and in.my letters only recently
I all ready mentioned about the preps. of
all the big newspapers in.the country held
a.meeting in New York City and disgust the
shortage and promised they wouldn't use no
more of it than was nessary but from all as
'I can see the papers is till comeina out
daily and Sun. as big as life and all the
paper they been saveing wouldn't make a
night gown for a cigarette and a outsider
might think they had give their promise as
a practical Joke and with no intentions of
carrying them out.50

ln.most of Lardner's work it is clear that be

 

49. First and Last, pp. 233.54.
50. :bide. p. Egg.

ees contemptuous or "eoeiety”. Often this feeling is
eXpreeoed indirectly by e cold eetire or eoeisl elinp
hers, es in his short novel "Big Town“; in other

perts of the sees story, his unflattering pietures or
society women. whose neJor intereets ere dogs end
bridge end minor interests their huebends. ere heed-In
ettecks. His nonstictionel setire of society is more
often pointed directly at his object, but the presence
of humor reeoves sole or the sting, es the following
description or e nee deel in society will ehov:

well e little vile ego, eleng sometime
lest summer e select group or our beet inp
eludeing the queen Kleegle or the Coloniel
Dense or Aneriee got together end decided
that it wee time for e general eheke~up which
they would get rid of the vermin once end for
ell end mete aociety look nonething it used
to forty yeers ego end 400 come into being.
it that time e prominent butcher's grendo
deughter-in-lee or something give e perty
end left the inviteing to e gent friend thet
hsd the temily history of everybody in
Americe et both ends or his tongue. He
issued Just e even 400 invitetione end nede
the remark that enybody not included in his
list might consider thenselt permanently
berred from orgenized society. The 400 end
their eeeigns eerried elong the burden
until I short time bed, when so I ssy smut
brother Elke end Mooees begin to horn their
vey in and spoil the party.

Lest summer the committee or chosen
people consisting elnost entirely or eaten
of the app. as: made up their mind; to
ehenge the limit true ‘00 to 500 so es to
let in e for familiee thet hed sold out
their nest merkets end livery terns end ’1
turned squere since the lest best shuttle.

3!. 221's: 9‘! L‘if. pp. We

 

 

67

Discussing table manners, he labels the soup
rule ridiculous:

They ein't no men or wonen liveing that
can pick up ell their soup from e flat lie
useing only e s can and the result is thet
from 1/10 to e inch is always left laying
in the batten of the dish which plens weste
es the nest econicel Jep in the world cannot
do nothing with ieft over soup only throw it
in the ash can.

Sines. in the words of someone, it is e canon
fault to ”gull the beck of a thesis with herd riding,"
it would be unwise to consider Lerdner's treatment
of etiquette more then e rando-.shot fron.e galloping
horse. For hin.it is merely en opportunity, and he
nekes the most of it:

Personly however I have been introduced
to neny e dame that must have thought I was
holding out my hands so she could admire the
cellousee or something and I been humiliated
so meny times along these lines that now deys
when they's e dens being introduced to me I
always pretend like I was unlooeening IV belt
or looking through my vest pocket for e
tOOth pick.

It is well to remember then.when the
party who is mekeing the introduction says,
"Mr. Bolling, ehake hends*with Mrs. Garvin.’
thet don't neserslly mean that you got to
eheke hends. The introducer ein't any
suthority to designate the mode of caress
end irsegerdless of whatever he seys you ere
free to put your arm around Mrs. Get! or
slsp her fees or ignore her entirely.

A student of Lardner eould eesily believe thet,

like Shekespeere. Lerdnsr was not e lover of dogs.

 

 

II. First aid test. pp.4553=§4.
63. _____e . ppo-mr59.

or any other animal. Nor, apparently, did Lardner
believe in the deep-rooted idea that if a man is kind
to duab brutes it is automatic proof that he isn't
all bed. Lardner comments at considerable length on
this piece of folklore, but the following is a good
summation of his attitude: ‘
. . . pcrsonly if I had a daughter and
she wanted to get marred and I asked her what
kind of a bird the guy was and she said she
don't know nothing about hin.except that one
day she seen him.kiss a leopard, why I would
hold up my blessing till g‘few of the missing
precincts was heard from.
VII
Lardner's Pure Humor
Some of the best examples of uninhibited, farci-
eal flights of the iaagination are in Lardnsr'e
parodies. "Red Riding Hood" contains a scene that few
golfers ean read and.meintain their dignity. In it
Lardner substitutes a police dog for the wolf. has
the grandmother a gin addict, and makes Miss Hood's
father a golfer. At the point this excerpt begins the
dog has already eaten the grandmother:
So then the dog jumped out of bed and
went after Red and she screamed.
In the mean w'ile Red's father has been
playing golf for a quarter a hole with a
couple of guys that eonsededthemselfs all putts

under 13 ft. and he was $.75 looser coming to
th. 10th. ‘0. a

n. Ego: a fast, pp. m.

 

 

The 10th. hole is kind of tough as your
drive has to have a carry of 50 yards or it
will fall in a garbage incinerating plant.
You can either lift out with a penalty of two
strokes or else play it with a penalty of
suffocation. Red's old man tapped his drive
and the ball rolled into the garbage. He
elected to play it and made what looked like
a beautiful shot, but when they got up on the
green they found that he had hit a unite
radish instead of a golf ball.

A long argument followed during which
the gallery went home to get his supper. The
hole was finely conceded.

The llth. hole on the course is probably
the sportiest hole in golfdan. The tee and
green are synonymous and the first shot is a
putt, but the rules signify that the putt
must be played off a high tee with a driver.
Red's father was on in two and off in three
more and finely sunk his approach for a
birdie eight, squaring the match.

a Thus the match was all square caning to
the home hole which is right close to grand-
mother's cottage. Red's father hooked his
drive through an epen window in his mother-
in-law's house and forced his caddy to lend
hin.a nibliek. He entered the cottage Just
as the dog was beginning to eat Red.

'What hole are you playing, father 1'
.Ik0d RCQe

'The eighteenth.‘ says her father. 'and
it is a dog's leg.‘

Where-at he hit the police dog in the
leg with his niblick and the dog was so surb
prised that he even give up the grandmother.

'I win, one up,' says Red's father and
he went out to tell the news to his two
opponents. But they had quit and In! hose
to dress for the Kiwanis Club dense.

Almost on a par with this is his version of
"Cinderella":

[Cinderella] was a pip, so both her step-
mother and the two etepeisters [Pat and Mike]
hated her and made her sleep in.the eshcan.
Her nuns was Zelda, but they called her Cine

 

55- LE“; 9...! LE Ie PP. ELJl

70

dcrella on acooUnt of how the ashes and
elinkers slang to her when she got up moons. .
O 0

Well, Pat and Nike started for Webster
Hall in a bonded taxi and they hadn't much
sooner then want when a little bit of an old
dame stepped out of the kitchen sink and stood
in front of Cinderella and says she was her
fairy godmother.

'listen,' says Cinderella: 'donflt mention
mother to me 8 I've tried two different kinds
and they've both been a flop !'

'Yes, but listen yourself,’ says the god-
mother: 'wouldn't you like to go to this here
dance ?'

'Who and the h--l wouldn’t 1' says
Cinderella.

'Well, then,‘ says the godmother, 'gc out
in the garden and pick me a pumpkin.’

'You're pie-eyed,’ was Cinderella's
criticism, but anyway she went out and got 0
pumpkin and give it to the old dame and it
turned into a big, black touring car like morn
derers rides in.

Then the old lady made Cinderella go to
the mouse-trap and fetch her six mice and she
prodded them.with her wand and they each became
a cylinder. Next she had her bring a.rat from
the rat trap and she turned hhm into a big géty
chauffeur, which wasn't hardly any trouble.

Lardner's plays. which.sometimes include bits of
easy verse. are fine examples of his buffonery. Clean
Uti -- The Water Lilies, is one of his craziest:

ACT I
(The Outskirts of a Parchesi Board. People
are wondering what has become of the discs.
They quit wondering and sit up and sing the
following song.)
Chorus

that has become of the discs 7

56. What °:.Z§ 5, pp. 53:35."

 

 

71

that has become of the discs ?
We took them.at our own risks,
But what has become of the discs ?

(Kama enters from.sn exclusive wafflz parlor.
She exits as if she had had waffles.) 7

In.mueh of this part of his work Lardner exhibits
an unrestrained love for pure fun.that stands out in
remarkable relief against his emotionless dissections
of the human race. Lardner has been compared often to
Swift, but his pure humor, which so much rsambles
Lewis Carroll's, has received little notice in late
years. Like Carroll's humor. Lardner's gives the is-
pression of a spontaneous boiling-over process. Not
all of it has that exuberance, unfortunately; in sale
passages it is fairly easy to see the nschanics of
his wit; but his best humor is on a par with Carroll's.
The setting of "I Gaspiri," a nonsense play, has this
spontaneity:

A public street in a bathroom. 'A man named

Tupper has evidently Just taken a bath. A nan

named Brindle is nos taking a bath. A.lsn named

Newburn comes out of the faucet which has been

left running. Be exita through the exhaust.

Two rangers to each other meet on the bath

met.

A burlesque of the late 0. O. Holntyre's newspaper
gossip column is also in this vein of foolishness. The
funninees of this, of course, is dependent upon a
familiarity with.the original, so an excerpt from

gas I!» St and mat e We
as. 115%.? 371" p

 

 

78

McIntyre's column is quoted:

So breakfasting . . . in our new chambers,
the black dishes as pretty as ever I saw, and
at the moment wonder how I endured living in
hotels so many years. Finished my stint and
eat watching ironpnongers on the new Waldorf
cater-cornered from.my window.

In the evening came upon C. N. Landon,
the art editor, and so for a spin in eharabane
through the park, discussing, pool and the
high enthusiasm.of Ray Longl Stopped at the
Algonquin to pick up B. N. Swanson and seeing
Frank Case, praised his floating island, but
he unmoved. So home, very hungry.

Lardner's burlesque follows:

Diary of a Modern new Yorker: Up and out
five hours before dawn, and by scooter to the
Hermitage Hotel, where the big Seminole Indian
Chef, Gwladys, cooked me a flagon.of my
falorite breakfast dish, best root and wrest-
lera' knees. Rallooed to Lily Lengtry and we
fell to arguing over the origin of the word
'breakfast,’ she contending that it was a
combination of 'break' and 'fast', derived
from a horse's instructions to a starter in a
sixbfurlong race, and I maintaining that it
was five furlongs. We decided to leave it to
Percy Hammond, the philatelist, but his nurse
told us he was out shoplifting.

Home for a moment to slit ny.mail and
found invitations from Mussolini, Joan Craw-
ford, Joan of are, President Buchanan, Joe
Welcott, and Louise M. Alcott. Then answered
a pleasant long-distance call from.Gwledys,
the little French chef in the Cafe des Trcie
Outfielders in.$ydney, her voice as plain as
if she were in Melbourne. She had heard I
had a cold, she said, and was worried; It
was gratifying to hear her whimpers of relief
when I assurred her the crisis was past.

Breaking bread in the evening at the
office of J. P. Morgan a Company and sat be-
tween Bernie Shaw, 8. J. Wells, Charlie
Dickens, Lizzie Barrett, hill Thackeray,
Lottie Bronte, Paul Whitsman, and Bill Klan.
Chatted for a.noment after dinner with Ehg'g,

55. Landing State gournai, August 15, 1955.

 

 

75

Egg and, finding a heavy rainstorm.outside,
dismissed my driver, Gnladys, and pirouetted
to the lower heat Side, where I sat on the
New York Central tracks till dawn, watching
the Operations of a switch engine. I have
always been a sucker for a New York.Central
switch engine in a heavy rainstorm.do

 

 

35. First and Last, pp.5I3;14. ‘“"

CLAFTER FIVE
CONCLUSION

In all probability time will not be kind to
Lardner‘s work, and the most logical guess is that
only a small part of it will survive. This Judgment
is based chiefly on lardner's choice of subject
matter, his viewpoint, and his use of misspelling.

That portion of Lardner's writing that employs
misspelling and shmilar means to convey the American
language will undoubtedly.mingle with the backwash
of literature. For his own literary durability, too
mush of his writing was done in this characterisitie
style of the crackerbox tradition; nor will it
matter much that Lardner used it for legitimate
literary purposes and placed it on a higher status
than any of his predecessors. Judging from.ths past,
this unorthodoxy alone would remove any chances for
survival of this section of his writing. No one,
with a few scholarly exceptions, reads Mr. Dooley
now. And Nasby, Yard, Nye, and the rest of the mis-
spelling writers, onoe famous in their day, are even
more remote from contemporary consideration, if this
is possible, than such a recent figure as Mr. Dooley.

Some of Lardner's purely humorous pieces may,

 

94

'U

with luck, retain their grip on life. His burlesque
of 0. 0. McIntyre may be one of these, and one or
two of his plays may also last -- the best possibility
saong the latter is probably “I Gaspiri'. But this
is an optimistic prepheey, for several reasons. Not
misspelling, this time, but brevity and a snail out-
put will work against his humor. His plays, especial-
ly, are short, and few in number: his burlesques and
parodies are longer, but again lack quantity. Also,
as time goes by, Lardner will suffer the fate similar
to that of many other writers who have had a variety
of talents obscured by one talent: he will be neatly
but inaccurately pigeonholed in the slot of the
eatirist. Finally, humor has a peculiar habit of
dying unless it is stored in a body of work that is
not primarily humorous.

His baseball stories will also cease to be read.
The majority of them, and especially those that gained
nest of his early reputation Ber him, are no longer
representative; their truthfulness to a type had, in
fact, disappeared even in Lardner's time. The dulb
busher from a whistle stop hamlet that Lardner wrote
about was replaced some time inttventies by a rare
worldlyasise and better educated player, and when
Lardner'e busher appears now it is probably due more

to a reporter's inventiveness than to his veracity.

 

76

This fact, and also the unorthodox spelling .used in
most of Lardner‘s baseball stories, erases all chance
for their survival.

It is that part of Lardner‘s,fiction that is
written without the detracting influence (from the
stnadpoint of immortality) of dialect and misspelling
that stands the that chance of lasting. "Haircut,"
because of its insight into the heart of a nall town,
and because of its artistry and economy of style,.lay
easily become a minor classic. "Champion” has less
chance, because its subject -- a boring champion ~-
is restricted in interest and touches too small a
reader group; in addition, the truth or the story,
startling at the time of publication, has now lost its
force through repetition of the same theme in hundreds
of less meritorious magazine and newspaper stories
and articles.

The fate of "The Love Nest" will probably be
similar to that of ”Champion,” and for somewhat .
identical reasons. Its basic situation -- e.-ovie
actress using marriage in the hepe of furthering her
career -- has become a staple American Jets. The
difference new is that the number of husbands per
actress has increased, and children seem to be as

bar to either a career or another marriage. In fact,

77

the present generation of readers would very likely
wonder why Lardner's lady was so weak-willed that
she permitted a few children to block her return to
celluloid. At the very least, contemporary readers
would be tempted to classify her psychologically as
a person having a weak drive in the direction of the
theater, and lightly dismiss the whole story. -2

thld n honeymoon“ seems to have a better chance l
for survival. Since it is a picture of trite flagdgfmnms
are always with us, it may be that it will last. on
the other hand, the very fact that it is an accurate
portrayal of uninteresting people may make it urine
tcresting and lead to its disappearance. Possibly
a fair prediction is that if it survives the sure
vival will be due to an exceedingly small group of
exceedingly acute readers.

The four stories mentioned are the ones most
frequently cited for possible survival. Yet it seems
to me that Lardner's "There Are Smiles” has as much
if not more likelihood of weathering time than any of
them.except "Haircut." Besides the lean style, the
background of humor, and fast and exact characterisa-
tions in the story, it shows a striking resemblance
to some of the best present day short stories. It

is less a story -- in the old sense of a completely

 

78

finished talc -- than a report of an incident. In
this respect it bears a strong resemblance to many
stories in The Egg Yorker magazine, a publication
well known for its "reporter style" fiction.

Other and better reasons for forecasting a long
'11:. to "There Are Smiles" is the fact that its
motivation pivots rather delicately on sex, and that
its poignant note at the and instills a warm sympathy
for humanity. Both these qualities are eternal in
their appeal. The story, it should be noted, is re-
markable for Lardner; although it is superficially
cynical -- it has been construed by manwell Ceiemnr,
for example, as an eXpose of ago ~— not too far
below the surface there runs a compassion for people
who have been grasping at something intangible but
worthwhile, only to lose it ultimately. It is re-
markable also in that both the chief characters evoke
the reader's sympathy. end evenhmore singular is
the presence in a Lardnnr'story'of a woman like Edith
Dole; or all Lardner's many women characters, none
have her tine appeal. The combination or all the
qualities mentioned, plus Lardner's effortless manner
of telling the story, leads me to think that this will

survive.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1
Terra

Lardner Bing Ii. Zigst d Last h'es York:
smut... 1934. E“ '

-nwu-m-um 62;;1b1.. I We ' E’s-0' York:

.-....--..--..... and George 8. Kaufman. June neon.
Hes tort: Scribner, 1930.

«ac-”oocss-usm- 3: Four WCBK 1n 0.0
Indianapolis: Bo s-Escrr' III, 171%.

..-....--..--... own 333; 9:; gene. Indianapolis:
BObb.‘H."1J-1 . lme

Bobbs—ncrrill, 1m.

Publishing co.. Edd?

0---~~~-”--- BM! 2; LE ?. H" York: Scribner,
1985s
II
BAGKGROUI‘CD. BIOGIIAI’HY, AND 03171015“

, 11111 (October 11, 1923), 171-73.

Bibsscc, Elisabeth. "Lament tor Lardner.” Livia
m, can? (Decanter, 1933), 566-68.

Blair, Welter. native £233.93 timer. Chicago:
American Book, .

D. R. "The Reigning Jester.” 213; independent, 1.21m?
(May :3, 1925), 590.

radius, Clifton. ”Ring menu and the Triangle or
Hate.” 1h; Nation, cmvr (March 88, 1933), 315.17.

Anderson Shervood. ”Four American Impressions.” hes
Repg lig

 

79

Iadinan Clifton "Round Up " The action, 011911
(say 1: less), 5...”. ' """'

Gel-er Maxwell. trite s in Crisis. Boston:
Boughton mifflin, 1515:. '-

Kunits, Stanley J. and Howard Haycrai‘t. Twentieth
Centun guthors. New York: Wilson, 19 .

Lardner Lens 8. 3 art from the figs-lo . Res
Yorke. Broadway, . "1

O“---“---O---- ”Th1. SIP-rs! of 208‘.!2 P12” N"
York: Broadway, 1755. -' .

Lardner Ring W. "What I Ought to of Learnt in High
Schoo .' Ala-Jinn Was. XCVI womb-r. 1928).
10-41. ve-es.

Lewis Wyndham Time 93 Heater; M____an. New York:
Bar‘ourt Braesf'l'fla.

Littell Robert. '. . . And Other Stories." New
aepublig, am: (September so. 1925). 147-19?

Kathews, T. 8. "Lardner, Shakespeare and Chekhov."
Nee Repuglic, LIX (May as, 1929), 35-36.

nensken Henry L." Prejudiges: Second series. nee
Yorkz. Knopf, 19 .

Nevins, Allen. "The American horos.’ S turd
fisviss g Literam, 7 (June 8, 1929 , 90.

Rourke Constance an ggog. Nev York:
' 39%".

Harcourt Brace,

eeldes, Gilbert. 3.9.! ngsg 14.1231 553;. ice York:
Harper, 1924.

Sherman, Stuart. The naig small. Res York:
Scribner, 1989.

5‘11"“. Make Our TWUe . "1's NC. York:
Scribner, 1996-1933.

Tandy, Janette. Caster»: Philgsophegs. flee York:
Columbia Univers y recs, .

Van Doren Carl. ”Beyond Cranmer.” Cent , Lmiv
(July, ices), 171-75.

 

81

m ,
OTHER SOURCES
Chicago Tribune, September so, 1933.
Detroit 3mm, September 89, 1938.

Lansing stat: m, August 18, 1950.

Lardner Collection, Fort St. Joseph Historical museum,
Niles, Michigan.

New York W Tribune, September 86, 1933.
New York M, September 85 and 2'), 1938.
an» 129;; pm. June 14, 1911.

scrapbook of Miss Lena Lardner, Niles, Michigan.

 

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