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THE  BOOK 
JACK  LONDON 


VOLUME 


A   KIND  OF  NAPOLEON   OF   THE   PEN" 
Anna  Strunsky 


THE    BOOK 

OF 

JACK   LONDON 

BY 

CHARMIAN  LONDON 


ILLUSTRATED   WITH 
PHOTOGRAPHS 

VOLUME   I 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO, 

1921 


Copyright.  1921,  by 
The  Cextury  Co. 


^'^  1099188 


Printed  in  U.  S.  A. 


TO 
ELIZA  LONDON  SHEPARD 


PREFACE 

Here  in  his  own  workroom,  at  his  own  work-table,  which, 
like  himself,  is  deep-grained,  beautiful,  unshamming  even 
to  its  rugged  knots  and  imperfections,  I  write  of  the  Jack 
London  whom  I  knew. 

*'That  one  of  us  should  go  before  the  other  is  unthmk- 
able/'  he  often  said.  Or,  **It  is  beyond  my  imagining  that 
I  should  be  mthout  you.  ...  By  rights  we  should  go  out 
together  in  some  bright  hazard,  gallant  shipwreck  in  a 
shouting,  white  gale,  or  shoulder  to  shoulder  in  some  for- 
gotten out-land  where  the  red  gods  have  called  us.*'  xVnd 
again,  **If  I  should  go  first.  Mate  Woman,  it  would  be  for 
you  to  write  of  me — if  you  dare  be  honest,**  always  he 
challenged. 

**But  you  could  hardly  do  it,**  he  would  consider.  **I 
fear  you*d  not  want  to  write  of  my  shortcomings,  which 
you  know  only  too  well,  and  your  work  would  be  valueless 
without  them. — Also,  neither  you  nor  I,  unless  it  should  be 
when  I  am  very  old,  and  when  others  are  gone  past  wound- 
ing, can  write  without  restraint  of  the  very  circumstances 
and  characters  that  helped  to  make  or  mar  me.  And,  any- 
way, my  dear,**  was  his  familiar  conclusion,  **I*m  going  to 
live  a  hundred  years,  because  I  want  to;  and  I'm  going  to 
beat  you  to  it  some  day  and  write  my  own  book  of  myself, 
and  call  it  Mack  Liverpool* — and  it*s  going  to  make  every- 
body sit  up!** 

In  some  such  fashion  we  would  speculate,  summer  after- 
noons, perhaps  riding  over  the  Beauty  Ranch,  or  lying  on 
the  slant  deck  of  a  ship  in  the  Trades,  or  tooling  our  alert 
four-in-hand  across  a  mountain  range. 

I  warn,  therefore,  that  this  book  is  written  only  for  those 

Ttt 


viii  PREFACE 

sincere  and  open-minded  folk  who  want  to  know  the  real 
and  living  facts  that  I  can  tell.  So  unusual  a  man  should  be 
honored  with  an  unusual  biography,  and  mine  is  bound  to 
be  frank  beyond  the  ordinary,  since  I  must  approach  it 
with  frankness  or  do  a  spurious  piece  of  work.  I  do  not 
minimize  the  criticism  to  which  I  subject  myself,  but  my 
philosophy  is  of  a  sort  that  transcends  fear  on  this  score. 
For  Jack  London  was  my  man  of  men,  and  because  I  have 
answered  these  many  years  to  his  call  of  '*my  woman'',  I 
am  unafraid.  I  am  privileged  to  speak  my  mind  about  him, 
what  of  his  own  desire ;  and  I  can  but  feel  that  I  knew  him 
somewhat,  if  only  because  he  said  so.  I  am  forever  en- 
slaved to  him  for  his  love,  for  his  teaching,  for  his  infinitely 
manifested  charity  and  sweetness,  and  this  enslavement  is 
guerdon  of  my  existence,  in  that  it  has  taught  me  freedom, 
and  led  to  where,  within  my  capacity,  I  might  view  and  ex- 
plore the  wide  spaces  of  life  and  thinking. 

But  only  name  him, — and  forthwith  a  thousand  vivid, 
trenchant  thoughts  clamor  for  delivery.  Even  more  sharply 
than  during  his  life  I  now  realize  how  he  was  eternally 
whelmed  by  surging  ideas,  whenever  his  embracing  mind 
laid  hold  of  a  theme.  Often  and  often  I  have  seen  him 
near  despair  at  the  impossibility  of  capturing  and  holding, 
for  presentment  to  his  listener,  the  myriad  related  thoughts 
that  crowded  hard  under  a  single  impelling  one. 

The  material  at  my  hand  is  manifold  and  priceless. 
Much  of  it  I  shall  forego,  lest  I  wound  where  he  hesitated 
to  wound.  But,  within  limitations  dictated  by  like  consider- 
ation for  those  he  spared,  I  must  in  simple  justice  to  him 
bring  to  bear  all  possible  illumination.  That  is  my  pas- 
sionate committal  of  myself  and  what  of  himself  he  lavished 
upon  me. 

One  book  of  mine,  **Our  Hawaii,''  has  been  termed  by 
some  readers  as  **too  personal,"  whatever  that  may  signify. 
But  in  my  sense  of  the  word,  *' personal"  is  precisely  what 
that  narrative  set  out  to  be.    And  now,  suppose  that  I,  of 


PREFACE  ix 

all  biographers,  assume  a  conservative,  too-proud-to- 
explaiu  pose  concerning  this  intimate  man-soul,  who  of  his 
admirers  misled,  or  at  best  puzzled  by  popular  misreport, 
and  desiring  more  light  upon  his  gripping  personality,  is 
to  acquire  what  only  I  have  to  offer!  Would  a  woman 
court  happiness  with  such  as  Jack  London,  she  needs  must 
learn  to  regard  life  broadly.  Her  reward,  if  she  be  wise 
enough  to  claim  reward,  is  obvious.  What  I  absorbed  of 
Jack  London  was  by  means  of  throwing  wide  a  willing  in- 
telligence toward  his  nature  and  mental  attitude.  And 
since  he  went  out  in  the  midday  of  his  brave  years,  I  have 
sensed  him  in  still  subtler  ways. 

I  summon  the  dear  ghosts  of  all  he  has  meant  to  me,  in 
the  largess  of  his  sharing,  and  always  he  shared ;  all  herit- 
age from  him  of  unclouded  vision,  purpose,  straightness  of 
speech ;  w^hatever  I  have  meant  to  him ;  all  these  I  beg  to 
help  me  in  my  loving  and  difficult  task.  For  at  the  outset  I 
am  appalled  by  what  is  ahead  of  me.  Almost  it  looks  a 
V3in  endeavor,  one  I  would  far  better  abandon,  and  confine 
my  revelation  to  the  commonplace,  if  commonplace  can  be 
found  in  such  a  life,  lest  I  invite  failure  by  reaching  too 
wide  and  deep. 

None  but  a  fool  dwells  upon  the  small  irks  of  a  journey 
that  has  been  undertaken  all  the  way  and  back,  L' jr  love  and 
service  and  adventure.  It  is  the  long,  long  run  that  mat- 
ters. The  big  basic  considerations,  the  rudimental  integri- 
ties, these  are  the  saving  things  that  buoy  up  life  and  per- 
suade from  us  at  the  end  that  we  ** liked  it  all."  And  so, 
in  reviewing  what  was  in  our  long  run  a  rainbow  trail 
round  the  curve  of  the  world,  though  I  shall  try  to  write 
from  the  height  of  my  head,  making  honest  this  document, 
as  he  would  have  it,  without  sainting  his  huraannoss,  I 
know  I  shall  find  myself  most  often  directed  from  the  depth 
of  my  heart  toward  a  bountiful  estimate  of  his  abounding 
lovableness,  charm,  and  variety. 

I  should  be  glad  if  I  could  believe  that  he,  friend,  lover, 


X  PREFACE 

husband,  for  a  dozen  rich  years,  were  now  consciously 
standing  over  me  guiding  my  pen — his  pen,  with  which  I 
begin  his  portrait ;  glad  for  my  own  sake,  at  the  same  time 
decrying  the  selfishness  to  stay  him  one  moment  from 
that  Field  of  Ardath  that  ever,  to  him,  in  his  fairest  hours, 
meant  dreamless  rest.  But  since  I  cannot  even  in  his  loss 
find  hope  and  faith  in  what  he  did  not  believe  for  himself, 
for  me,  for  any  one,  I  can  yet  know  that  what  of  his  gift 
there  resides  in  my  being  from  those  long,  comprehending 
years  together  drives  brain  and  hand  to  lay  what  I  may  of 
him  ** cards  up  on  the  table,**  as  he  fearlessly  played  his 
own  game  of  living. 

Shortly  after  his  death  my  already  awakened  mettle  to 
write  of  him  was  spurred  by  the  remark  of  an  American 
author  to  a  common  friend,  *^  Jack  London  was  a  far  greater 
man  than  some  of  his  intimates  may  let  us  know.'*  I,  at 
least,  shall  not  merit  this  curious  implication.  Jack  Lon- 
don gave  so  greatly  to  all  who  could  see  and  hear  and  feel. 
Those  who  gained  worse  than  nothing  from  the  privilege 
of  association  with  him,  neighbor,  sharer,  young  patriarch 
whose  burdens  were  so  nobly  borne,  I  can  only  designate  as 
the  deaf,  the  dumb,  the  blind. 

This,  then,  is  my  goal :  to  strive  to  expound  him  through 
the  evaluations  he  placed  upon  himself  which  untiringly 
he  strove  to  make  clear  to  me.  And  to  my  everlasting  joy 
and  benefit,  my  lamps  were  always  lit  that  I  might  less  and 
less  blindly  gaze  into  the  unfailing  wonder  which  I  found 
him.  The  vision  I  cherish  rises  undimmed,  definite,  appeal- 
ing to  be  revealed  as  he  would  declare  himself. 

Once  more,  as  in  other  prefaces,  I  crave  indulgence  for 
that  I  must  appear  somewhat  profusely  in  my  own  pages. 
Verily,  in  order  to  make  a  book  about  Jack  London,  I 
should  have  to  make  a  book  about  myself — ^which  indeed 
would  be  all  about  Jack  London, 

Here  I  give  to  the  world  my  Jack  London — a  virile  crea- 
ture compounded  of  curiosity  and  fearlessness,  the  very 


PREFACE  xi 

texture  of  fine  sensibility,  the  loving  heart  and  discerning 
intuitions  of  a  woman,  an  ardent  brain,  and  a  divine  belief 
in  himself.  And  since  he  was  first  and  foremost  his  own 
man,  I  render,  as  nearly  as  may  be  in  the  premises,  also 
his  own  Jack  London.  If  I  prove  candid  to  a  degree,  let  it 
be  remembered  that  he  would  be  first  to  have  it  so. 

Chabmian  London 
Jack  London  Ranch, 

Glen  Ellen,  Sonoma  County, 
California 


CONTENTS 


PA6B 

Prologue  and  a  Meeting 3 

OHAPTEK 

I    The  Stuff  of  Stabs 15 

II     Birth 25 

III  Boyhood 29 

IV  LiVERMORE  Valley 45 

V    Boyhood  to  Youth  :  Oakland  Estuary,  Sailor- 

INO,  ETC 62 

VI    Cannery,  Buys  Sloop  **Razzle  Dazzle*'  Queen 

of  the  Oyster  Pirates 73 

VII     Oyster  Pirating 83 

VIII    Fish-Patrol 99 

IX    ** Sophie  Sutherland,"  Sealing 110 

X    Autumn   into  Spring,   1893-1894 — Jute  Mill; 

Coal  Shoveling  ;  Boy-and-Girl  Love          .  135 

XI    Tramping— ** The  Road" 147 

XII    Tramping        165 

XIII  High  School 187 

XIV  At  the  Univkbsity  of  California           .           .  210 
XV    Into  Klondike 222 

XVI    Out  of  Klondike 247 

XVII    Return  from  Klondikb—Lily  Maid  Leti  Kiis    .  258 

XVIII    Thb  Cloudeslet  Johns  Cobrespondencb     .     .  277 

xiii 


xiv  CONTENTS 

CHAPTKE  PAOa 

XIX    Introducing  Anna  Strunsky,  and  Jack^s  Let- 
ters   TO    Her;    Also    Further    Cloudeslby 

Johns  Letters 318 

XX     Marriage  to  Elizabeth  Maddern  ;  More  Letters  338 

XXI    Letters  :  Cloudesley  Johns  and  Anna  Strunsky  349 

XXII     1902— Piedmont         361 

XXIII  Home  from  Europe  ;  Separation 385 

XXIV  Japanese-Russla.n  War       ...     ...     .  401 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

A  Kind  of  Napoleon  of  the  Pen Frontispiece 

rACINQ    PAGE 

Mother  of  Jack  London — Flora  Wellman 16 

Jack  London's  Father — John  London 16 

Jack  London  at  About  9  Years — with  His  Dog,  Rollo    .     .  33 

**Pig  Palace'* 80 

The    Great   Gate   of   Redwood   Logs   Into   the    **  Beauty 

Ranch'' 97 

Jack  and  Charmian  London 144 

1894.     Picture  of  Encampment  of  Kelly 's  Industrial  Army  161 

Jack  London 192 

Captain  Larsen  Wonders  About  Things 209 

'*The  Lake  That  Jack  Built" 224 

1909.    Peggy  '*The  Beloved."     The   ** Super  Dog"   in 

Jack's  Life 241 

1905.    *' Brown  Wolf"  of  Story  of  That  Name.    Jack's 

Alaskan  Husky 241 

1914.    Letter  from  Jack  London  Stating  His  Materialistic 

Belief 304 

1904.  Jack  London,  in  Korea  on  His  Australian  Barb- 
Mare,  "Belle" 321 

1905.  Jack  London  on  "Washoe  Ban"— "Brown  Wolf" 
Beside        321 

1904.    Jack  London 336 


XVI 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


1903.  Jack  London  at  27 

1904.  Sailor  Jack  of  Sloop  "Spray"     .     .     . 

1906.    Jack  London  in  Boston 

1909.    Jack  London  in  Melbourne,  Australia    . 
1904.     War  Correspondents  En  Route  to  Japan 
Horoscope  of  Jack  London,  Cast  in  1905     . 
Horoscope  of  Jack  London,  Cast  after  His  Death 


FACING  PAQB 

.     384 


384 
384 
384 
401 
423 
424 


THE  BOOK 

OF 

JACK  LONDON 


h 


THE 
BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

PROLOGUE 

AND  A  MEETING 

I  WISH  you'd  meet  this  remarkable  boy  of  mine,  this 
Jack  London/'  my  aunt  remarked  one  morning  in  the 
spring  of  1900,  with  a  laugh  in  her  earnest  blue  eyes.  **I 
should  like  to  have  your  opinion  of  him.  The  fact  is,  I  have 
only  talked  with  him  once,  myself,  but  already  I  feel  as  if 
he  belonged  to  me. ' ' 

*'Very  well,"  I. replied  rather  absently,  pinning  on  my 
straw  sailor  before  a  diminutive  silver-trinketed  dress- 
ing-table that  was  my  especial  pride.  For  my  mind  was 
bent  on  other  matters  than  this  vague  young  writer  whose 
stories  in  the  Overland  Monthly  I  had  heard  the  family 
discussing  with  fervor  for  months  past.  **Very  well,"  I 
repeated,  ^*when  shall  it  be?" 

**He's  coming  here  to-morrow  afternoon,"  she  consid- 
ered, ** though  too  early  for  you.  But  in  a  few  days  I'm  to 
meet  him  at  the  museum  in  the  Ferry  Building,  to  pose  him 
for  a  picture  in  Alaskan  furs,  to  illustrate  my  article.  How 
would  this  do! — I'll  take  you  to  lunch!" 

**Why  should  you  take  him  to  lunch!"  I  cried,  stung  to 
protest. 

*  *  My  dear  child — I  know  he  hasn't  an  extra  cent  to  spend. 
No,  I  will  entertain  the  pair  of  you,  at  half  past  twelve." 

**I  don't  know  what  you  will  think  of  him,"  she  called 
after  me,  in  a  doubtful  tone,  as  I  hurried  off  for  Dwight 
Way  station,  which  was  near  our  home  in  Berkeley.  '*He 
is  not  a  bit  like  your  college  and  society  friends!" 

a 


4  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

But  their  afternoon's  interview  lasted  until  six  o'clock. 
My  latch-key  was  already  clicking  in  the  lock  as  Auntie 
turned  the  knob  for  the  egress  of  a  rather  odd  caller, 
clad  in  shabby  bicycle  trousers  and  dark  gray  woolen 
shirt.  A  nondescript  tie,  soft  bicycle  shoes,  and  a  worn 
cap  in  one  hand,  completed  his  outfit,  while  the  other  held 
fast  a  copy  of  Boyd's  Composition,  borrowed  from  his 
hostess.  There  was  a  hasty  introduction  in  the  dim  hall 
rainbowed  by  the  sunset  through  a  stained  glass  window. 
Then  the  apparently  abashed  young  fellow  ran  lightly  down 
the  steps,  pulling  the  dingy  cap  over  a  inop  of  brown  curls, 
and  rode  away  on  his  wheel. 

**So  that's  your  wonderful  Jack  London,''  I  chaffed. 
**You  will  admit  he  is  not  a  very  elegant  afternoon  caller!" 

** Granted,"  Auntie  concurred;  but  added  swiftly,  **I  do 
not  think  he  missed  your  hardly  concealed  critical  look,  my 
dear.  Nothing  escapes  that  boy.  And  you  must  remem- 
ber," she  admonished  gently,  **with  genius,  clothing 
doesn't  matter.    Besides,  I  doubt  if  he  can  afford  better." 

**Well,"  I  retorted,  a  trifle  guiltily,  **he  is  not  the  only 
genius  amongst  your  friends,  but  certainly  none  of  them 
ever  came  to  our  house  looking  like  this  one." 

Seeing  me  really  contrite,  she  told  me  laughingly  how 
Hannah  had  come  to  her  with  puzzled  brow,  after  answer- 
ing the  door  bell: 

**  *I  do  not  think  this  can  be  the  gentleman  Mrs.  Eames 
expects.  He  is  only  a  boy,  in  rough  clothes,  and  walks  like 
a  sailor. '  ' '  Whereupon  Hannah  had  flushingly  received  a 
rebuke  similar  to  mine. 

On  the  day  set  for  the  lunch,  I  exchanged  noon  hours 
with  my  pretty  assistant.  For,  in  a  big  San  Francisco 
shipping  and  commission  firm,  my  shorthand  and  type- 
writing earned  bed  and  board,  party  gowns,  the  services  of 
Hannah,  the  immaculate  Swedish  maid,  not  to  mention 
fodder  and  stabling  for  my  beautiful  saddle  mare.  For 
we  were  not  in  opulent  circumstances.    My  aunt  and  foster 


PROLOGUE  5 

mother,  Ninetta  Eames,  wrote  for  the  magazines,  while  her 
husband  acted  as  business  manager  of  the  beloved  old 
Overlatid  Monthly ,  whose  funds  were  notoriously  meager — 
no  one  better  than  Jack  London  knew  how  meager.  As 
for  myself,  I  had  taken  a  hand  in  my  own  maintenance 
from  my  fourteenth  year,  when  I  had  mastered  Uncle 
Roscoe  Eames 's  Light  Line  Shorthand  and  assisted  him 
with  his  classes,  on  to  the  year  at  Mills  College,  where  I 
worked  my  way  as  secretary  to  its  President,  Mrs.  Susan 
L.  Mills. 

Promptly  at  twelve-thirty  I  reached  the  entrance  of  the 
restaurant  my  aunt  had  named — Young's,  I  think  it  was, 
on  Montgomery,  not  far  from  Market  Street.  If  I  am  a 
shade  misty,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  this  was  almost 
six  years  before  the  time  when  the  Great  Fire,  following 
upon  the  Great  Earthquake,  destroyed  landmarks  in  this 
section  of  incomparable  old  San  Francisco. 

Already  they  were  on  the  spot,  my  small,  blue-eyed, 
dark-haired  aunt,  and  beside  her  the  boyish  figure  of  me- 
dium height  in  a  sack-coated  gray  suit,  patently  ready-made 
and  almost  pathetically  new.  He  wore  a  small  black  tie, 
low-cut  shoes,  and  a  neat  visored  gray  cap  that  did  not 
hide  a  wavy  brown  forelock.  And  this  was  the  first  and 
last  time  we  ever  saw  Jack  London  arrayed  in  waistcoat 
and  starched  collar. 

My  clearest  vision  of  this  moment  when  I  first  looked 
fairly  upon  the  man  who  was  destined  to  play  such  mo- 
mentous part  in  my  life,  is  of  the  cheerful-gray  aspect 
of  him;  for,  under  the  meeting  low  line  of  his  brows,  the 
wide-set,  very  large,  direct  eyes  were  as  gray  as  the  soft 
gray  cloth,  but  more  blue  for  the  tan  of  his  blond  skin. 

Another  unclouded  mental  impression  that  persists 
across  the  years,  is  of  the  modest  quiet  of  his  manner,  and, 
still  more  distinctly,  the  beauty  of  his  mouth,  full-lipped, 
not  small,  with  deep,  upturned  ends  that  my  aunt  happily 
described  as  ** pictured  comers" — a  designation  too  lovely 


6  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

for  analysis.  And  there  was  about  this  feature  a  chastity, 
an  untried  virginity  of  expression,  that  seemed  greatly  at 
odds  vdth  recalled  rumors  of  the  romantic  if  rather  dubious 
career  of  this  sailor-shouldered,  light-stepping  man  of 
twenty-four,  as  gamin,  redoubtable  member  of  dread  hood- 
lum gangs  in  Oakland,  bay  pirate,  vagrant,  adventurer  in* 
Alaskan  gold  fields — not  to  emphasize  a  smear  of  actual 
jail-birding,  if  truth  prevailed.  That  he  was  moreover  an 
exceedingly  active  member  of  the  Socialist  Labor  Party 
was  no  shock  to  my  propriety,  albeit  his  Socialism  was  of  a 
ruggeder,  more  militant  sort  than  that  with  which  I  was 
familiar  in  my  own  home. 

Ever  my  initial  picture  of  that  baflSing  mouth  must  hold 
its  own  with  the  great  gray  eyes,  in  their  almost  appealing 
candor  a  similar  unbelievable  childlikeness.  **  Looking  for 
something  he  has  never  known, ' '  was  the  fancy  that  drifted 
through  my  brain,  as  my  own  eyes  fell  from  his  to  the  small 
hand  he  extended — ^half -timorously  it  seemed  to  me,  as  I 
noted  an  absence  of  grip. 

*  *  Jack  London  is  the  gentlest  man  I  have  ever  known, '  * 
I  once  heard  an  old  woman  say.  And  that  is  what  also 
comes  down  to  me  from  this  early  contact  with  a  personality 
that  made  its  thoroughgoing  masculinity  only  slightly  felt 
through  an  alight  repose  of  demeanor,  an  expectant  passiv- 
ity, which  very  little  advertised  vibrant  nerves  and 
quick  underlying  dominance.  That  is  it — sitting  across 
the  table  in  the  buzzing,  bustling  cafe,  I  seemed  to  sense  that 
he  was  expecting  something,  something  we  two  women  had 
for  him  of  our  personalities,  our  ideas,  our  good  will.  In 
those  long-lashed  eyes  that  had  mirrored  much  of  life's 
most  unbeautiful  presentments,  there  was  a  waiting,  a  con- 
tinual asking,  and  their  own  response  was  swift  and  sweet 
toward  any  gift  of  frank  idea  or  fellowship.  He  displayed 
interest  in  the  fact  that  I  was  self-supporting;  and  once, 
when  my  Aunt  had  addressed  me,  he  raised  that  full  gray 


PROLOGUE  7 

look  to  mine  and  slowly  pronounced,  as  if  listening  to  the 
sound  of  his  own  pleased  voice : 

^^Charmian  .  .  .  Chartnian  .  .  .What  a  beautiful  name!*' 
I  have  little  recollection  of  the  conversation  that  lasted 
out  the  meal,  nor  of  what  Jack  London  ordered.  It  is  safe 
to  say  that,  barring  his  half-fed  tramp  days,  or  some  out- 
landish delicacy  temporarily  in  favor,  few  privileged  to 
contact  with  him  remember  him  for  his  appetite.  The 
morning's  visit  to  the  museum  came  up,  along  with  his  de- 
light in  once  more  seeing  the  familiar  Klondike  habili- 
ments. Then,  while  my  Aunt  drew  him  out  concerning 
himself,  Rudyard  Kipling's  name  was  mentioned,  and 
Jack's  whole  face  lighted  as  he  exclaimed:  "Oh,  have 
you  read  *The  Brushwood  Boy'T — There  is  no  end  to  Kip- 
ling, simply  no  end."  Gone  was  that  half -deferential  diffi- 
dence ;  remained  only  his  kindling  enthusiasm  for  the  work 
of  his  British  idol,  treasured  possession  of  which  without 
delay  he  would  share  with  responsive  companions. 

It  had  proved  inevitable,  upon  the  appearance  of  young 
London's  ** Odyssey  of  the  North"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
for  January  just  past,  that  this  new  writer's  revolutionary 
method  of  presenting  the  primal,  raw,  frigid  life  of  the 
savage  North  should  call  forth  comparison  with  Kipling. 
I  felt  at  a  disadvantage  in  that  I  had  missed  reading 
this  tale  and  the  other  eight  that  had  been  running  in 
the  Overland,  beginning  with  **To  the  Man  on  Trail" 
in  the  January  1899  issue,  and  ending  with  **The  Wisdom 
of  the  Trail"  in  December.  The  entire  nine  I  learned  were 
by  now  in  the  hands  of  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Company  for 
book  publication,  under  the  title  of  *'The  Son  of  the  Wolf" 
— the  Arctic  Indian's  name  for  the  conquering  white  man. 
Simultaneously  with  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  he  had  broken 
into  two  other  eastern  publications,  with  an  article, 
**The  Economics  of  the  Klondike,"  in  The  Review  of  Re- 
views, and  a  story,  ** Pluck  and  Pertinacity,"  in  The  Youth's 
Companion. 


8  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

**Cbarmian/*  Mrs.  Eames  was  suddenly  struck  with  the 
idea,  **wby  can't  you  review  *The  Son  of  the  "Wolf* — per- 
haps in  the  same  number  of  the  Overlmid  with  my  article 
on  Mr.  London?'* 

For  as  has  been  seen,  at  this  period  we  were  closely 
associated  with  the  old  magazine  of  the  Golden  West,  that 
had  cradled  the  first  bom  of  Bret  Harte's  genius;  even  I, 
urged  on  by  my  family,  had  dabbled  sporadically  and  un- 
ambitiously  at  certain  unimportant  book  reviewings.  Be- 
sides, had  not  my  maiden  position,  after  leaving  Mills  Col- 
lege, been  as  assistant  sub-scissors  in  the  Overland  sanc- 
tum? But  far  more  than  with  literary  leanings  was  I  oc- 
cupied, outside  my  office  hours,  with  University  of  Cali- 
fornia *^hops,''  and  ** proms,*'  and  ** senior  balls,"  to  say 
nothing  of  week-end  yachting  on  San  Francisco  Bay,  horse- 
back rides,  and  youth's  joy  of  living  generally. 

Jack  beamed  upon  me  from  under  his  marked,  mobile 
brows  that  just  touched  over  the  square  bridge  of  a  pre- 
cisely not-too-short  nose: 

**Is  it  a  go.  Miss  Kittredge? — I'll  hold  you  to  that! 
And  I'll  send  you  my  duplicate  proof-sheets  soon,  so  you 
won't  have  to  wait  for  Hie  book." 

When  we  parted  he  asked,  meanwhile  rolling  and  light- 
ing a  cigarette  with  quick,  definite  motions  of  his  tapering 
fingers : 

^^Mrs.  Eames,  may  I  bring  a  friend  to  see  you?  His 
name  is  Herman  Whitaker,  *  Jim'  we  call  him,  and  he  can 
give  you  lots  of  points  about  me  that  I  can't  think  of,  for 
your  article." 

An  early  night  was  determined  upon,  and  the  engage- 
ment was  fulfilled,  shortly  followed  by  a  second.  While 
my  aunt's  interviews  with  Mr.  Whitaker  were  in  progress, 
it  devolved  upon  me  to  entertain  their  subject. 

Of  these  occasions,  nothing  consecutive  lives  in  memory, 
and  only  two  incidents  stand  out:  one,  that  I  com- 
plied with  my  aunt's  request  to  play  on  the  piano  for 


PROLOGUE  9 

Mr.  London,  she  having  discovered  his  intense  fondness 
for  music;  the  other,  that  I  introduced  him  to  my  **den*' 
where,  among  other  cherished  objects,  were  my  books,  re- 
productions of  my  favorite  marbles  and  paintings,  and  an 
absurdly  elaborate  little  tea-table.  I  had  the  feeling  that 
he  was  brightly  aware  of  the  feminine  individuality  of  the 
room;  and  he  showed  interest  in  my  various  girlish  activ- 
ities, whether  in  music,  or  drawing,  riding,  even  dancing. 
Years  afterward  that  rosy  little  apartment,  Venus  Crouched 
and  all,  figured  as  Dede  Mason's,  in  ** Burning  Daylight." 
**I  never  danced  a  step  in  my  life,"  he  regretted 
bashfully.  **  Never  seemed  to  have  time  to  learn  those 
soft,  lovely  ways  of  young  people.  But  I  like  to  see  danc- 
ing." 

For  the  music  and  the  books  he  was  almost  equally 
hungry.  Fled  beyond  recall  is  the  memory  of  what  I 
played,  except  that  he  asked  if  I  had  the  de  Koven  **  Re- 
cessional"— Kipling's  verses;  and  he  told  me  he  some- 
times bicycled  to  San  Jose  to  visit  friends,  and  there  he 
had  heard  the  song.  It  happened  that  I  was  able  to  gratify 
him,  since  I  possessed  quite  a  repertory  of  vocal  music ;  for 
although  no  singer,  I  played  accompaniments  unprofes- 
sionally  in  the  Bay  region  concerts. 

Together  we  several  times  hummed  through  the  stately 
invocation,  and  Jack  was  all  alight  with  emotion,  his  great 
eyes  shining,  while  he  begged  for  it  over  and  over.  He 
had  no  apparent  singing  voice,  although  to  a  pleasanter, 
more  expressive  speaking  tone  I  had  never  listened,  es- 
pecially when  he  descanted  upon  Kipling. 

But  more  vividly  than  any  other  picture  of  him  at  that 
time,  he  rises  standing  by  my  side  at  the  tall  book-case  in 
my  **den."  His  glowing  eyes  ranged  rapidly  over  the  vol- 
umes, and  he  seemed  in  a  fine  fervor,  murmuring  titles  and 
authors  or  touching  the  backs  with  his  small  hands.  Soon 
we  were  talking  very  fast,  discussing  works  we  had  both 
read,  and  he  nrged  me  not  to  neglect  Thomas  Hardy's 


10      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

**Jude  the  Obscure."  **Tes8  of  the  D ^Urbervilles "  had 
not  come  his  way.  This  I  lent  him,  together  with  Maurice 
Hewlett's  **The  Forest  Lovers''  and  *^ Flood  Tide,"  by 
Sallie  P.  McLean  Green. 

And  once,  turning  toward  him,  I  met  a  pair  of  fathom- 
less sea-blue  eyes,  and  experienced  a  sudden  and  unexpected 
impact  of  his  mental  and  physical  vitality ;  felt  at-one  with 
him  for  a  high  instant,  knew  his  spiritual  dignity,  rec- 
ognized him  for  the  warm,  human  creature  that  he  was. 
The  moment  passed  quickly,  and  he  was  assuring  me,  un- 
asked, that  he  had  **a  conscience  about  books,"  and  would 
take  the  best  care  of  mine.  Through  the  irony  of  chance, 
some  one  spilled  a  bottle  of  ink  over  the  cover  of  ** Flood 
Tide, ' '  to  Jack  London 's  undying  indignation  and  remorse. 
To  this  day  I  treasure  the  stained  thing. 

Often  in  later  years,  he  and  I  wondered,  had  we  been 
further  thrown  together,  if  we  should  have  come  to  care  the 
whole  way  for  each  other.  And  we  usually  agreed  that  the 
hour  was  not  then.  **You  came  in  my  great  need,"  he 
would  muse.  *  *  That  early  my  great  need  had  not  developed, 
or  else  I  did  not  recognize  it." 

The  second  of  these  calls  occurred,  I  think,  in  the  week 
of  March  26.  I  aim  to  be  thus  explicit,  because  of  headlong 
happenings  in  the  succeeding  week.  Of  what  led  to  our 
making  an  appointment  I  am  not  sure ;  most  likely  he  was 
sketching  his  college  career  for  me,  which,  owing  to  re- 
sponsibilities and  lack  of  money,  had  been  limited  to  half 
his  Freshman  year.  Be  this  as  it  may,  there  was  to  me 
some  unfamiliar  purlieu  of  the  staid  university  town  that 
he  thought  would  be  of  interest.  With  mutual  amuse- 
ment over  the  gaiety  that  would  be  added  to  the  academic 
precincts  by  spectacle  of  man  a-wheel  and  woman  a-horse, 
we  decided  upon  Saturday  afternoon,  April  the  seventh. 

Meanwhile,  one  Saturday  there  had  arrived  the  prom- 
ised proof-sheets  of  **The  Son  of  the  Wolf,"  and  when  I 
returned  home  early  for  my  long  ride,  on  the  tiny  dresser 


PROLOGUE  11 

I  found  waiting  the  long,  printed  slips.  While  unpinning 
my  hat  I  started  to  read.  I  neither  rose  nor  finished  re- 
moving the  sailor,  until  my  streaming  eyes  had  lifted  from 
the  last  word  of  the  last  tale. 

For  before  the  first  few  sheets  had  been  turned  down,  I 
had  become  thrall  to  the  wonder  and  wisdom  and  artistry 
of  **The  White  Silence,**  profoundly  aware  of  the  aware- 
ness of  this  young  protagonist  of  nature's  primordial 
forces,  his  apperception  of  the  world  in  which  he  lived,  and 
of  the  heart  of  man  and  beast,  aye,  and  of  woman — all  hu- 
man and  fallible,  but  shot  through  with  the  fineness  and 
courage  of  the  spirit  of  nobility.  This  story,  one  of  his 
first,  contains  some  of  the  most  masterly  of  the  passages 
which  set  him  amongst  the  young  lords  of  language.  In 
Mason's  parting  words  are  shown  Jack's  love  of  his  own 
race,  and  for  children.  Indeed,  he  let  us  in  upon  nearly  all 
of  himself  in  that  story.  In  most  of  the  stories  I  noticed 
that  he  never  seemed  to  be  far  from  the  consideration  of 
death.  His  artistry  lingered  caressingly  about  the  final 
destiny  of  man  and  animal. 

Throughout  the  long  afternoon,  thrilled  alike  with  the 
splendid  repose  and  the  crackling  action  of  the  work,  shaken 
with  its  power,  there  blended  with  spiritual  emotion  the 
conviction  that  I  had  no  business  with  the  reviewing  or 
criticizing  of  such  brain-stuff  as  Jack  London's.  For- 
asmuch as  I  was  intellectually  indolent,  I  even  felt  no  in- 
citement to  bestir  myself.  I  would  not  touch  the  thing,  I 
declared  first  to  the  four  walls  of  the  den,  later  to  my 
aunt,  who  stood  petrified  before  this  breakdown  of  my 
accustomed  certitude. 

In  after  years,  many  were  the  times  Jack  London  half 
seriously  if  laughingly  charged  that  my  unalterable  de- 
cision was  due,  in  the  last  analysis,  to  occurrences  of  the 
ensuing  week.  But  I  plead,  now  as  always,  complete  in- 
nocence. Aside  from  my  being  more  or  less  absorbed  in 
another  and  very  different  person,  the  man  Jack  London 


12      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

dwelt  in  my  consciousness  little  more  tenaciously  than  an 
unusual  book  or  play. 

On  Wednesday  evening,  April  fourth,  I  found  a  type- 
written note  awaiting  me  at  home.  This  must  have  been 
tossed  into  the  waste  basket,  for  I  have  not  seen  it  since. 
But  it  was  worded  something  like  this — ^he  never  lost  many 
hours  weeding  out  formal  titles: 
**Dear  Charmian: 

**It  will  be  impossible  for  me  to  keep  that  engagement  next 
Saturday.  My  letter  to  your  aunt  by  this  mail  will  explain.  Some- 
time in  the  future,  maybe. 

**  Sincerely  yours, 

**Jaek  London.'* 

As  I  finished  reading,  Auntie  came  in,  real  distress 
in  her  face,  for  she  had  grown  truly  fond  of  her  lovable 
friend,  an  affection  which  he  reciprocated.  In  her  hand 
was  a  similarly  typed  missive,  covering  a  page  and  a  half. 
** Listen  to  this,''  she  said  in  a  dead  voice,  and  read  to  me 
the  unexpected  contents,  which  were  Jack's  vindication  for 
the  suddenness  of  his  proceeding.    I  copy: 

'*1130  East  15th  St., 
"Oakland,  Calif., 
**  April  3,  1900. 
**My  dear  Mrs.  Eames: 

**Must  confess  you  have  the  advantage  of  me.  I  have  not 
yet  seen  my  book,  nor  can  I  possibly  imagine  what  it  looks 
like.  Nor  can  you  possibly  imagine  why  I  am  going  to  beg 
off  from  going  out  to  your  place  next  Saturday.  You  know  I  do 
things  quickly.  Sunday  morning,  last,  I  had  not  the  slightest  in- 
tention of  doing  what  I  am  going  to  do.  I  came  down  and  looked 
over  the  house  I  was  to  move  into — that  fathered  the  thought.  1 
made  up  my  mind.  Sunday  evening  I  opened  transactions  for  a 
wife ;  by  Monday  evening  had  the  affair  well  under  way ;  and  next 
Saturday  morning  I  shall  marry — a  Bessie  Maddern,  cousin  to 
Minnie  Maddern  Fiske.  Also,  on  said  Saturday,  as  soon  as  the 
thing  is  over  with  we  jump  out  on  our  wheels  for  a  three  days' 
trip,  and  then  back  and  to  work. 


PROLOGUE  13 

**  *The  rash  boy,'  I  hear  you  say.  Divers  deep  considerations 
have  led  me  to  do  this  thing ;  but  I  shall  over-ride  just  one  objec- 
tion— that  of  being  tied.  I  am  already  tied.  Though  single,  I 
have  had  to  support  a  household  just  the  same.  Should  I  wish  to 
go  to  China  the  household  would  have  to  be  provided  for  whether 
I  had  a  wife  or  not. 

**As  it  is,  I  shall  be  steadied,  and  can  be  able  to  devote  more 
time  to  my  work.  One  only  has  one  life,  you  know,  after  all, 
and  why  not  live  itT  Besides,  my  heart  is  large,  and  I  shall  be  a 
cleaner,  wholesomer  man  because  of  a  restraint  being  laid  upon 
me  in  place  of  being  free  to  drift  wheresoever  I  listed.  I  am  sure 
you  will  understand. 

**I  thank  you  for  your  kind  word  concerning  the  appearance 
of  *  The  Son  of  the  Wolf.  *  I  shall  let  you  know  when  I  am  coming 
out,  and  now,  being  located,  want  you  and  yours  to  come  and  see 
me  and  mine.  Will  settle  that  when  I  get  back.  Wedding  is  to  be 
private. 

**Send  announcement  later. 

**Very  sincerely  yours, 

**Jack  London." 

** Heavens  and  earth!''  wailed  my  aunt.  ** Think  what 
the  boy  is  doing!  A  sensible,  considered  marriage  for  a 
love-man  like  that!  'Only  one  life  .  .  .  and  why  not  live 
it?' — The  boy  must  be  crazy  to  dream  that  marrying  in 
cold  blood  is  living  life!" 

**No,  not  crazy,  but  perhaps  super-sane — or  thinks  he 
is,"  I  commented,  and  went  down  to  dinner,  probably  mar- 
veling how  ** God's  own  mad  lover"  may  sometimes  direct 
his  madness  into  quite  practical  channels. 

One  bitter  cold  morning  in  New  York  City,  in  the  winter 
of  1918,  I  was  ciillcd  over  the  telephone  by  Jack's  long- 
time friend,  Cloudeslcy  Johns: 

**0h,  Charmian — I've  been  looking  over  those  1899  and 
1900  letters  of  Jack's  I  promised  for  your  nso,  and  find 
this,  dated  March  10,  1900.    Listen: 

**  *Have  just  finished  reading  ''Forest  Lovers"  by 
Maurice  Hewlett.    Read  it  by  all  means.  .  .  .  Have  made 


14       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

the  acquaintance  of  Chamaian  Kittredge,  a  charming  girl 
who  writes  book  reviews,  and  who  possesses  a  pretty  little 
librar}^  wherein  I  have  found  all  these  late  books  which  the 
public  libraries  are  afraid  to  have  circulated.*  " 

Thus,  Jack  London,  who  always  decried  puns  on  my 
given  name,  was  himself  not  guiltless  in  this  reference  to 
our  passing  acquaintance  of  1900. 

Except  for  one  occasion,  when  he  brought  his  wife,  the 
pair  on  bicycles,  to  call  upon  us.  Jack  London  dropped 
out  of  my  sphere  of  interest,  save  insofar  as  I  desultorily 
followed  his  work.  My  aunt^s  article  duly  appeared  in 
the  1900  May  Overland,  while  their  friendship  grew  apace, 
until  he  came  to  address  her  in  letters  as  Mother  Mine. 
Later  in  the  year  I  sold  a  piece  of  Berkeley  land  in  which 
she  had  long  since  wisely  overborne  me  to  invest  my  sav- 
ings, and  a  portion  of  the  sum  realized  I  spent  on  a  fifteen 
months*  vacation  in  the  eastern  states  and  Europe.  One 
icy  morning,  away  up  in  Mt.  Desert  Island,  opening  an 
Oakland,  California,  paper,  I  stumbled  upon  this  item : 

''LONDON— In  this  city,  January  15,  1901,  to  the  wife  of 
Jack  London,  a  daughter." 

A  comment  read : 

**Jack  London,  the  brilliant  young  author  and  essayist,  is  re- 
ceiving congratulations  upon  the  advent  of  a  daughter.  Mr.  Lon- 
don is  satisfied  that  he  has  a  real  live  subject  for  the  study  of 
psychology  and  other  phenomena  in  which  he  is  so  much  inter- 


In  this  wise  the  young  adventurer,  who  has  been 
dubbed  **the  most  picturesque  figure  in  American  litera- 
ture,'* pursued  the  law-abiding  domesticity  he  had  calcu- 
lated so  nicely  as  his  duty  to  himself,  his  work,  and  society ; 
while  I,  like  Masefield's  *^  Young  April  on  a  bloodhorse  with 
a  roving  eye, '  *  rode  merrily  upon  my  own  dutiful,  dancing, 
musical  way  that  seemed  all-sufficient  to  my  needs,  unheed- 
ful  of  the  future. 


CHAPTER  I 

I 

THE  STUFF  OF  STABS 

ALL  in  all,  it  is  a  happy  fate  that  places  in  one 's  keeping 
the  mdimental  material,  blood-drift  and  magical 
spirit-stuff,  that  went  into  the  syntheses  of  this  resultant 
entity  whom  men  knew  as  Jack  London;  who  in  his  time 
was  loved  or  hated  as  they  reacted  to  his  spacious  nature 
with  its  varying  levels  of  humannesses,  its  winging  heights, 
its  drowning  depths. 

In  sifting  and  assembling  the  details  bearing  upon  Jack 
London's  origin,  the  keen  enjoyment  of  serving  his  readers 
joins  with  a  keener  zest  in  singing  his  pride  of  race;  in 
sounding  the  pean,  manifest  throughout  his  work,  of  his 
very  own  Anglo-Saxon  breed,  upon  which  he  gambled  his 
faith.  And  the  pleasure  increases  as  additional  verifica- 
tion is  uncovered  bearing  upon  his  direct  British  ancestry. 

From  the  heart  of  the  city  of  London  there  sprang  two 
large  families  that  bore  the  city's  name,  one  of  which 
branches  was  from  Semitic  seed,  as  witness  Meyer  London, 
erstwhile  Socialist  congressman  at  Washington,  D.  C,  and 
many  another  in  America;  while  in  P^ngland  one  of  my 
correspondents  is  a  Jewess  whom  I  address  as  **Mr8.  Jack 
London." 

The  Gentile  group,  it  seems,  owned  the  land  of  which 
Chatham  Square  is  now  part.  One  of  the  early  Londons 
had  a  sister  Elizabeth,  who  married  a  Wellington,  and 
lived  at  Chatham.  When  Jack  London's  sister  Eliza  was 
a  child,  she  heard  her  father  say,  referring  to  politics  in  his 
part  of  Pennsylvania:  **If  the  Wellingtons  and  McLough- 
lins  stood  together,  they'd  carry  the  elections!"    In  Jack's 


16       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

direct  ancestry,  the  first  person  in  my  available  record  is 
Sir  William  London,  who  foreswore  allegiance  to  Great 
Britain  and  betook  himself  to  America.  Here,  under  Gen- 
eral George  Washington,  he  fought  valiantly  for  his  ideals, 
thereby  sacrificing  no  mean  estates  in  the  tight  little  island ; 
for  these  were  promptly  confiscated  by  the  jealous  Crown, 
and  thereafter  figured  in  the  mill  of  Chancery.  I  can 
remember  Jack  London  saying:  **One  of  my  childhood 
recollections  is  of  mysterious  sessions  held  by  my  mother 
and  father,  from  which  I  gathered  that  he  had  been  ap- 
proached across  the  water  by  the  London  heirs  to  lend  a 
hand  in  fighting  for  his  great-grandfather's  seized  prop- 
erties." 

But  a  letter  from  one  Mary  London  Wilson,  seventy 
years  old,  writing  from  Lackawanna  County,  Pennsylvania, 
in  1904,  gives  the  following:  That  nearly  thirty  years  be- 
fore, an  advertisement  had  been  run  in  the  papers,  calling 
for  information  of  London  heirs  in  America.  For  Lord 
Eussell  London  had  died  in  England,  the  last  of  his  line, 
leaving  a  half  million  for  the  American  heirs  if  they  could 
be  located.  From  this  letter  one  learns  that  none  of  the 
Londons  knew  of  this  advertisement  for  nearly  two  years ; 
when  a  Charley  London,  with  a  lawyer,  voyaged  overseas, 
only  to  find  that  the  estate  had  gone  from  Chancery  to  the 
Crown. 

Sir  William  London's  son  William  named  his  son  Man- 
ley.  Manley  London  married  Sarah  Hess,  and  became  the 
sire  of  eight :  Mary,  Sarah,  Rebecca,  George,  Martha,  Eliza, 
Joseph,  and  John  London,  with  whom  the  direct  life-story 
of  Jack  London  begins.  And  these  Londons,  one  and  all, 
from  the  redoubtable  knight  down  to  and  including  his 
great-grandson  John,  took  part  in  each  and  every  warlike 
uprising  for  American  liberty.  It  would  not  be  out  of 
place  here  to  add  that  the  last  of  the  paternal  line,  nephews 
of  Jack  London,  namely,  Irving  Shepard  and  John  Miller, 


THE  STUFF  OF  STARS  17 

did  their  part  on  sea  and  land  in  this  twentieth  century 
greatest  of  all  struggles. 

John  London,  great-grandson  of  Sir  William,  first  saw 
the  light  in  Springfield  County,  Pennsylvania,  on  January 
11,  1828.  He  grew  up  on  a  farm,  receiving  the  education 
attainable  in  small  rural  schools  nearly  a  century  ago,  while 
he  learned  the  hard,  empirical  way  of  agriculture  at  that 
early  date. 

He  comes  next  into  view  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  as  boss 
of  a  section  gang  in  the  construction  of  a  great  railroad 
system  through  Pennsylvania.  One  day,  John  reported 
at  the  big  farm  residence  of  an  oflScial  of  the  road,  one 
Hugh  Cavett,  The  latter  being  absent,  his  daughter  Anna 
Jane  took  the  message.  Eyes  and  hands  struck  fire,  and  in 
two  weeks  the  pair  were  married ;  for  John  London  was  a 
bonnie  lad,  six  feet  in  his  homespun  socks,  square-shoul- 
dered, well-limbed,  fine-skinned,  with  comely  hands  and  feet, 
and  a  wealth  of  soft,  wavy  brown  hair — one  of  Jack  Lon- 
don's own  physical  characteristics.  **  Finest  head  of  hair 
I  ever  barberedl*'  old  Barber  Smith  of  San  Francisco  de- 
clared of  John's  luxuriant  mane  thirty  years  later.  And, 
like  Jack's,  John's  wide-set,  gray-blue,  dancing  eyes  and 
sweeping  ways  were  not  to  be  resisted  by  mortal  woman. 
What  mattered  it  to  him,  when  kind  called  to  kind,  that 
Anna  Jane 's  father  was  his  employer  and  a  rich  man  I  He 
was  the  owner  of  profitable  farmlands,  not  only  in  West- 
morel,  but  in  Township  Patton,  Alleghany  County;  a 
stockholder  in  the  Wheeling  Bridge  property  in  Virginia, 
and  an  investor  in  various  other  lucrative  schemes  that 
were  bringing  fortunes  to  foreseeing  men  of  Hugh  Cavett 's 
type.  Besides,  over  and  above  the  love  that  drew  the  man 
and  maid  so  quickly  together,  was  not  the  comely  girl 
John's  very  ideal  of  a  capable  country-house  mistress t 
After  the  wedding  John  London  came  to  live  for  a  time 
in  the  big  house,  where  he  began  the  founding  of  his  own 
line — a  generous  contribution  of  eleven  olive  branches, 


18       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

some  sprouting  twin-buds,  to  the  family  tree.  He  was 
absent  frequently,  sent  out,  I  gather,  by  his  father-in-law 
on  business  connected  with  the  railroad.  If  the  other  man 
was  at  all  put  out  by  the  forthright  methods  of  the  young 
couple  in  matters  matrimonial,  evidently  he  made  the  best 
of  the  situation  and  advanced  the  unexpected  son-in-law  in 
line  with  his  abilities.  Moreover,  the  sedately  arriving 
yearly  babies,  beginning  with  Tom  and  Mary,  could  not 
have  failed  to  erase  any  last  vestige  of  their  grandfather 's 
pique. 

John  London's  life-long  gallantry  is  illustrated  by  a  lit- 
tle incident  that  took  place  upon  his  homecoming  from  one 
of  these  trips.  Finding  his  bride  over-strained  by  the 
housewifely  labor  of  entertaining  for  weeks  a  full  com- 
plement of  relatives,  he  expressed  his  solicitude  by  dismiss- 
ing the  whole  tribe,  stating  his  reasons.  He  then  turned 
to  and  helped  Anna  Jane  clear  up  after  them.  In  quite 
another  setting,  half  a  century  later,  Jack  London  said 
to  me: 

**When  we  are  married,  much  as  I  love  an  open  house, 
if  I  cannot  afford  servants,  we'll  live  in  tents  so  there  can't 
be  any  entertaining!  No  domestic  drudgery  for  wife  of 
mine.  It's  your  life  and  my  life,  first.  Our  need  of  each 
other  lies  in  different  ways  than  circumscribed  domes- 
ticity." 

Very  congenial  seem  to  have  been  John  and  Anna  Jane. 
*  *  No  one  ever  saw  Jane  angry  or  disagreeable, ' '  reads  the 
yellowed  fragment  of  a  letter,  **nor  John  London  cross  or 
harsh.  He  was  always  protecting  some  one."  A  roving 
spirit  characterized  the  London  strain,  and  Anna  Jane  ap- 
pears to  have  been  in  no  wise  backward  in  aiding  and 
abetting  its  development  in  her  spouse.  From  the  fact  that 
she  is  not  mentioned  in  Hugh  Cavett's  will,  and  by  other 
data,  one  is  led  to  conclude  that  he  had  settled  her  portion 
upon  her  before  she  and  John  presently  went  adventuring 
up  through  Wisconsin,  with  an  eye  for  an  abiding-place, 


THE  STUFF  OF  STARS  19 

thence  drifting  down  to  Illinois,  where  John's  mother,  a 
remarkable  woman,  managed  her  own  stockfarm.  Five  sons 
she  gave  to  the  Civil  War,  meanwhile  she  continued  to 
develop  her  holdings. 

When  John  London  enlisted  in  the  War  of  the  Rebel- 
lion, it  was  from  a  Missouri  farm,  and  he  left  behind  Anna 
Jane  with  seven  children.  At  the  close  of  the  war,  with 
one  lung  out  of  action  as  the  result  of  a  combined  siege 
of  pneumonia  and  smallpox,  he  lived  with  his  family  in 
the  town  of  Moscow,  Muscatine  County,  Iowa,  in  a  two- 
story  white  house  on  the  town  square.  Here  Eliza  was 
bom.  On  the  opposite  side  of  the  square  stood  the  flour- 
mill,  and  John,  among  other  building  work,  superintended 
the  construction  of  a  bridge  across  Cedar  River,  the  stream 
that  furnished  power  to  the  mill.  Eliza  remembers  well 
the  close  proximity  of  the  watercourse.  Priscilla  was 
washing  and  getting  dinner,  and  asked  her  wee  sister  to 
run  and  see  if  papa  was  coming.  Eliza  toddled  to  the 
bench  on  which  she  was  wont  to  climb  to  the  window,  and 
pulled  over  upon  herself  the  steaming  tub  of  clothing  big 
sister  had  set  there.  She  never  forgot  how  quickly  papa, 
returning  from  his  bridge-building,  answered  the  arum- 
mons  to  aid  his  scalded  baby.  Later,  they  migrated  to  a 
quarter  section  of  government  land  outside  of  Moscow. 
When  his  wife  was  discovered  with  consumption,  John 
arranged  affairs  so  that  he  could  devote  himself  to  her, 
and  it  fell  in  with  their  mutual  dreams  to  play  at  gipsy- 
ing.  For  two  years  they  moved  over  the  prairies  in  a 
**  schooner,  * '  and  during  this  time  John  came  into  pleasant 
contact  with  the  Pawnees,  by  whom  he  swore  stoutly  to 
his  dying  day.  *'Play  fair  with  an  Indian,'*  he  held,  **and 
you  can  trust  him  with  anything,  anynvhere.  It's  wrong 
treatment  that's  made  sly  devils  of  'em." 

With  the  redskins  this  bom  out-doors  man  hunted  and 
trapped  raccoons  and  other  prairie  game;  and,  in  bee-hunt- 
ing, proved  of  keener  sight  than  the  aborigines  in  following 


20      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

to  its  honey  store  the  flight  of  a  homing  worker.  Later, 
when  the  Indians  were  camping  near  the  farm,  John 
branded  his  stock,  and,  unlike  some  of  his  neighbors,  never 
lost  a  single  head  to  any  marauder.  Play  the  game  squarely, 
was  his  philosophy,  and  you  stand  to  win. 

That  Anna  Jane  did  not  entirely  subscribe  to  this  whole- 
sale confidence  in  the  original  American  crops  out  in  an 
amusing  anecdote,  often  told  by  her  husband.  He,  despite 
the  railing  of  his  familiars,  had  blithely  loaned  to  an  old 
brave  fifty  cents  and  a  musket,  but  forgot  to  mention  the 
little  transaction  to  his  wife.  It  happened  that  she  was 
alone  when  the  chief  came  to  redeem  his  obligations,  and 
being  very  ill,  she  was  badly  frightened  when  his  gaunt 
frame  filled  the  doorway.  In  round  terms  she  ordered  him 
away;  but  the  Indian,  when  she  refused  to  touch  the  fifty 
cents,  strode  furiously  in,  grandly  threw  the  coins  into  the 
middle  of  the  floor,  and  stood  the  well-cleaned  gun  carefully 
in  its  corner.  Stalking  as  furiously  forth,  he  met  his  bene- 
factor coming  home,  to  whom  he  clipped  out  that  the  white- 
face  squaw  was  no  good — too  foolish  even  to  take  money  or 
guns  offered  her. 

Early  in  the  seventies,  John  London  found  himself  be- 
reft of  his  mate,  and  with  an  exceptionally  large  family 
to  consider.  One  of  the  sons,  Charles,  had  been  injured 
playing  our  national  game,  a  ball  catching  him  in  the  chest. 
His  father  conceived  a  plan  whereby  he  might  leave  the 
remaining  youngest  folk — three  of  the  eleven  had  died — 
temporarily  with  the  older  sisters  and  willing  neighbors, 
while  he  struck  out  farther  West  in  the  hope  of  benefiting 
the  ailing  boy.  All  was  satisfactorily  worked  out,  when 
John  weakened  to  the  wailing  of  Eliza  and  Ida,  hardly  more 
than  babies.  At  the  last  moment  a  rearrangement  was 
effected  that  included  the  pair,  as  well  as  two  friends,  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Chase.  They,  in  return  for  their  expenses  to  Cali- 
fornia, were  to  assume  the  care  of  Charles  and  his  two 
little  sisters. 


THE  STUFF  OF  STARS  21 

John  never  again  saw  Iowa.  Charles  grew  rapidly 
worse,  and  died  eleven  days  after  he  looked  upon  his  first 
ocean.  The  widower  disposed  of  the  farm,  and  with  the 
proceeds  established  himself  in  a  contracting  business  in 
San  Francisco.  Meantime  he  placed  Filiza  and  Ida  in  the 
Protestant  Orphan  Asylum  on  Haight  Street,  paying  for 
their  living  and  tuition.  Eliza  London  has  always  averred 
that  the  period  spent  in  the  quaint,  moss-grown  stone  home 
was  the  happiest  of  her  life,  and  with  the  tenaciousness 
of  a  devoted  nature,  she  had  soon  fastened  her  shy  affection 
upon  one  of  the  teachers.  Next  she  came  to  nourish  a  fond 
hope  that  her  beloved  papa  would  share  her  own  adoration 
for  teacher,  and  bring  to  his  girls  a  new  mother.  But  she 
was  doomed  to  secret  sorrow  and  tears,  for  papa,  although 
never  blind  to  a  pretty  face  and  womanly  traits,  was  even 
then  under  the  influence  of  wholly  a  different  person. 

Many  a  smart  beau  of  that  winsome  light-opera  star  of 
the  long  ago,  Kate  Castleton,  will  smile  with  awakened  mem- 
ories to  learn  that  a  sweet  friendship  existed  between  the 
lovable  young  singer  and  the  big,  quiet,  long-bearded  man 
from  the  Middle  West  who  had  such  a  way  with  him.  But 
it  was  not  she — and  another  ardent  desire  of  the  wee  Eliza, 
who  still  wore  a  ring  her  idol  had  sent  her,  went  glimmering 
with  the  first.  For  the  lady  of  her  father's  second  choice 
in  life  was  not  beautiful.  And  Eliza,  who  did  not  consider 
lovely  her  own  small,  expressive  face  with  its  deep-blue, 
black-lashed  London  eyes,  worshiped  beauty,  and  little 
considered  other  possible  attractiveness  in  herself  or  those 
about  her. 

Now  the  widower,  ever  alert  to  new  impres^ons  from 
the  world's  limitless  abundance,  never  convinced  but  there 
was  something  better  for  him  just  over  the  mutely  sum- 
moning horizon,  and  with  the  death  of  two  dear  ones  still 
quick  in  his  consciousness,  had  strayed  from  his  more  or 
less  strict  Methodist  outlook  and  observances  and  had 
become  enamored  of  the  doctrines  of  a  spiritualistic  cult. 


22      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Amongst  the  devout  sisters  of  this  group  of  seekers  after 
truth  he  met  Flora  Wellman,  a  tiny,  fair  woman  in  her 
early  thirties,  hailing  from  Massillon,  Ohio.  Once  more 
in  the  London  fashion,  John  wasted  no  moment  in  binding 
to  him  his  desire. 

The  next  visiting  day  at  the  orphanage,  on  which  he  had 
planned  to  escort  the  betrothed  to  meet  his  daughters,  found 
him  ill;  and  when  the  unsuspecting  Eliza  and  Ida  were 
bidden  to  the  stiff  reception-room,  imagine  their  astonish- 
ment to  see  an  unknown  woman,  hardly  above  their  own 
height,  rise  and  announce  that  she  was  to  be  their  new 
mother. 

Li  Jack  London  ^s  inheritance  through  his  mother,  again 
the  blood  of  Great  Britain  predominates,  for  Flora  Well- 
man  *s  ancestry  leads  back  to  England  and  Wales,  and  in- 
cludes strains  of  French  and  Dutch.  The  family  traces  its 
American  residence  to  pre-Eevolution  days.  Flora 's  father, 
Marshall  Daniel  Wellman,  was  bom  in  Augusta,  Oneida 
County,  New  York,  in  1800,  son  of  Betsy  Baker  and  Joel 
Wellman,  both  of  British  stock.  Joel  was  a  cooper,  plying 
his  trade  in  the  Syracuse  District  Salt  Wells.  When  Betsy 
died,  he  married  a  second  wife  who  in  turn  left  him  a 
widower.  Whereupon,  while  Marshall  and  a  brother  were 
yet  boys,  Joel  journeyed  to  the  headwaters  of  the  Allegheny 
Eiver,  where  the  three  built  and  launched  a  wondrous  house- 
boat, called  a  bateau,  and  made  the  voyage  to  Pittsburgh. 
Thence  the  bateau  floated  them  on  down  to  old  Beavertown, 
where  Joel  had  heard  there  was  a  demand  for  pork-  and 
whisky-barrels.  In  his  palmy  days,  Marshall  Wellman 
loved  to  boast  that  he  had  earned  a  reputation  of  turning 
out  the  best  tight  oaken  barrels  ever  seen  in  the  region  of 
BeavertoAvn. 

A  year  afterward  they  moved  farther  West,  this  time 
to  Wooster,  Ohio.  There,  from  the  ashes  of  timber  burned 
in  clearing  this  new  country,  Joel  and  his  sons  manufac- 
tured *^pot  ash,"  which  they  had  learned  was  one  of  the 


THE  STUFF  OF  STARS  23 

few  products  that  sold  for  cash  in  Pittsburgh.  When  he 
was  an  old  man,  Marshall  *  *  remembered  well  the  mountain 
of  stacked  ash  we  piled  up  south  of  the  town,  Wooster, 
near  the  Robinson  place.**  Once  a  sister  came  all  the  way 
from  New  York  to  see  their  land  of  promise;  but  she  be- 
came homesick  and  Marshall  escorted  her,  the  couple  on 
horses,  back  to  New  York.  While  still  under  twenty-one, 
he  took  a  contract  for  building  a  section  of  the  Allegheny 
Canal  in  Pennsylvania;  and  subsequently  Marshall  Well- 
man  rose  to  be  the  wealthiest  citizen  of  Massillon,  Ohio,  as 
wealth  was  accounted  in  those  days. 

Flora  Wellman,  bom  August  17, 1843,  was  the  youngest 
child  of  Marshall  Wellman  *s  family  of  five,  the  others  being 
Mary  Marcia,  Hiram  B.,  Susan,  and  Louisa.  Her  mother, 
Eleanor  Garrett  Jones,  bom  in  1810  at  Brookfield,  Trumbull 
County,  Ohio,  had  married  Marshall  in  1852.  Her  father, 
a  devout  circuit- rider  of  Welsh  extraction,  called  ** Priest*' 
Jones,  well  beloved  and  valued  adviser  to  the  countryside, 
had  been  a  pioneer  settler  and  upbuilder  of  Ohio  when 
that  state  was  thought  of  as  the  whole  West.  He  passed 
away  an  honored  member  of  Wooster  *s  society,  full  of  good 
works,  and  incidentally  leaving  a  comfortable  fortune  to 
his  heirs. 

The  mother  died  shortly  following  Flora's  birth,  and 
Wellman  remarried  when  she  was  four  years  of  age.  His 
bride  was  Julia  Frederica  Hurxthal,  the  Hurxthals  being 
another  of  the  pioneer  Massillon  families  that  had  amassed 
riches. 

The  little  girl  was  nurtured  in  an  atmosphere  of  luxury 
and  culture,  her  clothes  and  her  hats  and  her  boots,  her 
books,  and  her  teachers,  all  especially  ordered  and  deliv- 
ered from  New  York  City;  and  she  has  told  me  that  she 
possessed  distinct  talents  in  music  and  elocution.  That 
no  due  family  observance  might  be  neglected,  Marshall 
Wellman  even  summoned  a  portrait  painter  from  New 


24      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

York,  who  immortalized  all  the  members  of  the  household 
on  his  canvases. 

**Few  mothers  of  great  men  have  been  happy  women," 
some  one  has  written,  and  Flora  Wellman  seems  to  have 
been  no  exception.  Capacity  for  happiness  may  have  been 
a  part  of  her  heritage,  but  fate  was  extraordinarily  cruel. 
Somewhere  around  her  thirteenth  year,  I  have  it  from  her, 
she  fell  victim  to  a  fever  that  physically  stunted  her,  and 
probably  accounted  for  her  short  sparse  hair  and  for  certain 
melancholic  tendencies.  **I  cannot  remember  the  day 
when  my  mother  was  not  old,'^  Jack  London  more  than 
once  declared,  while  relatives,  and  friends  of  long  standing, 
have  asserted  in  her  advanced  years,  *  *  She  has  always  been 
very  much  as  you  see  her  now.''  It  would  seem  that  the 
fever  almost  entirely  robbed  the  unfortunate  young  soul  of 
youth  and  gladness.  Her  eyes  were  ever  fixed  upon  decline 
and  dissolution,  or  peering  into  the  hereafter  of  her  spir- 
itualistic faith. 


CHAPTER  n 

BIRTH 

JACK  LONDON  was  born  in  San  Francisco,  California, 
on  January  12,  1876.  At  two  o^clock  of  the  afternoon 
came  her  woman  *s  hour,  that  is  the  most  lonely  of  all  hours 
known  to  the  human,  and  Flora  London's  voice  was  joined 
by  the  cry  of  her  first  and  only  child.  He  weighed  nine 
pounds,  which  was  one-tenth  of  his  mother's  weight. 
She  called  him  John  Griffith, — the  middle  name  being  in 
memory  of  Griffith  Everhard,  a  favorite  nephew.  Flora 
and  John  London,  having  no  formal  church  affiliations,  the 
infant  was  never  christened,  and  answered  to  ** Johnnie" 
until  the  day  when  deliberately  he  selected,  and  made  splen- 
didly his  own,  the  terse  British  name  that  has  girdled  the 
world  wherever  books  and  adventure,  and  abundant  life 
are  known. 

The  house  in  which  he  first  expanded  his  fine  young 
chest  and  made  himself  audible,  was  at  Third  and  Bryant 
streets,  occupied  by  the  Slocmns,  friends  of  Flora,  the 
master  of  the  home  being  a  prosperous  member  of  a  well- 
kno>vn  printing  establishment.  Contrary  to  the  more  or 
less  general  belief  that  Jack  London  was  bom  in  a  shanty 
on  a  sand-lot,  the  dwelling  was  a  large  and  not  inelegant 
one.  For  this  had  been  a  fashionable  neighborhood  in  the 
changing  fortunes  of  the  gay  western  metropolis,  and  had 
not  yet  lapsed  into  the  subsequent  ** south  of  Market"  social 
disfavor. 

Unluckily,  Flora  was  unable  long  to  nourish  her  lusty 
babe,  and  he  speedily  grew  thin  and  blue.  John  London 
looked  about  and  discovered  among  the  men  working  for  him 

26 


26      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

one  whose  wife  had  lost  her  latest  bom  and  who  was  willing 
to  become  wet-nurse  to  the  white  child.  Mrs.  Prentiss  was 
a  full-blooded  negress,  and  proud  of  it.  Many  a  time  Jack 
London  has  told  how  she  was  bartered  on  the  block  for  a 
high  price,  while  her  mother  was  sold  down  the  river.  Now 
she  became  *  *  Mammy  Jenny  * '  to  an  appreciative  foster-son 
whose  faithful  and  affectionate  care  years  afterward  she 
was  until  his  death ;  since  then,  I  have  as  naturally  assumed 
the  trust,  over  and  above  the  provisions  of  his  last  will  and 
testament. 

It  was  a  veritable  cherub  that  the  black  woman  under- 
took to  mother  in  her  essential  capacity,  white  as  snow, 
exquisitely  modeled,  with  dimpled  hands  and  feet  surpris- 
ingly small  for  his  firm,  plump  torso.  He  soon  became 
pink-cheeked,  with  eyes  of  violet,  his  seraphic  face  haloed 
in  white-gold  ringlets  too  fragile-fine  to  seem  real  to  the 
worshiping  African,  the  devotion  of  whose  deprived  heart 
was  instant  and  abiding  toward  the  **teenty,  helpless  an- 
gel.'*  In  the  Cloudesley  Johns  correspondence  I  find  this 
from  Jack :  *  *  Hair  was  black  when  I  was  born,  then  came  out 
during  an  infantile  sickness  and  returned  positively  white 
— so  white  that  my  negress  nurse  called  me  *  cotton  ball. '  ' ' 

When  the  baby  was  returned  to  his  family  they  had 
moved  to  a  cottage  on  Bernal  Heights.  And  now  upon 
the  maternal  Eliza  devolved  most  of  the  rearing  of  her 
half-brother,  indoors  and  out,  in  the  energetic  year  spent 
in  the  cottage.  The  perambulator  containing  the  baby 
boy,  wheeled  by  a  no  less  azure-eyed  girl-child,  became 
a  familiar  object  of  an  afternoon  on  the  hilly  streets. 

John  London,  man  of  the  open  field,  with  clinging  con- 
servative principles  in  money  matters,  was  no  match  for 
the  swift  Western  commercial  spirit.  But  he  recognized  his 
inability  in  time  to  avert  disaster,  closed  his  contract- 
ing office,  and  accepted  a  position  with  the  J.  M.  Flaven 
Company's  famous  IXL  Emporium.  In  his  canvassing 
about  the  spreading  city,  built  upon  its  many  hills,  he  was 


BIRTH  27 

further  enlightened  of  this  Farthest  West  expansive  atmos- 
phere. His  bubbling  sense  of  humor  unavoidably  entered 
into  many  a  conflict  with  a  fading  Methodist  viewpoint — 
as  one  day,  on  a  steep  cobbled  declivity  of  Telegraph  Hill, 
when  he  paused  to  rest  his  benevolent,  well-shaped  hand 
upon  the  towseled  pate  of  the  handsomest  of  a  group  of 
urchins  playing  in  the  street.  *  *  What 's  your  name,  sonny  ?  *  * 
he  asked  kindly.  In  later  years,  one  of  the  best  yarns  of 
this  indefatigable  story-teller  wound  up  with  the  shock  he 
had  sustained  from  this  pure,  sweet  little  child:  **  *What 
t*e  hell  business  is  it  of  youm  what's  my  name! — an'  I 
ain't  your  sonny,  neither  1'  '* 

The  next  on  the  list  of  baby  Johnnie's  unremembered 
homes  was  a  new  six-room  flat  opposite  the  old  Plaza 
on  Folsom  Street,  owned  by  a  family  of  Cohens  who  dwelt 
in  the  lower  apartments.  John  London  had  steadily 
bettered  his  income,  and  was  now  employed  by  the  Singer 
Sewing  Machine  Company,  as  general  agent  and  collector. 
To  this  day  one  might  find  a  few  of  the  decayed  mansions 
of  the  section's  past  grandeur.  In  one  of  these,  even  then 
long  since  converted  into  a  boarding  house,  I  once  went  to 
take  piano  lessons.  My  teacher  dwelt  in  the  inexhaustible 
fragrance  of  old  cedar  paneling,  and  once  surreptitiously 
led  me  down  a  maze  of  marble  staircases  into  the  nether 
regions  of  the  imposing  pile.  There  my  ravished  eyes  roved 
about  dismantled  dining  halls  of  maple  and  gilt,  and  a 
fabulous,  echoing  ballroom  walled  in  mirrors  like  Ver- 
sailles; and  the  ceiling,  I  verily  believe,  was  a  copy  of 
Rubens'  plump  charmers  and  cherubs  in  Queen  Wilhel- 
mina's  House  in  the  Wood,  near  the  Hague. 

But  Flora,  never  content  for  long  in  any  spot,  found  a 
home  she  liked  better,  this  time  at  the  blind  end  of  Natoma 
Street.  Here  it  seemed  as  if  they  had  come  upon  the 
nearest  that  San  Francisco  ever  conceded  to  their  desire. 
For  the  two-storied  roomy  house  waa  set  in  a  sort  of  court 
shaped  by  the  abrupt,  vine-fenced  termination  of  the  thor- 


28      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

oughfare.  It  was  a  blossomy  oasis  in  the  engulfing  metro- 
politan life  of  the  ambitious  city,  through  tacit  agreement 
kept  neat  by  the  dwellers  therein,  who  carefully  tended 
their  window  pots  and  flowering  strips  of  garden  soil. 

Not  to  restlessness,  however,  but  to  an  epidemic  of 
diphtheria  was  due  the  subsequent  exodus  of  the  Londons 
from  San  Francisco.  The  baby  fell  a  victim,  followed  by 
his  shadow,  Eliza,  agonizing  doubly  on  his  account.  The 
terrified  mother  turned  to  and  heroically  nursed  the  pair 
of  them — as  when  a  girl  she  had  with  deathly  fear  courage- 
ously brought  through  smallpox  her  sister  Mary's  son, 
Harry  Everhard.  To  this  day  Eliza  holds  that  a  certain 
mortuary  suggestion  from  her  stepmother  whipped  her 
to  consciousness  and  a  winning  fight  for  life.  Both  she 
and  Johnnie  were  lying  in  what  the  doctor  pronounced  a 
condition  bordering  upon  dissolution.  The  exhausted  but 
thrifty  Flora  asked  him  if  it  would  be  feasible  to  bury 
them  in  the  same  coffin,  when  the  aroused  girl  opened  hor- 
rified eyes  and  feebly,  but  unmistakably,  protested. 

The  physician,  having  proved  a  poor  judge  of  their  re- 
sistance, dropped  back  upon  the  time-honored  recommenda- 
tions of  a  sojourn  in  the  country.  But  business  had  to  be 
business  to  the  paternal  provider,  and  with  his  agricultural 
intentions  dear  as  ever  to  his  heart,  this  change  was  re- 
garded from  the  viewpoint  of  an  enduring  rural  residence. 
The  first  lap  toward  this  end  was  merely  to  the  large 
San  Francisco  suburb  of  Oakland,  to  the  east  across  the 
bay,  that  wide  expanse  of  capricious  waters  that  set  in  Jack 
London's  eyes  the  far  away  look  of  the  Argonaut.  Thus 
Oakland,  in  the  County  of  Alameda,  for  him  came  to  be  the 
center  to  which  he  always  referred  as  his  home  town,  from 
which  he  fared  forth  to  the  adventures  in  which  he  recap- 
tured the  spirit  of  romance  for  a  growingly  blase  civiliza- 
tion. 


CHAPTER  ni 

BOYHOOD 
(Oakland,  Alameda,  San  Mateo) 

MY  father  was  the  best  man  I  have  ever  known, * '  Jack 
London  was  wont  to  say,  **too  intrinsically  good  to 
get  ahead  in  the  soulless  scramble  for  a  living  that  a  man 
must  cope  with  if  he  would  survive  in  our  anarchical 
capitalist  system. '* 

John  London  once  more  plunged  into  business  for  him- 
self, working  toward  his  pastoral  goal.  His  savings  were 
applied  to  the  leasing  and  cultivating  of  a  tract  of  land 
adjoining  the  race  track  at  Emeryville,  suburb  of  Oakland 
near  the  eastern  bay  shore,  and  hard  by  Shell  Mound  Park, 
described  in  *  *  Martin  Eden. ' '  With  the  produce,  a  green- 
goods  store  was  opened  at  Seventh  and  Campbell  Streets. 
This  junction  was  known  as  The  Point  by  Oaklanders  of 
that  day.  Here  the  local  and  main  line  trains  left  terra 
firma  and  proceeded  out  upon  a  fearsome,  teredo-incrusted 
trestle  far  into  the  bay  to  where  the  largest  ferry  steamers 
in  the  world  conveyed  passengers  to  and  from  San  Fran- 
cisco. I  recall  an  occasion,  in  girlhood,  when  I  paddled 
in  the  tiny  gray-green  surf  at  The  Point,  and  then  went 
indoors  for  a  salt  tubbing  in  water  pumped  from  the  bay 
and  heated. 

Into  this  fresh  venture  John  put  his  savings  and  his 
faith,  and,  despite  a  rigorous  honesty  that  ranged  the  most 
luscious  of  his  justly  famed  tomatoes  at  the  lowest  tiers  of 
the  boxes — the  ** culls"  went  to  less  fortunate  neighbors — 
he  might  have  prospered  had  he  let  well  enough  alone.  But 
to  his  bosom  he  took  a  shifty  partner,  one  Stowell,  in 

30 


30      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

whose  slippery  hands  he  placed  the  thriving  little  shop 
while  he  traveled  in  outlying  districts.  These  absences 
were  for  the  purpose  of  taking  orders  and  introducing  his 
fruit  and  vegetables,  which  were  the  best  Oakland  ever  en- 
joyed; and  also  for  buying,  at  the  Stone  and  the  Meek 
orchards  between  San  Leandro  and  Haywards,  to  fill  the 
demand  of  his  own  enlarging  trade. 

One  week-end,  arriving  back  unsuspecting  from  a  trip, 
he  discovered  that  he  had  been  figuratively  thrown  out, 
sold  out,  cleaned  out,  by  his  partner.  Stowell  must  have 
been  a  clever  crook  and  known  his  man  well,  for  John  was 
quite  unequal  to  the  tangle  in  which  he  found  himself  when 
he  appealed  to  the  law.  Fight  he  did,  and  manfully ;  only 
a  pitiful  few  dollars  remained  to  him  at  the  end  of  a  legal 
battle. 

But  with  the  recurrent  youthful  optimism  that  was  his 
chiefest  personal  charm,  he  shook  those  broad  spare  shoul- 
ders free  of  the  sordid  morass,  threw  back  his  curly  poll, 
and  turned  toward  the  race  track  garden,  from  which  he 
began  supplying  the  firm  of  Porter  Brothers,  commission 
merchants,  who  sold  his  fast  augmenting  product. 

Four  successive  homes  the  family  occupied  during  this 
phase  in  their  fortunes — one  at  Twelfth  and  Wood  Streets, 
another  on  Seventh  near  Center  and  Peralta.  And  then 
they  essayed  to  cheer  the  premises  known  as  the  Haunted 
House,  the  rumor  being  that  a  man  had  hanged  himself 
from  a  beam  therein.  Nothing  daunted,  Mrs.  London 
pitched  in  and  established  a  kindergarten,  in  business  rela- 
tions with  a  Mrs.  Kegler.  Flora's  knowledge  of  music 
assisted  capitally  in  this  connection,  and  she  taught  a  few 
outside  pupils  as  well.  Although  Eliza  and  Jack  both  re- 
ceived piano  instructions  from  her  in  childhood,  they  have 
always  united  in  declaring  that  they  never  saw  her  play. 
Her  method  seemed  based  upon  the  mechanics  of  the 
process,  with  no  attempt  to  induce  the  harmonies  by  per- 
sonal example. 


BOYHOOD  31 

Jack's  own  memories  reached  to  this  house,  mainly  be- 
cause it  was  the  stage  of  his  debut  in  trousers — albeit 
hidden  by  a  jumper.  But  his  infantile  pride  for  once 
soared  above  shrinking  self -consciousness,  and  rebelled  at 
the  ignominy  of  this  concealment.  He  was  wont,  in  the 
most  public  places,  to  lift  said  jumper,  that  all  men  might 
bear  witness  to  the  uniform  of  his  sturdy  sex.  An  adorable 
little  man  he  must  have  been.  Eliza  found  there  was  hardly 
any  possession  her  schoolgirl  friends  would  not  part  with 
or  lend  in  exchange  for  the  privilege  of  taking  care  of  him, 
or  having  him  sit  with  them  at  their  desks.  He  went  to 
the  highest  bidder,  of  course ;  and  his  sister  munched  many 
an  otherwise  unattainable  apple  or  bun,  or  pleasured  in  a 
borrowed  ring  or  bracelet. 

Matters  began  to  mend,  and  from  a  subsequent  home  on 
Twelfth  Street  near  Castro,  they  moved  upon  fifteen  acres 
of  the  Davenport  property  in  Alameda,  where  now  looms 
the  Clark  Pottery  Company's  factory.  So  full  of  strange 
happenings  are  our  lives,  it  was  in  this  selfsame  Pottery 
the  red  Spanish  tiling  was  fashioned  to  crown  Jack  Lon- 
don's **Wolf  House"  on  Sonoma  Mountain — futile  dream- 
house,  three  years'  building,  that  in  a  single  midnight 
puffed  out  in  flame  and  smoke  I 

John's  success  led  him  to  spread  operations  to  other 
convenient  locations,  one  of  which  was  the  later  site  of 
the  Smith  Borax  Works.  Still  other  fruitful  acres  branched 
out  from  both  sides  of  the  old  ** Narrow  Gauge"  trans-bay 
railway  on  the  Alameda  flats.  Through  commission  mer- 
chants his  produce,  ever  maintaining  its  standard  of  super- 
excellence,  now  found  ready  market  in  San  Francisco. 
Long  after  his  death,  Eliza's  ear  one  day  was  caught  by  a 
familiar  note,  caroled  by  a  street  hawker.  She  asked  if 
the  words  he  was  singing,  **J.  L.  Com,"  meant  anything 
to  him.  Needless  to  say,  to  his  bucolic  intelligenoe,  they 
signified  nothing  more  nor  less  than  mere  com.     And  it 


32       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

pleased  Eliza  to  inform  the  man  that  her  father  had  been, 
so  to  speak,  the  father  of  his  wares. 

Like  a  bad  dream,  the  little  Jack  always  remembered 
his  first  intoxication,  which  took  place,  at  the  tender  age 
of  five,  just  after  he  came  to  Alameda.  It  was  his  task  to 
toddle  at  noonday  with  a  tin  lard-pail  of  beer  out  into  the 
fields  where  John  London  mopped  his  brow  amidst  his 
springing  green  creations.  One  day,  the  frothy  contents 
overrunning  and  biting  into  the  scratches  on  his  chubby 
legs,  the  small  man  was  seized  with  a  desire  to  taste  the 
stuff  that  so  refreshed  his  elders.  It  was  not  the  first  time 
that  out  of  a  vast  latent  curiosity  he  had  fallen  for  the 
temptation  to  test  forbidden  choice  morsels  intended  for 
older  folk,  which  up  to  now  he  had  found  good.  Also,  the 
pail  was  too  full,  and  his  calves  smarted.  Into  the  crackly 
foam  he  buried  his  hot  little  face  to  the  eyes,  hoping  the 
taste  would  improve  when  he  reached  the  yellow  liquid.  It 
did  not  improve;  but  driven  by  that  persistence  that  all 
through  his  career  forced  him  to  complete  what  he  had 
begun,  the  doughty  youngling  drained  what  was  to  his  tiny 
paunch  a  mighty  draught.  Sorely  that  same  thirsty  organ 
must  have  been  crowded,  for  alarm  spread  in  him  to  see 
how  the  beer  had  receded.  With  a  stick,  remembering  how 
stale  brew  was  made  to  effervesce,  he  stirred  what  was  left, 
and  was  rewarded  by  a  crop  of  white  bubbles  that  would 
deceive  the  onlooker.  John  London,  sweating  prodigiously 
and  eager  to  complete  his  furrow,  unnoticing  poured  the 
liquor  down  his  dry  throat  and  started  up  the  team,  his 
small  son  trotting  alongside. 

The  next  the  inebriated  baby  knew,  he  was  coming  to 
in  the  shade  of  a  tree,  in  his  fuzzy  brain  a  crushing;  terror 
of  flashing  steel  blades  and  great  shining  hooves  of  plung- 
ing horses.  Then  his  eyes,  dark  with  fear,  looked  up  into 
a  reassuring  bearded  face  that  bent  over  him,  its  solicitude 
and  relief  struggling  with  a  mirth  it  could  not  quite  control. 
Poor  little  wayfarer  in  the  fields  of  chance — he  had  reeled 


A 


JACK  LONDON  AT  ABOUT  9  YEARS— WITH  HIS  DOG  HOLLO 


BOYHOOD  33 

and  fallen  between  a  plowshare  and  the  hind  feet  of  the 
beasts,  and  only  the  plowman's  instant  halting  of  the  out- 
fit had  preserved  the  baby  from  being  cloven  and  turned 
under  with  the  soil. 

Another  vividly  remembered  if  lesser  childish  tragedy 
on  Alameda  ground  was  connected  with  his  building  in- 
stincts, and  it  came  about  in  this  way:  Myself  a  contem- 
porary child  in  Oakland,  transplanted  from  the  indolent 
Spanish  air  of  Southern  California,  I  remember  my  aunt 
and  uncle  and  the  neighbors  on  Thirty-fifth  Street  dis- 
cussing the  wonder-operetta  Satanella  which  they  had  at- 
tended in  the  Tivoli  Opera  House,  forbidden  pleasure  to 
one  so  young  as  I.  A  magical  performance  it  was,  if  my 
excited  imagining  was  correct,  of  inexplicable  appearings 
and  vanishings  of  sulphurous  deities,  with  all  the  glamour 
of  intermixed  Fairyland  and  Heaven  arraj^ed  against  black- 
and-red  but  enchanting  Sin.  Whilst  I  was  drinking  in  my 
elders'  reminiscent  snatches  of  libretto  and  score,  Johnnie 
London  actually,  with  his  own  rounded  orbs,  beheld  the  ab- 
sorbing spectacle.  Incited  thereby,  after  a  night  of  fire-illu- 
mined nightmare,  he  undertook  to  build  a  little  hell  of  his 
own  under  the  apple  tree  by  the  side  of  the  house.  He  was  as-' 
sisted  wonderingly  by  his  chum,  Theodore  Crittenden,  who, 
as  co-creator,  was  to  be  constituted  only  second  in  impor- 
tance to  his  superior's  own  Satanic  Majesty.  But  swifter 
hell  than  had  been  anticipated  broke  loose  when  the  Vice- 
Devil's  assiduous  spade  accidentally  split  open  the  prospec- 
tive Majesty's  chubby  nose,  and  Johnnie's  lurid  dream 
collapsed  in  gore  and  tears  on  sister  Eliza's  clean  pinafore. 

When  Jack  London  turned  sadly  from  the  disappointing 
soil  of  human  society  at  large,  to  solve  some  of  its  economic 
problems  in  the  undisappointing  if  wearied  land  that  he  so 
patiently  reclaimed,  he  sorrowed  from  year  to  year,  while 
his  terraced  hillsides  increased  their  yield,  that  John  Lon- 
don could  not  be  there  to  behold  and  rejoice : 

''My  one  greatest  regret,  always,  is  that  my  father  could 


34       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

not  live  to  share  my  prosperity,  * '  he  would  say.  *  *  Think  of 
the  lasting  joy  if  the  two  dear  old  soldiers,  your  father  and 
mine,  could  have  hved  here  on  the  Ranch  and  watched  my 
blades  of  grass  come  up  out  of  the  rejuvenated  soil — two 
blades  or  more  where  but  one  grew  when  I  came  upon  it!** 
Alas — the  years  are  many  since  that  pair  of  stalwart,  child- 
hearted  real  Americans,  bom  in  the  same  year,  laid  them- 
selves down  untimely. 

The  three  London  young  folk,  Eliza,  Ida,  and  Johnnie, 
attended  the  West  End  School,  Alameda,  on  Pacific 
Avenue  below  Webster  Street.  Eliza  was  just  being  gradu- 
ated from  grammar  grades  when  Johnnie  entered  his  first 
schoolroom  to  study.  Here  the  bashful  but  trusting  little 
chap  recited  his  first  *  Apiece'*  when  he  was  about  six,  and 
with  no  more  liking  for  public  speaking  than  was  his  in 
adult  life : 

*  *  Christmas  is  coming,  it  soon  will  be  here, 
The  very  best  time  in  all  of  the  year. 
I  am  counting  each  day  on  my  fingers  and  thumbs 
The  weeks  that  must  pass  before  Santa  Claus  comes. 
No  hard  words  to  spell,  no  writing,  no  sums; 
There's  nothing  but  playtime  when  Santa  Claus  comes." 

To  employ  his  own  words,  he  had  *^no  recollection  of 
being  taught  to  read  or  write,  *  *  and  *  *  could  do  both  at  the 
age  of  five.  *  *  Eliza  remembers  him  as  forever  with  a  book 
in  his  hands ;  and,  it  not  being  a  bookish  household,  he  must 
have  read  and  reread  from  the  days  when  she  had  *^read 
the  pictures  *  *  to  him  out  of  a  printed  linen  Mother  Goose. 
In  this  manner  she  had  beguiled  him  to  slumber  on  lonely 
evenings  in  San  Francisco,  when  Mr.  and  Mrs.  London 
were  out,  probably  with  their  spiritualist  friends.  In  the 
ten  years  that  the  girl  constantly  companioned  her  half- 
brother,  she  found  him  intensely  alive  to  impressions, 
quick  to  grasp  meanings  but  half  explained,  and  early 
to  make  use  of  his  available  vocabulary.    Of  large  words 


BOYHOOD  35 

he  heard  few;  but  out  of  his  simple  store  he  sought  and 
applied  the  precise  best  ones  adapted  to  express  his  thought. 

But  his  glorious  endowment  of  normality  was  pervaded 
by  a  sensitiveness  that  comported  with  the  delicate  skin; 
the  aristocratic  hands  and  feet  and  small-boned  frame  that 
never,  in  adolescence,  bore  up  unharmed  under  the  de- 
mands of  contradictory  sturdy  muscles  of  shoulder  and 
trunk  and  limb.  This  timidity,  or  shyness,  that  masked 
a  hunger  for  s>Tnpathy  and  understanding  from  moment 
to  moment,  was  more  often  expressed  by  the  laying  of  a 
dimpled  fist  into  Eliza's  ever-receptive  clasp.  Deep 
feelings  were  not  habitually  demonstrated  in  the  house- 
hold. *^I  do  not  remember  ever  receiving  a  caress  from 
my  mother  when  I  was  young,'*  Jack  has  said;  **but  I  was 
at  long  intervals  cheered  by  my  father's  comprehending 
hand  laid  upon  my  head,  and  his  kind,  *  There,  there,  sonny !' 
when  things  went  wrong."  Thus  Eliza  and  the  boy,  both 
of  intensely  loving  nature,  were  impelled  together  in  a 
lasting  relation  of  confidence. 

One  grateful  spot  in  Alameda  memories  was  the  spio 
and  span  cottage  of  Mammy  Jenny  Prentiss  near  Willow 
Street  Station.  Her  bright-e^ed  foster-baby  often  ran 
away  to  the  crooning  embrace  of  the  colored  woman  whose 
greatest  pride  was  her  own  untarnished  blood,  and  who 
always  was  tastefully  and  pridefully  dressed.  There  her 
spoiled  white  child  was  sure  of  welcome  and  wondrous 
pastry,  dispensed  with  adoration  and  a  lavish  hand,  and 
there  *'Will  and  Annie  were  like  cousins."  Flora  Well- 
man's  own  stiff  pride  of  race  had  already  made  its  mark 
on  Johnnie's  subjective  operations;  but  that  it  had  not  be- 
come a  recognized  form  is  shown  by  his  ignorance  of  the 
fact  that  his  half-white  plajmates  were  other  than  like  him- 
self. One  day.  Will  Prentiss,  aged  six,  was  at  the  house, 
getting  some  of  the  ** culls"  of  fruit  and  vegetables  with 
which  John  London  so  generously  favored  his  friends. 
Little  Johnnie  in  an  uproarious  tomato-fight  plastered  a 


36       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

ripe  red  one  upon  the  perfect  nose  Will  had  inherited  from 
his  mother,  and  cried  out  with  innocent  cruelty,  to  WilPs 
weeping  shame:  *'0h,  gee!  Willy!  l\e  made  your  nose  as 
flat  as  a  nigger^s!'' 

As  the  savings  accumulated.  Flora's  ambition  for  the 
Just  Beyond  urged  her  husband  toward  his  imforgotten 
mecca,  and  they  presently  returned  to  the  other  side  of  the 
Bay.  This  time  they  leased  a  seventy-five  acre  farm,  likely 
the  Tobin  Eanch,  on  the  ^* Peninsula''  south  of  San  Fran- 
cisco, in  San  Mateo  County,  and  near  what  now  shows  on 
the  map  as  Moss  Beach.  In  level  sandy  loam  not  far  from 
the  ocean,  John  concentrated  upon  the  perfecting  of  the 
finest  potatoes  in  the  San  Francisco  market — ^his  principal 
triumph  on  that  farm. 

Where  the  money  went,  over  and  above  necessities,  after 
the  expenses  of  moving  had  been  squared,  was  a  lifelong 
puzzle  to  Jack  and  Eliza.  Jack  designated  himself  as  a 
** meat-eater."  While  there  was  always  enough  to  eat  in 
the  house,  flesh-food  may  at  times  have  been  scarce,  or 
delayed  in  delivery,  and  he  craved  it  perhaps  out  of  pro- 
portion to  his  need,  as  children  will.  Note  the  following 
quotation  from  a  letter,  written  in  a  fit  of  blank  despon- 
dency, to  the  sweetheart  of  his  early  twenties.  In  view 
of  a  possible  future  with  him,  she  had  urged  him  to  for- 
sake writing  and  cease  not  from  hunting  a  steady  salary. 

**Why,  as  you  have  laid  down  my  duty  in  your  letter,  if  I  had 
followed  it  what  would  I  have  been  to-day  ?  I  would  be  a  laborer, 
and  by  that  I  mean  I  would  be  fitted  for  nothing  else  than  labor. 
Do  you  know  my  childhood?  When  I  was  seven  years  old  at  the 
country  school  of  San  Pedro,  this  happened.  Meat,  I  was  that 
hungry  for  it  I  once  opened  a  girPs  basket  and  stole  a  piece  of 
meat — a  little  piece  the  size  of  my  two  fingers.  I  ate  it  but  I  never 
repeated  it.  In  those  days,  like  Esau,  I  would  have  literally  sold 
my  birthright  for  a  mess  of  pottage,  a  piece  of  meat.  Great  God ! 
when  those  youngsters  threw  chunks  of  meat  on  the  ground  because 
of  surfeit,  I  could  have  dragged  it  from  the  dirt  and  eaten  it ;  but 


BOYHOOD  37 

I  did  not.  Just  imagine  the  development  of  my  mind,  my  soul, 
under  such  material  conditions.  This  meat  inciaent  is  an  epitome 
of  my  whole  life." 

Now,  from  the  foregoing  and  some  other  quotations, 
the  reader  is  likely  to  gather  that  Jack  was  at  times  given 
to  hyperbole  when,  driven  and  discouraged,  he  reviewed 
his  thoniy  path.  I  may  be  forgiven,  considering  many 
years  of  intimate  observation,  if  I  comment  upon  a  tendency 
he  evinced  toward  self-concentration  when  overdone  by 
thinking,  or  work,  or  trouble.  This  is  a  delicate  matter 
upon  which  to  disagree,  since  he  is  not  here  to  argue  the 
point.  But  as  I  see  it,  his  excessive  sensibilities,  despite 
formidable  endurance,  caused  him  to  suffer  more  acutely, 
mentally  and  physically,  than  the  average  run  of  human 
beings.  Since  his  increasing  ambitions  to  do  and  be,  goaded 
him  ever  to  superactivity,  his  case  was  hopeless,  in  that 
he  must  undergo  weariness  of  heart  and  brain.  He  could 
not  rest,  therefore  he  did  not  rest.  Hence,  I  occasionally 
found  him  prone  to  exaggerate,  not  the  thing  itself,  but 
the  enormity  of  the  thing  treated.  Take  that  matter  of 
going  hungry  in  ciliildhood.  Once,  looking  up  from  ^ 
volume  she  was  reading,  I  overheard  his  mother  say  to 
Eliza: 

**Here  Jack  has  written  that  he  didn't  have  enough 
to  eat.  And  IVe  heard  him  say  the  only  time  he  ever  took 
anything  that  didn't  belong  to  him,  was  some  meat  out 
of  another  boy's  lunch  basket  at  school.  Do  you  remem- 
ber any  time  when  we  did  not  set  a  good  tablet  /  can't. 
He  didn't  go  hungry  in  our  house!  He  surely  must  mean 
when  he  was  off  goose-chasing  on  the  creek,  or  out  all  night 
on  the  streets,  or  something  of  that  sort.  Why,  you  know, 
his  father  always  had  vegetables,  and  if  meat  was  ever 
scarce,  there  were  plenty  of  cliickens." 

And  Eliza  was  equally  put  to  it  to  recall  slim  fare. 

From  Jack  London's  recollection  of  this  phase  in  his 


38       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

peripatetic  life,  he  drew  the  rather  bleak  and  depressing 
coast  line,  too  often  muffled  in  dreary  fogs,  the  scarcity  of 
English-speaking  society,  his  mother's  vaunt  that  she  and 
hers  were  **old  American  stock'*  and  not  ^'dagoes'*  nor 
immigrant  Irish — and  the  red  brand  on  his  gray  substance 
of  a  second  bout  with  alcohol.  It  would  seem  that  from 
his  earliest  conscious  observation  of  a  beckoning  world, 
turn  where  he  would,  alcohol  appeared  as  playing  a  mys- 
terious part  in  the  pleasures  of  the  god-like,  enviably  un- 
shackled grown-up,  and  in  the  romance,  pleasant  and  other- 
wise, but  still  the  romance,  of  manly,  reckless,  invincible 
youth.  His  father,  in  no  wise  a  * '  drinking-man, ' '  found 
smacking  satisfaction  in  a  quart-pail  of  mild  beer;  nor 
was  his  mother  averse  to  the  cooling  cup.  Even  the 
incompetent  who  reigned  supreme  in  the  little  box  of  a 
schoolhouse  enjoyed  ill-hidden  libations  behind  his  desk, 
and  afterward  a  one-sided  thrill  in  **  licking '*  the  pupils 
who  were  too  small  to  retaliate,  as  the  larger  sometimes  did. 

At  the  long  desk  with  his  class,  Johnnie  had  not  sat 
without  meditating,  no  matter  to  how  little  purpose,  over 
the  very  evident  pleasurable  action  upon  the  grown-ups  of 
beverages  other  than  water.  For  so  precocious  a  child  in 
book-learning,  he  was  peculiarly  and  adorably  a  hero-wor- 
shiper of  those  in  authority,  whose  opinions  he  accepted 
as  inspired.  Until  partial  disillusionment  in  late  boy- 
hood, this  open-souled  trustfulness  was  always  a-battle  with 
an  intellectual  development  out  of  keeping  with  his  age. 

And  now,  the  guileless  little  man  came  to  grips  with 
hitherto  unknown  breeds  of  humans  upon  a  temperamental 
day  of  mingled  Italian  and  Irish  joviality,  largely  induced 
by  heavy  red  grape  of  California,  there  was  literally 
thrust  upon  him  his  second  stunning  brush  with  an  am- 
bushed enemy  he  had  no  wisdom  nor  preparation  for  with- 
standing. 

The  Week  of  the  Holy  Ghost  was  nigh,  and  an  in- 
vitation to  unlimited  hospitality  for  seven  days  and  nights 


» 


BOYHOOD  39 

to  the  countryside  dwellers  of  whatsoever  nationality  or 
religion,  was  sent  out  by  an  Italian  ranchman,  **old  man 
Margo."  Now,  the  Signor  Margo  had  married  an  English- 
woman who  had  given  him  a  fair-haired,  blue-eyed  son, 
Dominic,  whom  it  was  the  father's  fond  ambition  to  waste 
no  time  in  marrying  to  the  right  American  girl.  The  trim 
looks  and  competent  ways  of  Eliza  London,  in  her  earliest 
teens,  had  attracted  many  an  approving  glance  from  the 
old  man,  and  an  exceptionally  pressing  bid  was  made  for 
the  company  of  her  family  at  his  house.  The  elders  de- 
clined, but  allowed  the  children  to  go. 

So  it  came  about  that  on  Sunday  the  three  young  Lon- 
dons  trudged  six  miles  to  the  Margo  ranch,  where  a  typical 
Irish-Italian  merrymaking  was  in  full  blast.  By  this 
time  the  small  brother's  searching  mind  had  begun  to 
lead  him  out  of  his  timorousness,  and  the  tanned  little  fists 
were  more  often  by  his  sides  or  occupied  otherwise  than 
in  feeling  for  his  elder  sister's  protecting  hand.  Life  was 
commencing  to  wave  her  royal-colored  emblems  before  his 
awakening  eyes,  and  more  and  more  was  he  lost  in  con- 
templation of  her  pageantry,  to  a  growing  oblivion  of  the 
old  self-consciousness.  But  he  was  an  infant  at  heart, 
unknowing  of  evil,  and  the  occurrences  of  this  Sabbath 
day  were  burned  inerasably  on  the  malleable  stuff  of  his 
reactive  brain. 

From  the  Margo  kitchen  the  strange  clamor  of  a  cul- 
minating situation,  begun  with  the  free  drinking  of  the 
previous  night,  only  whetted  the  half-fearful  inquisitive- 
ness  of  our  trio,  which  drew  them  irresistibly  into  the  reek- 
ing dim  room.  Small  Johnnie's  big  eyes  must  have  nearly 
burst  their  expansive  spheres  at  this  sudden  introduction 
into  a  scene  where  the  gamut  of  human  passions  waa 
either  sounded  or  indicated.  To  woman's  hysteria  he  was 
no  stranger — his  adult  aversion  to  such  uncontrol  amounted 
almost  to  a  hysteria  in  itself;  but  the  girls*  screams,  fright- 
ened or  loudly  skittish,  at  the  rough  or  drink-addled  per- 


40       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

fonnances  of  the  men  with  them  or  with  one  another,  cur- 
dled his  tender  blood  and  nerves.  He  sat  in  a  daze.  His 
sense  of  proportion  was  all  awry.  Never,  even  under 
tantrums,  had  he  beheld  humans  acting  so  illogically — 
flying  tooth  and  nail  at  one  another  ^s  throats  one  minute, 
the  next  clumping  to  ungainly  embraces  of  forgiveness 
and  reeling  good  fellowship;  while  yet  others,  too  sodden 
to  fight,  mouthed  their  tongue-tangled  approval  or  criticism 
of  the  changing  humors  of  stronger-headed  brethren. 

The  seven-year-old  child,  soon  fascinated  beyond  vestige 
of  alarm,  sensed  the  increasing  tide  of  lawlessness  as  the 
men  poured  an  incessant  stream  of  liquid  down  their 
straightened  necks.  He  saw  the  now  worried  girls  melt  out 
of  the  doorways,  as  the  clumsy  brawling  doubled  and 
trebled  among  the  rough  aliens  of  hot  and  unruly  bloods, 
until  some  impetus  sent  the  whole  mad  company  lurching 
down  the  sandy  road  to  another  ranch. 

And  the  diminutive  Jack  London  here  put  into  practice 
the  first  evidence  of  that  tactful  sixth  sense  of  fitness  that 
early  rendered  him,  the  indomitable,  fine  one,  into  the  very 
genius  of  Mixers.  In  a  few  years  this  intuitive  faculty  was 
to  earn  him  the  proudest  title  ever  bestowed  upon  him 
by  the  sycophant  earth — Prince  of  the  Oyster  Pirates. 
For  now  a  wee  Irish  lassie,  only  other  child  of  his  age  in 
the  maudlin  crowd,  walked  by  his  side.  Like  many  another 
gay  blade,  he  never  was  able  to  recall  the  name  of  his  sweet 
maiden ;  but  the  favor  in  her  blue,  blue  eyes  commanded  a 
chivalrous  instinct  to  emulate  her  older  sister's  swain, 
walking  just  ahead,  in  all  but  his  gait.  Around  her  plump 
waist  went  his  dutiful,  sympathetic  if  timid  arm,  and  they 
bumped  along  in  blissful  discomfort  for  the  half  of  an 
uneven  sandy  mile — after  which,  guided  by  her  consenting 
eyes,  they  clasped  hands  instead. 

Turn  about,  the  Irish  ranch  hilariously  welcomed  the 
partially  sobered  pilgrims,  who  ** tanked  up*'  afresh,  till 
afresh  swelled  and  roared  the  fun.    A  hospitable  Italian 


BOYHOOD  41 

offered  Johnnie  wine.  He  declined  with  thanks,  and  later  a 
second  proffer.  And  here  renewed  apprehension  quickened 
his  heart-beats,  for  there  loomed  suddenly  the  oft-voiced 
prejudice  of  his  blonde  mother  toward  all  black-eyed  men 
and  women,  as  being  actuated  by  deceitful  motives,  if 
nothing  more  deadly.  As  for  Latins,  ** dagoes'*  as  they 
were  known  to  her  confiding  offspring,  their  ways  were 
associated  in  his  mind  with  keen-flashing  knives  called 
daggers. 

When  Italian  Pete,  with  humorous  diablerie  unguessed 
by  the  alarmed  boy,  clouded  his  black  brows  over  the 
lightning  of  blacker,  snapping  eyes,  in  fiery  disapproval 
of  this  insult  to  red,  red  wine,  Johnnie's  nerves  already 
made  him  feel  the  thrusted  two-edged  metal  turning  be- 
tween his  ribs.  In  that  semi-autobiography  **  John  Barley- 
corn,'' thirty  years  later  he  wrote:  *'I  have  faced  real 
death  since  in  my  life,  but  never  have  I  known  the  fear 
of  death  as  I  knew  it  then."  Nevertheless  he  steeled  him- 
self and  put  his  dimpled  hands  about  the  heavy  glass, 
which  he  lifted  and  drained  to  the  nauseating  bitter  dregs 
— and  dregs  they  were,  for  this  was  the  cheap  **red  paint" 
made  from  the  leavings  of  great  vats  after  the  best  vintage 
had  been  casked. 

Poor  little  lad  I  One's  heart  wells  and  there  is  a  catch 
in  the  throat  to  picture  him  sitting  there  in  his  linen 
jumper,  dusty  small  feet  dangling  above  the  floor  he  could 
not  reach,  and,  for  once  alone  and  unadvised,  facing  with 
wide,  brave  eyes  the  very  certainty  of  violent  extinction 
from  an  existence  he  had  but  lately  begun  to  appraise  and 
value.  **Onc  will  do  anything  to  live,"  he  goes  on  in  what 
he  called  his  ** alcoholic  memoirs."  The  little  chap  downed 
a  second  and  what  seemed  countless  succeeding  draughts  of 
liquid  fire  to  his  unaccustomed  membranes,  for  the  loudly 
amused  Pete  had  called  his  friends  one  and  all  to  witness 
the  valiant  infant.  Little  the  boy  recked  that  he  was  invit- 
ing strangling  death  otherwise  than  from  the  assassin's 


42      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

knife.  That  he  did  not  smother,  then  or  in  the  follow- 
ing hours,  is  the  everlasting  marvel.  Out  of  the  house  and 
on  the  heavy  gray  road  again,  with  his  own  girl  like  the 
other  sweethearts  sober  and  solicitous  of  him,  in  a  tottering 
haze  he  solemnly  imitated  the  antics  of  the  wild  Irish  and 
Italians  in  the  zigzagging  procession  that  wound  among 
the  sandhills.  And  finally,  still  imitating,  he  brought 
up  in  a  roadside  ditch,  although  he  had  not  intended  to 
overstep  its  dizzy  edge.  Out  of  what  might  have  been  his 
open  grave,  his  sisters  and  several  badly  scared  older  girls 
fished  him,  and  like  one  roused  from  his  last  sleep  in  the 
snow,  they  tried  to  keep  him  walking,  walking,  those  in- 
terminable miles  home.  But  when  Mrs.  London  opened  the 
door,  it  was  from  their  arms  she  received  her  raving,  un- 
conscious son. 

**It  is  a  wonder  that  I  did  not  burst  my  heart  or  brain 
that  night,''  he  says  in  **John  Barleycorn,*'  detailing  the 
experience  in  such  way  as  the  searing  horror  made  pos- 
sible at  so  long  range  of  time.  And  in  spite  of  the 
heroic  reputation  his  prowess  gave  him  amongst  the 
aliens  roundabout,  very  clear  was  his  *  *  resolution  never  to 
touch  alcohol  again."  **No  mad  dog  was  ever  more  afraid 
of  water,"  and  **I  didn't  like  the  damned  stuff,"  he  recalls 
his  subsequent  childish  perspective,  for  there  was  not  much 
living  language  in  the  neighborhood  that  did  not  enter  into 
the  processes  of  his  pliant,  growing  brain. 

Before  he  was  eight,  this  sweetly  gullible  boy  with  his 
remarkable  contrasting  outlook  had  somehow  come  into 
possession  of  an  incomplete  copy  of  Ouida's  **Signa," 
which  his  mind  absorbed  like  an  unspotted,  depthless  blot- 
ter. In  the  spring  of  1912,  Jack  London,  one  day  brow- 
sing in  a  dingy  second-hand  shop  in  Harlem  for  books 
to  add  to  our  traveling  library  on  a  voyage  around  Cape 
Horn,  came  across  a  cheap  reprint  of  **Signa."  Home  to 
our  Morningside  apartment  he  carried  the  small-typed 
story  which,  he  had  all  his  life  declared,  had  had  more  in- 


BOYHOOD  43 

fluence  in  the  shaping  of  his  carrer  than  any  other,  not 
even  excepting  Herbert  Spencer's  ** Philosophy  of  Style/' 
Upon  the  lurching  poop-deck  of  the  big  four-master  **Diri- 
go,**  off  the  unseen  coast  of  Brazil,  I  listened,  not  always 
with  dry  eyes,  to  the  rhythmic,  caressing  voice  as  Jack 
reread  the  loved  romance  which  had  opened  to  his  groping 
intelligence  the  gates  to  unsnrmised  beauty. 

**He  was  only  a  little  lad,"  was  Signa,  the  warm-souled 
Italian  peasant  child  who  attained  to  heights  of  fame. 
With  these  very  words  the  roseate  tale  commenced.  And 
so  was  he,  schoolboy  Johnnie  London,  only  a  little  lad. 
Therefore  he  speedily  constituted  himself  a  peasant  like- 
wise, in  whom  there  might  reside  untold  marvel  of  genius, 
even  if  imprisoned  within  a  gray  landscape  that  required 
closed  eyes  and  concentration  to  clothe  with  the  splendor 
that  was  Signals  Italy. 

** Reading  the  story,*'  the  grown  man  gazed  down  his 
years,  **my  narrow  hill-horizon  was  pushed  back,  and  all 
the  world  made  possible  if  I  would  dare  it."  And  he  dared, 
at  least  to  contemplate  greatness  for  himself.  Like  the 
tawny,  golden-eyed  bambino,  he  would  become  a  musician, 
and  a  superlative  one;  only,  his  mother's  unforgotten  les- 
sons led  him  to  think  music  in  terms  of  ivory  keys  and  cer- 
tain not  unpleasing  harmonies  he  had  stumbled  upon.  There 
was  no  piano  in  the  farm  house,  and  the  breathy  strains  in 
dance-measure,  from  accordions  manipulated  by  tipsy  vol- 
unteers on  that  shuddering  Sunday  of  Holy  Week,  were  the 
sole  music  he  had  heard  for  nearly  two  years. 

Eliza's  budding  practical  foresight  had  not  hitherto 
made  toward  planning  artistic  achievement  for  her  dreamy 
half-brother.  But  when  he  had  coaxed  her  to  read  his  book, 
with  mutual  infatuation  they  discussed  it  upon  every  pos- 
sible occasion — while  he  dried  the  dishes,  or  they  helped 
papa  sack  his  smooth-coated,  regularly  symmetrical  pota- 
tpes,  or  in  quiet  comers  where  she  helped  him  with  his 


44       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

examples.  Ouida  herself  would  doubtlessly  have  regretted 
the  established  denouement  of  her  own  novel,  could  she  have 
listened  to  the  hazards  these  two  made  concerning  the  miss- 
ing last  quarter  of  it.  However,  they  did  come  to  share  it 
in  the  long  run  of  their  futures. 


CHAPTER  IV 

UVEBMORE  VALLBY 
Ages  8  to  10 

LIVERMORE  VALLEY,  where  lay  the  last  of  the  string 
of  farms  in  John  London's  diminishing  fate,  never 
glowed  in  Jack  London's  memory  any  more  rosily  than  the 
preceding  San  Mateo  countryside.  A  fertile  enough  dis- 
trict it  was,  and  undeniably  torrid  in  midsummer,  as  I  can 
attest ;  for  here,  again,  our  paths  crossed  when  I  as  a  child 
camped  in  the  low  hills  not  far  from  this  same  farm. 
*'Livermore  Valley  was  very  flat,''  was  his  retrospect,  **and 
even  the  hills  around  were  then,  to  me,  devoid  of  interest. 
.  .  .  They  and  their  valleys  were  eyesores  and  aching  pits, 
and  I  never  loved  them  till  I  left  them.'* 

**Signa,"  pored  over  for  numberless  hours  here,  from." 
his  eighth  to  tenth  year,  and  still  lacking  the  forty  tragic 
final  pages,  had  ruined  him  for  the  commonplace.  **Even 
then  there  were  whispers,  art-promptings;  my  mind  in- 
clined to  things  beautiful."  Life  on  a  ranch  became  to  his 
awakened  ambition  **the  dullest  possible  existence,"  while 
every  day  he  **  thought  of  going  out  beyond  the  skyline  to 
see  the  world."  He  was  on  his  bright  way  to  a  soaring 
idealism,  which  later,  combined  with  an  onchiring  practi- 
cality, made  of  him  an  extraordinary  entity  both  as  Doer 
and  Thinker. 

Despite  the  dreary  image  of  it  which  he  henceforth  car- 
ried, the  eighty-acre  Livermore  holding  was  really  the 
liveliest  and  most  promising  of  all — and  further  distin- 
guished as  the  first  California  land  John  London  had  been 
able  to  call  his  own.    As  a  grown  citizen.  Jack  would 

45 


46      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

have  been  charmed  by  the  fact  that  it  was  portion  of  an 
old  Spanish  estate,  and  thus  bound  indissolubly  with  the 
glamorous  'forties.  As  it  was,  the  farm  could  not  have 
been  actually  unattractive.  There  was  a  nine-acre  orchard 
in  full  bearing,  and  what  boy  does  not  welcome  an  orchard  ? 
And  pigs  there  were,  chickens,  and  cooing  pigeons  galore 
— to  say  nothing  of  remunerative  rabbits,  fluffy,  snow- 
white,  pink  jewel-eyed  bunnies  that  could  not  but  stir  the 
boy's  animal  loving  bosom  as  well  as  his  innate  sense  of 
beauty ;  while  the  proud  cocks  and  their  harems  were  of  no 
mean  breeds.  The  farm  house  was  comfortably  large  for 
all  needs  of  family  and  the  extra  men  hired  in  harvest  time. 
To  be  sure,  everybody  worked — Flora  and  her  husband 
here  and  there  and  everywhere.  Eliza,  barely  fifteen, 
cooked  for  the  whole  hungry  establishment,  and  besides 
aided  her  papa  with  the  rabbits  and  pigeons  and  the 
three  incubators  in  the  brooding  houses — John  was  right 
up  to  the  minute  in  modern  appliances, — ^not  to  speak 
of  her  work  in  the  vegetable  areas.  As  with  Jack  London, 
there  was  never  anything  small  or  restricted  in  John's 
projection  of  an  ultimate  achievement.  It  was  in  judg- 
ment of  character,  and  of  investments  for  his  hard-gained 
money,  that  he  seemed  wanting.  He  had  failed  to  discover 
in  civilized  society  the  undeviating  honor  shown  to  honor  by 
the  otherwise  crafty  aborigine  of  the  Middle  States.  Per- 
haps, too,  he  was  leniently  weak  in  the  matter  of  capitu- 
lating to  counsel  even  less  prudent  than  his  own.  Just  when 
he  might  be  considering  a  halt  in  expenditures,  his  wife's 
vehemently  expressed  insights  would  make  appeal,  or, 
listening  to  her  exposition  of  the  way  out  of  a  difficulty, 
he  would  be  overborne.  Thus  a  mortgage  was  laid  upon 
the  Livermore  land  in  order  to  erect  a  twenty-five-hundred 
dollar  barn  for  his  Blackhawk  and  Morgan  horses;  and 
proud  as  he  was  of  this  handsome  feature  of  the  farm,  he 
was  not  content  under  the  burden  of  debt.  And  yet, 
just  as  he  had  gambled  on  new  scenes  in  his  youth,  this 


LIVERMORE  VALLEY  47 

fresh  risk  was  not  without  its  allurement;  and  the  pair  of 
them  took  other  long  chances — poorly  handled  investments, 
irresistible  lottery  tickets,  and  God  knows  what  else. 

John's  aspirations  were  far-seeing  and  clean.  It  was 
more  than  a  decade  after  the  good  man  was  laid  to  rest 
that  Jack  London  *s  own  agricultural  experimentation  began 
to  open  out.  And  he  grieved  for  the  broken  dream  and 
endeavor  of  this  honorable,  straight-aiming  spirit.  John's 
best  satisfaction,  even  at  toll  of  grinding  labor,  lay  in  pur- 
suing an  ideal  which  the  younger  man,  guided  by  his  cumula- 
tive data,  came  to  regard  as  unerring  and  incalculable  in  its 
economic  benefit  toward  humanity. 

Sometimes  their  mysterious  affairs  caused  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
London  to  drive  up  to  San  Francisco.  And  he,  reins  taut 
over  the  polished  backs  of  the  best  trotting-blood  in  Amer- 
ica, probably  was  happier  then  than  at  any  other  time  in  his 
middle  life.  Later,  the  beautiful  Blackhawk  stallion,  with 
his  mares  as  well  as  the  Morgans,  went  to  liquidate  the  liv- 
ery stable  bills  incurred  on  these  trips.  Once  they  had  re- 
mained away  for  two  months,  leaving  Eliza  in  sole  charge. 
She  must  have  pondered,  young  thing  that  she  was,  while 
she  worked  indoors  and  in  field,  grasping  what  little  social 
fun  there  was  to  be  had  in  the  sparse  neighborhood,  if  life 
were  all  of  a  workaday  piece.  Her  half-brother  pon- 
dered, too,  when  he  trudged  home  from  school  and  found 
her  hard  at  it,  in  season  and  out,  and  himself  called  to  help 
at  chores.  Yes,  everybody  had  to  labor,  it  seemed,  women 
and  all.  There  must  be  some  way  out.  And  while  he  per- 
formed his  day-long  task  of  watching  for  the  bees  to  swarm, 
he  registered  the  vow  that  when  he  became  a  man,  no 
women-folk  of  his  should  toil  like  this. 

How  they  got  into  the  house  he  never  knew,  but  one  day 
he  came  upon  a  **Life  of  Garfield,"  also  a  worn  copy  of 
**Paul  du  Chaillu's  African  Travels,''  in  which  he  retained 
belief  and  admiration  all  his  life.  The  school  teacher  lent 
him  Washington  Irving 's  **Alhambra,'*  which  he  proceeded 


48       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

to  bolt  whole,  and  reread  and  digest  for  the  period 
spent  on  the  Livermore  farm.  Once  again,  always  the 
Builder,  he  started  to  build,  not  a  little  Inferno  as  in  Ala- 
meda, but  an  Alhambra  on  the  plans  of  Washington  Irving. 
From  the  mellow-red  bricks  of  a  fallen  chimney  he  reared 
its  towers  and  laid  out  terraces  and  arcades,  labeling 
mth  his  school  chalk  its  various  sections.  All  the  while 
he  existed  in  a  world  of  his  own  making,  that  outstripped 
the  humdrum  existence  of  the  hot  little  ranch — a  world  so 
real  that  he  could  not  comprehend  why  every  one,  at  home 
or  in  school,  did  not  share  in  the  wonder  of  his  creation.  He 
seemed  set  aloof  from  the  beginning,  by  means  of  the  un- 
common knowledge  he  acquired. 

**My  other  reading  matter,**  he  surveyed  that  portion 
of  his  childhood,  *^  consisted  mainly  of  dime  novels,  bor- 
rowed from  the  hired  man,  and  newspapers  in  which  they 
gloated  over  the  adventures  of  poor  but  virtuous  shop- 
girls.'* Through  reading  such  trash,  he  goes  on,  his  out- 
look became  ridiculously  conventional;  and  so,  when  a 
stranger  arrived  from  the  city,  very  proper  as  to  manner 
and  boots,  with  fine  clothes  and  stylish  hat,  the  famished 
idealist  conceived  this  to  be  the  manner  of  man  who  would 
know  all  about  the  Alhambra  and  be  able  to  discuss  the  en- 
chanting subject.  He  possessed  himself  of  the  visitor's 
unwilling  hand,  led  him  to  where  the  little  red-brick  Al- 
hambra lifted  its  proud  turrets,  then  stood  looking  up  with 
shining  expectation  of  an  oracular  approval.  None  was 
forthcoming — nothing  but  a  laughing  sneer ;  and  the  pitiful 
small  seeker,  abashed  and  comfortless,  fell  back  upon  the 
inevitable  if  perplexing  conclusion  that  there  must  be  but 
two  clever  persons  in  the  whole  desolate  scheme  of  things 
— himself  and  Washington  Irving.  This  **  gentleman  *  * 
guest  from  the  city,  heaven  knows  why,  deliberately  and 
with  malice  stole  and  hid  the  hallowed  volume  far  under- 
neath the  house,  in  company  with  a  cherished  rubber  ball. 
I  have  seen  Jack  almost  weep  when  reviewing  the  tragedy 


LIVERMORE  VALLEY  49 

it  was  to  his  trusting  little  self,  puzzled,  blameless  of  of- 
fense— for  he  was  not  a  boisterous  or  troublesome  child. 
None  but  a  creature  of  distorted  impulses  could  have 
tortured  a  young  thing  for  days  and  nights  as  this  one  was 
tortured.  Superacute  as  pain  always  was  to  his  body, 
never  did  he  suffer  as  keenly  from  physical  as  from 
mental  hurt.  Only  an  inherent  normality  presented  him 
from  spiritual  ruination  by  his  non-understanding  en- 
vironment. I  cannot  recall  distinctly  how  he  recovered 
the  book,  but  have  a  dim  impression  that  he  told  me  the 
tormenter  finally  guided  him  to  the  point  whence  he  had 
thrown  it  under  the  house,  and  laughed  mockingly  at  the 
scrambling  bare  legs  of  the  youngster  as  he  dived  unafraid 
among  cobwebs  and  ordinarily  dreaded  crawly  things,  in 
eagerness  to  clasp  his  treasure. 

Johnnie's  first  acquaintance  with  death  came  dur- 
ing this  phase  in  his  undirected  development,  and  fur- 
nished matter  for  exercise  of  his  speculative  trend.  He 
was  helping  his  father  reset  some  pasture  fence  posts  that 
the  cows  had  bent  down.  Digging  deep,  John  London  un- 
earthed a  corpse  that  had  not  altogether  returned  to  dust. 
The  boy  remembered  it  as  a  fearsome  mess  that  had  lain 
a  long  time.    They  never  learned  how  it  came  there. 

That  he  was  beginning  to  formulate  some  sort  of  logical 
sequence  out  of  the  chaotic  mass  of  observations  which 
bivouacked  in  his  brain,  and  suspect  a  different  and  im- 
proved existence,  is  evidenceil  by  a  well-ordered  plan 
he  outlined  to  Eliza  for  their  conunon  future.  They  were 
to  live  in  a  large  dwelling  almost  entirely  filled  with  books. 
He  would  not  marry  until  he  was  forty  and  his  mind  stored 
with  the  knowledge  he  craved ;  for  matrimony  did  not  pre- 
sent itself  as  conducive  to  studious  repose.  Meantime  Eliza 
would  make  a  home  for  them  both,  and  more  especially 
stand  between  him  and  the  annoying  people  ho  yearned  to 
avoid. 

It  may  be  that  I  have  Eliza  to  thank  that  this  became 


so      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

my  own  devoted  task,  instead  of  hers.  At  the  age  of 
sixteen  she  exchanged  one  life  of  unrelieved  care  for  an- 
other, by  uniting  herself  to  a  widowed  veteran  of  the  Civil 
War,  one  Captain  James  H.  Shepard,  nearly  thirty  years 
her  senior  and  with  several  children,  the  eldest  about 
Johnnie  *s  age.  Captain  Shepard,  desiring  to  place  his 
motherless  brood  in  a  country  home,  had  written  to  a  friend 
in  San  Francisco,  who  in  turn  inquired  of  Flora  London 
if  she  could  accommodate  them.  Some  correspondence 
passed,  and  through  misunderstanding  Captain  Shepard 
arrived  at  the  farm  with  the  children  when  John  and  Flora 
were  away.  Eliza  drove  to  the  station  to  meet  the  guests, 
and  entertained  them  to  the  best  of  her  conspicuous  ability, 
captivating  the  middle-aged  ex-soldier  as  much  as  any- 
thing else  by  her  maternal  ways.  In  three  months 
her  little  brother's  dream  was  smashed  and  he  left  deso- 
late, for  she  married  and  went  to  live  in  Oakland.  Her 
devotion  to  the  stepchildren  was  provocative  of  much  good- 
natured  raillery  amongst  the  neighbors,  to  the  effect  that 
she  had  fallen  in  love  with  and  married  the  children. 

Through  a  combination  of  disastrous  investments,  and 
poor  management,  things  had  been  going  from  bad  to 
worse.  A  few  months  after  Eliza's  departure  the  farm  was 
abandoned  and  as  much  realized  as  possible  from  the  sacri- 
fice of  improvements.  John  and  his  wife  with  their  boy 
and  Ida  removed  to  Oakland,  where  they  put  what  was  left 
from  the  farm  proceeds  into  an  eight-roomed  house  at  East 
Seventeenth  Street  between  Twenty-second  and  Twenty- 
third  Avenues,  near  where  Eliza  lived.  Not  far  off  dwelt 
Mammy  Jenny  Prentiss,  whose  joy  it  was  to  spoil  more 
passionately  than  ever  her  ^Vhite  child,"  for  his  foster- 
sister  and  -brother  were  both  underground  by  now.  When 
Prentiss  died  some  years  later,  Jenny  sustained  herself  a 
long  time  by  nursing  and  a  slight  income  from  a  bit  of 
inherited  ** property'*  she  always  proudly  referred  to. 
Chided  for  working  so  hard,  when  she  might  rest  upon  her 


LIVERMORE   VALLEY  51 

foster-son's  bounty,  she  would  indignantly  snap:  **They 
think  I'm  in  my  dotey  (dotage),  and  can't  take  care  of  my- 
self alone!"  This  pride  cost  the  adult  Jack  more  trouble 
than  her  ** property"  was  ever  worth,  for  she  looked  to 
him  to  make  it  pay.  He  often  advised  her  to  sell  her  lots 
and  spend  the  money  on  herself — **Buy  silk  dresses  and 
theater  tickets  with  it,  Mammy  Jenny,"  he  would  implore. 
**You  know  I'm  never  going  to  see  you  in  need,  now  and 
forever,  whether  I  live  or  die ;  and  I  want  you  to  quit  worry- 
ing and  have  a  good  time  with  your  money  while  you  can" 
— all  the  while  appreciating  her  desire  for  economic  inde- 
pendence. 

In  his  eleventh  year,  the  dreaming  lad  awaken- 
ing to  the  gripping,  harsh  realties,  began  to  perceive 
the  under  side  of  things.  He  was  enrolled  as  one  of  the 
first  pupils  of  the  four-roomed  Garfield  School  on  Twenty- 
third  Avenue,  between  Sixteenth  and  Seventeenth  Streets, 
and  soon  progressed  to  the  Franklin  School  at  Eleventh 
Avenue  and  Fifteenth,  where  he  came  abruptly  upon  his 
first  radical  clash  with  another's  personality.  The  teacher 
did  not  understand  him  nor  even  try.  He,  phenomenally 
quick  in  mastering  lessons,  which  gave  him  more  time  for 
the  ever-handy  story  book,  could  not  learn  from  her,  and 
failed  of  promotion.  More  than  once  his  perturbed  mother 
was  obliged  to  call  at  the  schoolhouse  to  straighten  out  al- 
leged insubordination.  He  was  an  eminently  teachable 
creature,  but  from  the  very  first  he  seemed  to  gather  that 
teachers  were  not  placed  on  a  rostrum  to  thiiikf  but  merely 
to  teach.  Whenever  he  tried  to  elicit  reasoned  opinions 
upon  his  vivid  ideas  and  their  relations  one  to  another,  he 
faced  a  stone  wall,  and  was  thrown,  as  in  the  Alhambra  inci- 
dent, back  upon  himself  and  his  lonely  particular  ego.  Evi- 
dently the  system  was  such  that  a  child  could  not  learn  to 
the  extent  he  was  able,  but  must  limit  his  most  divine  search- 
ings  to  a  gray  curriculum  that  was,  for  him,  only  too  readily 
compassed.    He  did  not  represent  the  difficulty  in  just  this 


52      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

way,  but  clearly  grasped  that  he  was  embarrassingly  differ- 
ent from  the  patterned  children  around  him,  and  that  his 
gropings  and  probings  were  interpreted  as  impertinences. 
He  had  not  yet  happened  upon  the  felicitous  word  **mush'* 
to  describe  the  interior  substance  of  certain  persons  pos- 
sessed or  unpossessed  of  teachers'  certificates. 

But  what  he  did  or  did  not  gain  from  association  with 
so  blind  a  treatment,  drove  him,  as  did  his  first  and  very 
brief  university  education,  to  the  ramshackle  public  library 
that  leaned  against  the  old  City  Hall  on  Fourteenth  Street, 
for  collateral  reading.  The  little  boy,  hunched  over  the 
worn  library  table,  so  long  deprived  of  all  literature  except 
the  four  books  at  Livermore,  devoured  print  until  his  eye- 
muscles  twitched  and  burned  and  he  saw  black  spots  every- 
where ;  while  his  almost  prostrated  nerves  jumped  into  the 
preliminary  stages  of  St.  Vitus'  dance.  He  became  so 
irascible  and  rickety  that  he  would  cry  out  when  spoken  to 
or  touched,  ^^ Don't  bother  me — go  away,  you  make  me 
nervous ! ' '  Somewhere  he  writes :  ^  *  I  filled  an  application 
blank  [with  **The  Adventures  of  Peregrine  Pickle"],  and 
the  librarian  handed  me  the  collected  and  entirely  unex- 
purgated  works  of  Smollett  in  one  huge  volume.  I  read 
everything,  but  principally  history  and  adventure,  and  all 
the  old  travels  and  voyages.  I  read  mornings,  afternoons, 
and  nights.  I  read  in  bed,  I  read  at  table,  I  read  as  I  walked 
to  and  from  school,  and  I  read  at  recess  while  the  other  boys 
were  playing."  It  was  at  the  ripe  age  of  twelve  that  he 
came  to  read  Wilkie  Collins 's  **The  New  Magdalen,"  and 
greatly  shocked  a  nice  young  lady  by  trying  to  discuss  it. 

Presently  he  attracted  the  notice  of  the  head  librarian. 
Miss  Ina  Coolbrith,  and  fell  shyly  in  love  with  this  to 
him  new  type  of  womanhood — so  lady-fine,  and  a  true 
poetess.  Hers  was  the  first  intellectual  guidance  under 
which  he  benefited,  and  he  never  ceased  from  his  loving 
gratitude  and  admiration. 

Straightway  the  boy's  two  families,  his  mother's  and 


LIVERMORE  VALLEY  53 

Eliza  Shepard's,  must  apply  for  library  cards,  which  he 
kept  so  busy  that  he  crossed  and  recrossed  the  library 
threshold  more  often  than  any  other  subscriber.  It  was 
from  this  same  public  library  that,  when  he  joined  the 
Klondike  Rush,  he  calmly  walked  off  with  two  volumes,  upon 
Eliza  ^s  pledge  that  she  would  reimburse  the  library — a 
pledge  which  she  kept,  whether  or  not  she  approved  of  the 
somewhat  irregular  transaction.  *  *  The  fact  that  he  wanted 
it  done,  was  enough,''  she  tersely  comments  upon  the 
incident. 

Luckily  for  physical  well-being,  Johnnie  soon  realized 
that  he  must  bestir  himself  toward  his  owti  up-keep,  and 
the  first  move  was  on  the  street,  selling  newspapers.  Home 
life  was  soon  a  thing  forgotten,  if  ever  it  had  been  a  normal 
one  for  this  spiritually  lonely  creature.  His  mother  had 
now  determined  that  a  boarding-house  for  the  Scotch 
women-workers  at  the  California  Cotton  Mills  near  by 
would  recover  her  shrunken  fortunes.  At  times  when  a 
cook  was  unobtainable,  Eliza  came  over  and  helped  out  as 
a  matter  of  course.  With  the  boarding-house  earnings  in 
hand,  Flora's  project  spread  into  a  lot  next  door,  which 
she  mortgaged  so  that  she  might  erect  a  rooming-house 
upon  it.  Her  idea  was  Utopian,  for  was  it  not  a  fine  thing 
for  these  factory  women  each  to  have  hor  own  private 
apartment?  But  her  altruism  did  not  go  hand  in  hand  with 
ability  to  see  it  through,  and  scheme  as  she  and  her  good 
husband  might,  in  the  end  both  properties  were  forfeited  to 
the  mortgage. 

Jack  London's  tenderest  and  most  sympathetic  mem- 
ories of  his  father  centered  about  occasions  when  the 
two  went  boating  and  fishing  on  the  ** Creek,"  an  estu- 
ary lying  between  Oakland  and  Alameda.  His  unchained, 
mobile  imagination  had  begun  to  take  hold  upon  the  dull 
tragedy  of  this  man  with  the  merciful  lips  and  hands  who 
had  asked  so  little  of  a  perverse  destiny  which  had  withheld 
success  from  him  in  even  that  little.    He  made  no  outcry; 


54      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

but  from  under  the  thoughtful  heavy  brows  the  kind  gray- 
eyes  gazed  forlornly  enough  across  the  green  water-way  to 
the  low  ground  that  was  once  blessed  with  his  rows  of 
corn  and  potato  hills  and  succulent  rosetted  lettuces,  and 
the  coral  stalks  of  rhubarb  that  had  been  Eliza's  especial 
care  and  pride.  The  minds  of  John  London 's  few  acquaint- 
ances who  still  live,  are  tinged  by  the  lifeless  impression 
carried  from  those  years  when  the  merry-hearted  one  had 
become  a  broken  thing,  hiding  an  aching  sense  of  failure 
beneath  his  fine  reticence.  It  is  but  a  spiritless  image  of  the 
warm  and  lovable  character  that  they  can  reconstruct. 

The  average  man  or  woman  does  not  easily  learn  to 
search  beneath  the  restrained  exterior,  the  bearded  visage, 
for  the  tender  mouth;  or  behind  the  quiet,  retrospective 
eye,  for  the  gentle  strength  and  humor — qualities  that  were 
more  and  more  hidden  as  the  elder  London  bowed  to  dis- 
illusionment. But  Jack,  being  Jack,  was  by  now  able  to 
extract  more  knowledge  of  his  goodness  and  personal  charm 
than  at  any  time  in  their  years  of  daily  intercourse.  This 
was  enhanced  by  the  semi-adventurous  experiences  they 
shared  on  that  attractive  body  of  tide  water  which  washed 
the  keels  of  idle  whalers  and  the  ornate  sterns  of  vessels 
of  all  rigs  and  builds  from  all  the  world,  laid  up  at  the 
edge  of  the  Alameda  flats.  Most  of  them  never  budged 
until  the  Great  War  required  them.  Whether  digging 
clams  in  the  oily,  cool  blue  mud,  or  fishing  for  flounders 
and  rock  cod  and  ^* shiners''  from  wharves  or  anchored 
skiff  or  the  old  sea-wall  that  bounded  the  Creek  on  the 
north,  or  rowing  and  sailing  curiously  amongst  those 
painted  hulls  that  had  thrilled  to  the  onslaught  of  the  Seven 
Seas — it  was  all  of  a  fabric  of  romance  with  the  books. 
And  in  those  rare  days  of  quiet  communion  or  interesting 
hap  and  mishap,  the  two  came  to  love  each  other  in  true 
comradely,  unquestioning  fashion,  as  they  had  never  before 
loved  any  one.  Only  their  eyes,  blue  to  blue  under  Cali- 
fornia's blue  sky,  spoke  the  deep  and  holy  sentiment  that 


LIVERMORE  VALLEY  55 

stirred  them.  Each  was  better  and  happier,  back  in  the 
clattering  boarding-house,  for  these  comprehending  hours 
out  upon  the  waters. 

Here,  tugging  at  anchor  in  flood  or  ebb,  or  at  the 
oars  plunging  bow-on  to  the  glossy  gray-green  rollers  cast 
by  John  L.  Davie's  big  side-wheel  ferry  steamers,  or  yet 
learning  the  why  and  wherefore  of  eating  into  the  wind 
under  a  tiny  sail,  the  little  bom  seaman  *s  heart  was  claimed 
by  the  wave.  In  all  his  vivid  life,  never  was  he  so  at  rest 
in  spirit  as  upon  the  water — ^be  it  deep  sea  or  inland 
stretch. 

A  railroad  accident  to  John  at  about  this  juncture,  which 
laid  him  up  with  several  fractured  ribs,  did  not  improve  the 
prospect ;  and  the  succeeding  house  where  the  growing  boy 
passed  his  sleeping  hours — for  home  to  him  had  become 
a  place  where  one  slept  and  ate — was  a  small  one  in  the 
**West  End,''  on  Pine  Street  below  Seventh,  near  the 
familiar  *^ Point."  This  man  Davie,  who  had  established 
the  new  five-cent  ferry  route  to  San  Francisco  from  where 
Broadway  ended  in  the  estuary,  cutting  the  octopean  South- 
em  Pacific's  rate  two-thirds,  gave  the  recuperating  John 
London  a  job  as  night  watchman.  In  the  daytime  he  added 
to  his  slender  means  by  canvassing  and  collecting.  Pres- 
ently, when  John  L.  Davie  rose  in  Oakland  politics,  he 
appointed  his  dependable  friend  as  a  special  officer  on  the 
Police  Force.  It  was  the  same  Davie,  at  this  writing.  Mayor 
of  Oakland  for  the  third  time,  who,  backed  by  the  City 
Council,  in  1917  transplanted  from  Mosswood  Park  a  sev- 
enteen-year-old oak,  twenty-four  feet  high,  to  the  City  Hall 
Park,  where  it  was  dedicated  to  the  memory  of  Jack  Lon- 
don, son  of  his  old  friend.  Only  a  few  yards  from  this 
thriving  young  denizen  of  the  open,  now  towers  the 
impressive  building  that  superseded  the  old  City  Hall 
and  public  library  where  Jack  London  ** opened  the  books" 
and  began  the  omniverous  reading  he  pursued  unabated  for 
the  thirty  years  that  followed. 


56      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Under  Officer  London's  protection  the  newsboy  was  con- 
voyed about  in  the  *  'tenderloin ' '  night  life  of  the  town,  and 
new  and  lurid  were  the  reflections  that  flitted  across  his 
expansile  mental  mirror.  In  such  conditions  the  two 
resumed  their  ever  sweet  if  fragmentary  companionship. 
Squeezed  behind  the  door-keepers  of  public  dance-halls,  or 
of  dives,  the  boy  strained  his  eyes  upon  the  curious  per- 
formances of  the  under-world,  as  well  as  those  of  the  re- 
laxing working  classes.  Here  again,  he  could  not  but  be 
struck  by  the  fool-making  effects  of  too  much  alcohol ;  and 
when  these  effects  exceeded  foolishness,  and  drinkers  were 
jangled  off  to  jail  in  **hurry-up  wagons, ''  he  was  confused 
by  the  fact  that  drinking  was  a  licensed  pastime  for  the 
young  as  well  as  the  matured,  and  not  frowned  upon  by  the 
men  who  sat  in  the  high  places.  On  the  contrary,  in  saloons 
he  actually  beheld  such  exalted  personages  also  imbibing  the 
potent  drafts,  little  recking  that  their  joviality  was  often  but 
a  cloak  for  ills  that  drove  them  to  the  inhibitions  of  alcohol. 

Another  circumstance  that  throws  light  upon  his  mental 
strife  was  the  recurrent  enigma  as  to  where  the  dollars  went 
that  his  father  and  mother  earned.  He  knew  roughly  what 
constituted  living  expenses ;  but  where  disappeared  the  sur- 
plus, and  his  own  little  hoardings?  For  Jack's  inner  hurt, 
at  the  time,  I  have  recourse  again  to  his  letter  to  the  sweet- 
heart of  his  early  twenties : 

* '  I  was  eight  years  old  when  I  put  on  my  first  undershirt  made 
at  or  bought  at  a  store.  Duty ! — at  ten  years  I  was  on  the  street 
selling  newspapers.  Every  cent  was  turned  over  to  my  people, 
and  I  went  to  school  in  constant  shame  of  the  hats,  shoes,  clothes  I 
wore.     Duty — from  then  on,  I  had  no  childhood.     Up  at  three 

0  'clock  in  the  morning  to  carry  papers.  When  that  was  finished  I 
did  not  go  home  but  continued  on  to  school.  School  over,  my  even- 
ing papers.  Saturday  I  worked  on  an  ice  wagon ;  Sunday  I  went 
to  a  bowling  alley  and  set  up  pins  for  drunken  Dutchmen.    Duty — 

1  turned  over  every  cent  and  went  dressed  like  a  scarecrow.'* 


LIVERMORE  VALLEY  57 

Delivering  the  afternoon  paper  led  him  into  queer  places 
and  deeper  bewilderment.  In  Temescal,  at  that  time  the 
**  tough '^  northern  boundary  of  the  city,  when  he  handed 
the  *' Enquirer*'  to  Josie  Harper,  mistress  of  a  road  house 
at  Thirty-ninth  Street  and  Telegraph  Avenue,  he  marveled 
that  so  immense  and  unladylike  a  female  should  be  less 
forbidding  in  her  manner  than  certain  more  refined  sub- 
scribers. He  could  not  help  liking  her  rough-and-ready 
jollity,  and  one  day  when  she  asked  the  barkeeper  to  pour 
a  glass  of  wine  for  him,  he  was  powerless  to  refuse  the 
honor.  But  it  tasted  no  better  than  the  **red  paint'*  of 
Italian  Pete,  and  in  future  he  tried  to  pass  the  paper  to  the 
barkeeper  rather  than  to  that  dignitary's  hospitable  em- 
ployer. 

One  happening  in  his  news-purveying  always  stood  forth 
sharply  if  laughably  in  memory,  an  additional  item  that 
gave  him  pause  with  regard  to  the  strangeness  of  human 
destiny.  An  appetizing  odor  of  coffee  drifted  through  the 
doorw^ay  of  a  squalid  hallway  where  he  had  just  shot  the 
hard-folded  morning  sheet  out  of  his  dexterous  hand.  Now 
Jack  was  at  all  times  a  lover  of  coffee,  and  nothing  would 
do  but  he  must  follow  his  twitching  nose  the  length  of  the 
narrow  passage,  and  stick  that  same  nose  into  a  kitchen 
to  the  right. 

**Good  morning,"  he  remarked  pleasantly,  with  no  idea 
that  his  friendly  mood  would  be  met  otherwise  than 
friendlily;  for  there  was  about  him  a  naturally  engaging 
expectancy  of  fair  treatment  that  neither  the  buffeting  of 
childhood  nor  maturity  could  quench  from  his  spirit. 

A  grizzled  slattern,  prey  of  God  knows  what  ill-usage 
and  despair,  whirled  from  the  hot  stove,  butcher-knife  in 
hand,  and  made  one  leap  for  him  as  his  foot  was  raised 
to  step  inside.  Only  the  genius  for  keeping  one  jump 
ahead  of  all  sentient  life  on  his  familiar  planet  saved  his 
face,  literally  speaking,  not  to  mention  his  skull.  But  one 
correlation  deserted  him — or  was  it  that  she  beat  him  to 


58       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

the  outer  egress  f  He  found  himself  blocked  from  the  street 
entrance,  with  no  avenue  but  an  uninviting  stairway  at  the 
rear  of  the  hall.  Up  this  he  tore  three  steps  at  a  time, 
barely  escaping  the  slashing  blade  wielded  by  the  crazed, 
panting  harridan. 

Doubling  back  along  the  parallel  upper  hallway,  he 
broke  through  the  door  in  which  it  ended,  into  a  room 
where  an  unoffending  elderly  couple  flew  awake  at  his 
abrupt  entry.  Before  they  could  protest,  he  had  swept  off 
their  entire  bedcovering,  and  faced  right-about  to  meet  the 
onrush  of  the  raging  bedlamite,  who  had  been  halted  but 
an  instant  by  the  door  he  had  not  forgotten  to  shut.  Fling- 
ing over  her  head  the  smother  of  blankets,  he  tripped  and 
laid  her  impotently  struggling  on  the  floor,  and  made  good 
his  escape;  and  sweet  music  to  his  ears  were  her  muffled 
shrieks. 

Ida  London  had  married.  From  this  union  was  bom 
Jack's  nephew,  John  Miller.  So,  Jack's  family  had  dwin- 
dled to  three.  In  the  little  Pine  Street  cottage,  for  some 
cause  that  was  justified  in  his  mother's  mind,  he  received 
his  first,  and  last,  whipping  from  her  reluctant  husband. 
John  rebelled,  but  finally  submitted.  He  and  Jack,  the 
latter  far  more  concerned  for  his  father  than  for  himself, 
went  where  they  could  earnestly  discuss  the  punishment 
from  every  angle.  Each  tried  to  hide  from  the  other  his 
own  belief  in  the  joint  disaster  that  was  to  befall  them,  but 
agreed  that  in  all  the  circumstances  it  would  better  be  gone 
through  and  done  with.  And  when  the  onerous  duty  had 
been  performed,  man  and  boy,  they  abolished  habitual  re- 
serve and  wept  unashamed  in  each  other's  arms. 

**But  what  possessed  her,  do  you  suppose?"  he  wound 
up.  **Whom  do  you  think  I  must  have  reminded  her  of — 
what  dark  vengeance  did  I  suggest  ? — I  '11  never  be  satisfied 
until  I  know,  and  I'll  never  know!" 

Jack  London  always  retained  the  conviction  that  his 
original  impetus  toward  literary  leanings  was  supplied  by 


LIVERMOEE  VALLEY  59 

a  teacher  under  whom  he  sat  during  the  last  of  his  grammar 
school  education,  in  the  Cole  School  at  Twelfth  and  Alice 
Streets.  Jack  had  the  gift  of  a  pure  and  musical  voice, 
and  the  spinster  in  authority  ** flatted'*  abominably.  Ergo, 
Jack  presently  demonstrated  his  mettle  by  firmly  declining 
to  join  in  the  offending  discord,  stating  his  reasons  when 
asked.  The  lady,  by  nature  incapable  of  admitting  her 
failure,  wrestled  with  the  obdurate  pupil,  but  was  finally 
obliged  to  send  him  to  the  principal.  Mr.  Garlick,  instead  of 
thrashing  the  lad,  and  so  trying  to  force  him  toward  the 
destruction  of  a  notably  true  sense  of  pitch,  listened  atten- 
tively to  his  reasoning,  and  talked  over  the  question  at  some 
length.  Being  what  he  proved  during  many  years  in  the 
Oakland  halls  of  learning,  both  judicial  and  commendably 
politic,  Mr.  Garlick  delved  into  the  predispositions  of  the 
young  brain,  informed  himself  where  the  student  stood 
highest,  and  returned  him  with  a  note  to  the  school- 
mistress. Therein  she  was  tactfully  instructed,  under  the 
guise  of  advice,  to  command  Jack  to  occupy  the  vocal  peri- 
ods in  writing  compositions.  And  thus  he,  who  dearly 
loved  music  and  singing,  was  deprived  of  one  outlet  only 
to  pour  another  talent  upon  paper,  which  he  did  with  con- 
siderable gusto  and  resultant  good,  if  grudged,  marks. 

It  was  upon  his  entry  into  the  Cole  School  that  he  made 
his  stand  for  the  simple  and  effective  name  of  Jack  Lou- 
don. *' Your  name?'*  the  teacher  asked.  **  Jack  London." 
**No,''  she  admonished,  **you  mean  John  London.*'  **No, 
ma'am,"  respectfully  but  with  finality,  **my  name  is  Jack 
London."  Some  further  discussion  ensued,  but  the  name 
Jack  London  went  upon  the  roll  intact,  as  it  has  stood  upon 
a  greater  roll  this  many  a  year. 

There  were  other  boys  in  the  Cole  School  at  the  same 
time  with  Jack  London,  who  made  successful  names  for 
themselves — James  Hopper,  first  as  foot-ball  ** giant"  at  the 
University  of  California,  later  story-writer  and  war  cor- 
respondent; Elmer  Harris,  well  known  playwright;  and 


60       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Ed  Boreen,  since  illustrator  and  artist.  But,  as  **  Jimmie" 
Hopper  once  said,  they  were  *' pretty  tough  kids,  I  think, 
who  would  have  shied  a  brick  at  any  long-nose  who  might 
have  suggested  we  write  or  draw. ' ' 

Another  situation  Mr.  Garlick  worked  out  in  this  man- 
ner :  Jack  and  a  classmate,  balked  mid-battle  in  a  soaring  ex- 
hibition of  fisticuffs,  were  called  upon  the  carpet.  An  in- 
terrogation satisfied  the  Principal  that  Jack  had  had  cause 
for  starting  the  row,  but  he  fancied  chancing  an  experiment. 
He  left  it  to  the  pair  of  flushed  and  itching  combatants  to 
continue  the  engagement  to  a  finish,  then  and  there  in 
his  office,  or,  calmly,  like  *  kittle  gentlemen,*'  to  consider 
all  sides,  and  kiss  and  make  up.  '*I  will,''  promptly  of- 
fered the  other  boy,  who  had  tasted  the  bitter  impact  of 
Jack's  small,  agile  fists.  The  latter,  not  wholly  unscarred, 
though  not  relishing  such  caress  from  one  whom  he  was  sure 
he  could  *  *  lick ' '  in  fair  fight,  hesitated  but  a  moment.  Then, 
with  heaven  knows  what  correlations  of  pride,  defeat,  con- 
sideration for  his  admired  superior,  and  his  latent  sense  of 
humor,  all  flashing  across  his  subjectivity,  with  a  half- 
abashed  grin  he  stuck  out  a  grimy  paw  and  met  his  late 
enemy's  lips. 

John  London,  once  summoned  to  stop  a  fray  in  which  his 
son  was  successively  taking  on  the  members  of  an  entire 
family  of  brothers,  each  one  taller  than  the  latest  van- 
quished, inquired  as  he  strode  to  the  scene:  **Is  my  boy 
fighting  fair? — if  he  is,  I  guess  there  ain't  any  call  for  me 
to  interfere."  And  he  puffed  his  pipe  with  earnest  ap- 
preciation sitting  in  his  eyes,  until  the  biggest  of  all  the 
brothers  of  the  smitten  line  tried  to  deliver  a  foul  blow  to 
the  infuriated  bantam,  when  John  called  a  halt.  He  insisted 
only  that  his  boy,  playing  the  game  in  clean  sporting 
fashion,  should  be  met  by  sporting  methods,  even  by  one 
twice  his  adversary's  size. 

Who  can  overestimate  the  blessing  of  the  influence  upon 
Jack  London,  exerted  in  their  different  fields  by  men  like 


LIVERMORE  VALLEY  61 

Mr.  Garlick  and  John  London!  It  endured  as  a  prominent 
factor  in  the  youth  *s  wisely-timed  emergence  from  the 
vicious  environment  that  presently  claimed  him,  and  that 
would  in  short  order  have  destroyed  him  as  it  destroyed 
many  of  his  companions.  The  effect  of  these  two  was  price- 
less in  the  expanding  mental  operations  of  the  boy,  as  he 
evolved  a  working  philosophy  that  enabled  him  to  deal  in- 
telligently with  boys  and  men  of  strange  breeds  and  out- 
landish practices.  And  terribly  soon  it  was  to  be  almost 
solely  from  associates  physically  his  seniors  that  he  was  to 
learn  ' '  the  worst  too  young.  *  * 


CHAPTER  V 

ETC, 

WITH  an  inherent  aristocracy  of  both  mental  and 
physical  being,  sometimes  Jack  London  indulged 
in  speculation  upon  the  effect,  had  this  significant  term 
been  passed  under  cultured  and  leisured  conditions. 

*'I  should  most  likely  have  become  a  poet,"  he  would 
reflect,  *'or  a  composer.  As  it  was,  an  equal  urge  came  to 
me  later  from  both  poetry  and  music.  Somewhat  of  an 
exquisite,  I  'm  afraid,  if  only  from  my  excessive  physical 
sensibilities — but  I  am  surely  not  a  sissy !  '*  with  a  whimsical 
look  at  me.  **If  I  had  turned  to  sociology  at  all,  it  would 
have  been  merely  in  an  intellectual,  impersonal  way,  not 
because  I  felt  kinship  with  the  submerged.  Curiosity, 
rather  than  sympathy,  would  have  led  me  to  investigate  here 
and  there  out  of  my  elect  caste.  You  know  how  I  love  to 
prowl  anyway — ^no  interval  is  long  enough  to  make  me  for- 
get the  lure  of  it."  And  to  Cloudesley  Johns  in  March, 
1899,  he  wrote:  **It  is  well  you  appreciate  the  virtue  in 
lack  of  wealth,  and  you  seem  to  be  all  the  better  for  it. 
Here 's  what  wealth  would  have  done  for  me :  it  would  have 
turned  me  into  a  prince  of  good  fellows,  and,  barring  acci- 
dent, would  have  killed  me  of  strong  drink  before  I  was 
thirty." 

By  nature  a  leader,  a  master,  Jack  would  probably  have 
grown  up  elegantly  autocratic,  even  despotic  in  a  benevolent 
way,  had  the. conditions  during  his  adolescence  been  more 
sympathetic.  As  it  was,  there  was  implanted  in  him  a 
second  nature  of  protest  and  rebellion.  However,  except 
in  so  far  as  he  bludgeoned  with  that  puissant  intellect,  there 


► 


BOYHOOD  TO  YOUTH:  OAKLAND  ESTUARY    63 

was  no  cruelty  in  him.  Once,  and  once  only,  in  childhood, 
he  had  tortured  an  animal,  a  frog — the  only  assignable  mo- 
tive being  curiosity.  He  never  forgot  this,  nor  ever  forgave 
himself.  In  the  year  of  his  death,  I  happened  to  be  present 
when  a  young  fellow  related  humorously,  and  with  apparent 
relish,  how  in  boyhood  he  had  suspended  a  puppy  by  its 
paws  and  enjoyed  its  yapping  when  he  struck  it.  From  the 
phenomenon  of  his  face  I  glanced  at  Jack's,  which  moved 
no  muscle,  yet  recoiled  with  every  nerve,  while  his  eyes 
became  welling  pools  of  darkness.  He  had  liked  this  man. 
By  land  and  variant  waterways  I  have  travelled  with 
Jack  London:  by  steamer — tramp  and  liner;  windjammer, 
sampan,  pleasure  craft  of  all  sorts;  in  railroad  trains  of 
many  countries;  by  automobile,  bicycle,  saddle,  and  horse- 
drawn  vehicle,  from  cart  to  tallyho ;  even  on  foot,  which  was 
least  to  our  mutual  liking;  and  we  but  awaited  opportunity 
to  take  to  the  blue  together — this  chance  coming  to  me  alone 
after  he  had  gone  beyond  that  blue.  But  it  was  upon  the 
liquid  two-thirds  of  earth's  surface  that  I  saw  him  the  most 
blissfully  content.  Dawn  or  twilight,  he  loved  the  way  of  a 
boat  upon  the  sea.  His  bright  inquisitive  spirit  might  have 
sailed  to  its  human  birthing,  so  native  was  he  to  the  world's 
watery  spaces.  The  sea  nurtured  a  gallant  and  adventurous 
spirit  that  made  us  all  watch  his  banner.  His  influence  was 
felt  like  a  great  vitalizing  breath  from  the  West — wide  land 
of  red-veined  men — in  which  he  lived  and  died.  **  Seamen 
have  at  all  times  been  a  people  apart,"  curiously  so,  from 
tlie  rest  of  their  kind ;  and  the  sailor  Jack  London  was  a  man 
apart  from  the  rest  of  himself.  Imagination,  nerves,  work, 
pleasure,  all  ran  in  smoother  grooves  when  his  feet  stood 
between  the  moving  surface  and  the  blowing  sky,  his  own 
intelligence  the  equalizing  force  amidst  unstable  elements. 
Seldom  in  waking  hours  without  books  or  spoken  argument 
exerting  upon  his  wheeling  brain,  yet  at  the  helm  of  his  boat, 
braced  for  day-long  hours,  he  would  stand  rapt  in  healthful 
ecstasy  of  sheer  being,  lord  of  life  and  the  harnessed  powers 


64       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

of  nature,  unheedful  of  physical  strain,  Ms  own  hand  direct- 
ing fate. 

Graduation  from  grammar  school  came  at  about  his 
thirteenth  year.  Pathetically  enough,  the  poor  boy  did  not 
appear  at  the  graduation  exercises,  because  he  was  ashamed 
of  his  shabby  clothes.  It  may  interest  the  harsh  critic  of 
Jack  London's  chosen  careless  attire,  to  learn  that  he  was 
once  slave  of  convention  in  the  matter  of  clothing.  I  have 
heard  him  laugh  softly,  with  a  dimness  in  his  eyes,  at  the 
pathos  of  the  shrinking  little  figure  he  had  cut  in  earliest 
schooling  days,  when  his  mother  resolutely  clad  him  in  some 
garment  he  thought  different  from  his  schoolmates'  clothes, 
and  he  died  a  thousand  deaths  of  shame. 

It  had  come  to  the  ears  of  busy  Eliza  that  her  brother 
intended  to  forego  being  class  historian  at  the  ceremonial, 
to  which  honor  he  had  been  elected.  She  made  an  effort  to 
locate  him,  that  she  might  buy  him  a  new  outfit,  and  left 
word  for  him  to  come  to  her.  But  for  some  cause  her  plans 
miscarried. 

School  finished,  what  play-time  remained  after  *' hus- 
tling'' newspapers  and  performing  odd  jobs  was  spent  in 
a  fourteen-foot,  decked-over  skiff,  equipped  with  center- 
board  and  flimsy  sail.  Questing  a  new  world  beyond  the  tide- 
ripped  mouth  of  the  estuary,  out  upon  the  treacherous  water 
of  the  bay  proper  he  ventured  to  Goat  Island,  more  formally 
Yerba  Buena,  now  conspicuous  in  all  the  array  of  a  naval 
training  station.  The  fish  he  bore  home  gave  him  economic 
sanction  for  his  favorite  recreation.  Very  important  he 
felt  with  those  still  dimpled  fists  closed  about  the  rickety 
little  tiller — captain  of  his  ship  and  soul,  salt  spray  upon 
his  parted  lips,  and  the  free  west  wind  sweeping  through 
his  young  lungs,  that  came,  unlike  other  blessings,  without 
price.  Sitting  high  on  the  windward  rail,  sheet  in  hand, 
feeling  out  the  strength  of  the  breeze,  with  wistful  eyes  he 
watched  great  vessels  tow  Golden  Gateward,  breaking  out 
their  gleaming  canvas,  and  longed  to  run  away  to  sea.    Or, 


BOYHOODTO  YOUTH:  OAKLAND  ESTUARY  65 

slipping  along  with  slack  sheet  before  a  light  zephyr,  one 
eye  on  the  sail,  one  hand  at  the  helm,  he  devoured  countless 
tales  of  voyagers,  the  covers  of  which  he  first  protected  with 
newspaper  against  injury  by  dampness  or  salt  spray. 

In  this  wise  he  applied  himself  to  master  the  manners  of 
little  craft  until  their  management  should  become  automatic 
to  hand  and  brain.  Here  he  laid  foundation  for  the  con- 
summate small-boat  sailor  to  whom  I,  yachtswoman  long  in 
advance  of  our  meeting,  entrusted  my  life  seventeen  years 
later  in  ocean  voyaging  on  a  forty-five-foot  ketch.  **The 
small-boat  sailor  is  the  real  sailor,*'  was  his  opinion,  al- 
though he  courteously  prefaces  the  remark  with  *^  barring 
captains  and  mates  of  big  ships."  And  he  goes  on:  **He 
knows — he  must  know — ^how  to  make  the  wind  carry  his 
craft  from  one  given  point  to  another  given  point.  He  must 
know  about  tides  and  rips  and  eddies,  bar  and  channel 
markings,  and  day  and  night  signals;  he  must  be  wise  in 
weather-lore ;  and  he  must  be  sympathetically  familiar  with 
the  peculiar  qualities  of  his  boat  which  differentiate  it  from 
every  other  boat  that  was  ever  built  and  rigged.  He  must 
know  how  to  gentle  her  about,  as  one  instance  of  a  myriad, 
and  to  fill  her  on  the  other  tack  without  deadening  her  way 
or  allowing  her  to  fall  off  too  far."  As  for  the  captains  of 
liners  as  well  as  officers  and  able  seamen,  I  have  heard 
them  frankly  admit:  **No,  I  can't  swim;  and  I  don't  know 
the  first  thing  about  handling  small  sailing  vessels."  It 
is  an  art  by  itself,  and  Jack  London  became  a  past  master 
of  it  during  his  early  teens. 

Never  did  he  forget  his  astonishment  upon  encountering 
his  first  modem  deep-water  sailor — runaway  from  an  Eng- 
lish merchantman.  He  sat  in  breathless  wonder-worship 
of  this  sea-god  who  discoursed  lightly  of  hair-raising  hur- 
ricanes and  violent  deeds  in  strange  lands  and  oceans.  One 
day  the  superior  being  consented  to  sail  with  him.  **With 
all  the  trepidation  of  the  veriest  little  amateur  I  hoisted 


66       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

sail  and  got  under  way.  Here  was  a  man,  looking  on 
critically,  I  was  sure,  who  knew  more  in  one  second  about 
boats  and  the  water  than  I  could  ever  know.  After  an 
interv^al  in  which  I  exceeded  myself  he  took  the  tiller  and 
the  sheet.  I  sat  on  the  little  thwart  amidships  open- 
mouthed,  prepared  to  learn  what  real  sailing  was.  My 
mouth  remained  open,  for  I  learned  what  a  real  sailor  was 
in  a  small  boat. 

*^He  couldn't  trim  the  sheet  to  save  himself,  he  nearly 
capsized  several  times  in  squalls,  and  once  again  by  blunder- 
ingly jibing  over.  He  did  n't  know  what  a  centerboard  was 
for,  nor  did  he  know  that  in  running  a  boat  before  the  wind 
one  must  sit  in  the  middle  instead  of  on  the  side;  and, 
finally,  when  we  came  back  to  the  wharf,  he  ran  the  skiff  in 
full  tilt,  shattering  her  nose  and  carrying  away  the  mast- 
step.  ...  A  man  can  sail  in  the  forecastle  of  big  ships  all 
his  life  and  never  know  what  real  sailing  is. ' ' 

Sometimes  a  boy  companion  was  his  on  the  thrilling 
traverse  to  Goat  Island,  athwart  the  churning  wakes  of 
leviathan  ferry  steamers.  But  most  often  he  occupied  un- 
shared his  domain  of  free  fair  solitude,  milling  out  his  own 
problems,  empirical  or  spiritual — the  former  rooted  in  one 
sure  test,  **Will  it  work — will  you  trust  your  life  to  itT' — 
the  latter  resolving  into  an  equal  conviction  that  the  exist- 
ence he  escaped  on  shore  was  sordid  and  meaningless  com- 
pared with  this.  Unaided  by  man,  he  was  engaged  in  iden- 
tifying himself  with  the  universe  as  it  unfolded  to  his 
unboyish  perspective,  establishing  his  separate  ego,  and 
making  toward  the  polymorphic  entity  he  was  to  become. 

And  here,  fleeing  from  the  crowded  turmoil  ashore,  thrill- 
ing with  beauty  and  wonder  of  sea  and  sky,  in  the  **vast 
indifference  of  heaven  and  sea,''  he  fell  into  a  cool  gravity 
of  contemplation  that  few  realized  of  him  in  his  manhood. 
I  knew ;  for  with  him,  speeding  away  from  cities,  in  peace 
and  truth  I  was 


BOYHOOD  TO  YOUTH:  OAKLAND  ESTUARY    67 

**  ...  as  one  that  leaves 
The  heat  and  babble  of  a  crowded  room 
And  steps  into  the  great,  cool,  silent  night." 

**No  one  has  helped  me  vitally — name  me  one,"  he  has 
challenged  in  bald  moments  when  the  struggling  past  arose. 
Indeed,  in  reviewing  what  I  know  from  him  and  of  him,  it 
does  seem  that  after  eliminating  all  who  tried  to  help,  one 
finds  the  history  of  a  success  that  was  won  almost  in  spite 
of  proffered  assistance,  which  was  for  the  most  part  mis- 
directed. This  because  in  the  main  the  effort,  through  mis- 
conception of  his  superb  free  quality,  made  toward  conven- 
tionalizing, holding  him  back  and  down.  The  only  souls 
who  may  rest  in  joy  of  having  helped  are  those  (to  whom 
my  gratitude!)  who  gave  him  moments  of  happiness. 

Dreamer  though  he  was,  and  dream  though  he  did,  the 
boy  learned  withal  that  a  boat  would  capsize  and  he  be 
brine-soaked,  or  worse,  if  he  did  not  apply  practical  system 
in  handling  her.  While  his  ardent  boyish  heart  was  con- 
scious of  beauty  and  pleasure,  he  respected  the  means  of 
their  attainment.  *  *  I  have  been  real, ' '  he  adjudged  his  men- 
tal method,  **and  did  not  cheat  reaUty  any  step  of  the 
way. ' ' 

Those  who  choose  for  the  foundation  of  their  judgments 
the  sensational  aspects  of  his  career,  are  surprised  that  his 
approach  by  water  was  not  heralded  by  much  noise  of  steam 
or  gasolene-driven  enginery,  or,  upon  terra  firma,  by  dust- 
rimed,  red  devil  touring-car.  Once,  indeed,  during  a 
period  of  dangerous  depression,  he  had  contemplated  the 
big  red  devil,  biggest  and  reddest,  for  the  outrunning  of  his 
blue  fiends.  But  he  never  owned  an  automobile,  although, 
when  in  1916  we  planned  a  world-around  voyage  after  the 
War,  the  finest  purchasable  car  was  to  be  an  item  of  dun- 
nage in  a  remodeled  three-topmast  schooner  such  as  we  had 
seen  in  the  Alameda  Basin. 

**We  shall  be  anachronisms,  you  and  T,  Mate  Woman," 
he  would  prophesy  gleefully,  **for  when  we  arc  seventy  and 


68       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

beyond,  still  shall  we  be  riding  and  driving  horses  on  the 
highways,  still  shall  we  be  sailing  boats.  I  do  believe  that 
boat  sailing  is  a  finer,  more  difficult  art  than  running  a 
motor.  It  would  n't  be  right  to  insist  that  any  one  can  run 
the  newest  fool-proof  gasolene  machinery,  but  most  of  us 
can.  This  is  not  true  of  sailing  a  boat.  It  takes  more 
skill  and  intelligence,  and  certainly  more  training.  * ' 

Picturing  the  embryo  sailor  steering  the  frail  fabric  of 
wood  and  cotton,  clinging  almost  a  part  of  this  workable 
thing  of  his  dreams,  curls  blown  back  from  the  uplifted  face 
with  its  marveling  smile,  I  am  reminded  of  what  Edwin 
Markham  wrote  me  in  the  shadows: 

**I  think  of  him  as  part  of  the  heroic  youth  and  courage 
of  the  world.'* 

One  fails  to  discern  where  he  passed  from  boyhood  into 
youth.  Paradoxically,  we  might  say,  as  he  so  often  said, 
that  there  never  was  a  boyhood  for  him.  Hardly  did  he 
experience  even  a  youth.  From  first  to  last  it  was  as  boy- 
man  and  man-boy  that  he  came  face  to  face  with  life.  **I 
never  had  a  boyhood,"  were  his  own  words,  **and  I  seem  to 
be  hunting  for  that  lost  boyhood. ' '  One  passion  of  my  wife- 
hood, was,  that  to  son  of  his  and  mine,  I  might  have  part  in 
making  up  for  that  ineffable  treasure  of  childhood  that  Jack 
London  had  missed. 

Now  see  how,  in  physical  immaturity,  striving  as  always 
for  fuller  scope,  he  foregathered  in  all  lawlessness  with 
youths  and  men.  With  a  rare  apperception  of  their  for- 
eignness,  soon  he  was  able  so  to  coordinate  with  it  as  to 
bridge  incongruity  of  years  and  step  forth  indistinguish- 
able,— to  them, — from  their  own  essential  quality.  Not 
with  foreign  bloods,  however,  was  his  initiation  into  the 
man-game.  It  took  place  in  the  familiar  ** creek,''  aboard 
the  large  sloop  yacht.  Idler,  lying  not  far  from  the  wide- 
waisted  unused  whalers.  To  the  romancing  eye  of  the 
youngster,  head  crammed  with  enticing  stories  of  seafar- 


BOYHOODTO  YOUTH:  OAKLAND  ESTUAEY    69 

ing,  she  was  shrouded  in  fabulous  mist.  Rumor  had  it  that 
she  was  interned  for  a  questionable  but  dare-devil  trans- 
action known  as  opium  smuggling  in  savage  isles  on  the 
western  sea-rim,  none  other  than  the  Sandwich  Islands  of 
glib  geography  recitation.  On  more  than  one  occasion  his 
skiff  had  tacked  at  respectful  distance  about  the  slim  white 
hull  and  raking  scraped  mast,  and  he  had  vaguely  envied 
the  husky,  bronzed  caretaker,  who  kept  the  elegant  craft 
shipshape. 

One  day  came  the  golden  opportunity  to  meet  with  this 
brawny  man  of  nineteen,  who  was  reputed  to  be  a  har- 
pooner,  waiting  his  chance  to  put  to  sea  in  professional 
capacity  on  one  of  the  whalers,  the  Bonanza,  Her  tumble- 
down sides  even  now  resounded  to  the  tinkering  incident 
to  outfitting  for  a  new  voyage.  It  was  the  before  men- 
tioned runaway  English  sailor  who  made  possible  the  event, 
by  asking  Jack  to  put  him  aboard  the  Idler  for  a  **gam*' 
with  the  harpooner.  The  boy,  inwardly  trembling  with 
delight,  hoisted  his  tiny  sail  and  directly  they  were  zipping 
across  the  estuary.  He  and  the  sailor  were  bidden  hos- 
pitably on  deck  by  the  caretaker.  Jack,  before  going  below, 
in  precise  seamanlike  method  dropped  his  boat  astern  on  a 
long  painter,  **with  two  nonchalant  half-hitches,**  that 
there  might  be  no  scratching  of  the  yacht's  shining  white 
paint.  Then  he  followed  with  bated  breath  down  the  brassy 
companionway,  and  filled  his  lungs  with  the  musty,  damp 
odor  of  the  first  sea-interior  he  had  ever  entered. 

If  we  may  trace  any  definite  line  betwixt  his  youth  and 
manhood,  it  leads  to  this  cabin  of  the  opium  smuggler, 
Idler,  where,  though  he  lapsed  for  a  time  thereafter,  he 
became  indissolubly  bound  with  the  affairs  of  men.  And 
such  men!  **At  last  I  was  living.  Here  I  sat,  inside  my 
first  ship,  a  smuggler,  accepted  as  comrade  by  a  harpooner 
and  a  runaway  English  sailor  who  said  his  name  was 
Scotty.*'  Preserving  discreet  silence,  that  ho  might  dis- 
play no  jarring  immaturity,  he  was  taken  for  granted. 


70      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Newly  conscious  of  his  uncouth  land-lubberly  garments,  he 
regarded  the  clothing  that  gently  swayed  on  the  cabin 
walls  to  the  roll  left  by  passing  tugs:  **.  .  .  leather  jackets 
lined  with  corduroy,  blue  coats  of  pilot  cloth,  souVesters, 
sea  boots,  oilskins. ''  It  all  gave  out  a  musty  smell,  *'but 
what  of  that?  Was  it  not  the  seagear  of  menT'  And  the 
cabin — it  and  its  appointments  were  photographed  on  his 
retina  for  all  time,  and  their  like  registered  as  the  dearest 
and  most  desirable  of  surroundings;  **.  .  .  everywhere  was 
in  evidence  the  economy  of  space — the  narrow  bunks,  the 
swinging  tables,  the  blue-backed  charts  carelessly  rolled 
and  tucked  away,  the  signal-flags  in  alphabetical  order,  and 
a  mariner's  dividers  jammed  into  the  woodwork  to  hold  a 
calendar. ' ' 

The  swift-evolving  lad  of  fourteen,  shrewdly  observing 
by  aid  of  the  usual  allotment  of  senses  and  that  extra  one 
of  fitness  which  was  the  flower  of  the  other  ^ve,  renewed 
acquaintance  with  the  oblique  concomitant  of  manhood's 
prowess  and  comradery.  Where  could  they  get  something 
to  drink?  Nothing  aboard,  and  no  licensed  saloons  any- 
where near.  The  harpooner  knew ;  and  with  flask  in  pocket 
disappeared  overside.  The  flask  was  full  when  again  the 
click  of  his  rowlocks  was  heard,  and  the  smallest  member 
of  the  law-scoffing  company  was  deeply  mystified  concern- 
ing the  relation  between  **rot-guf — euphonious  name  by 
which  the  adulterated  fire-water  was  known  by  these  swag- 
ger adventurers — and  certain  sightless  swine.  But  it  was 
not  many  moments  before  the  significance  of  ** blind  pig** 
burst  upon  him. 

Vinegar  and  gall  the  liquor  was  to  his  lips  and  throat ; 
but  he  *  *  drank  with  them,  drink  by  drink,  raw  and  straight, 
though  the  damned  stuff  could  n  't  compare  with  a  stick  of 
chewing  taffy  or  a  delectable  *  cannon-ball. '  '*  And  to 
spend  fortunes  of  cents  on  such  debatable  nectar !  He  car- 
ried twenty  in  his  man-length  jeans,  and  could  not  do  less 
than  contribute  them  with  offhand  smile  toward  the  many 


BOYHOODTO  YOUTH:  OAKLAND  ESTUAEY    71 

refillings  of  the  square-face  bottle,  **  though  with  regret  at 
the  enormous  store  of  candy'*  they  represented. 

As  the  hours  flew,  and  the  fumes  rose  and  worked  within 
his  hard  young  skull,  he  became  aware  of  the  virtue  of  the 
potion  that  unbound  diffidences  and  true  modesties.  Ab- 
sorbing the  unloosed  confidences  of  these  suddenly  estab- 
lished cronies,  his  ego  began  to  loom  like  a  genii  within  its 
narrow  house,  realizing  an  unsuspected  stature  side  by  side 
with  taller  egos.  All  attention  to  a  self-glorying  tale  of 
valor  from  Scotty,  and  its  lurid  fellow  from  the  harpooner, 
he  came  to  think  that  he  had  not  done  so  badly  either,  in 
his  solitary  wanderings.  Waiting  for  a  pause,  he  launched 
into  bold  narrative  of  how  he  had  sailed  his  skiff  across  the 
bay  in  a  big  south-easter  that  held  deep-water  tonnage  at 
none  too  safe  anchorage  in  port.  Spurred  by  the  respect 
he  seemed  to  command,  a  step  further  he  dared,  charging 
Scotty  with  being  a  **bum''  hand  in  a  small  sailboat.  Only 
another  round  of  whisky  disengaged  the  inflamed  pair,  who, 
now  outside  of  all  reticence,  vowed  in  maudlin  embrace, 
that,  inseparable,  they  would  navigate  the  round  world 
around.  Jack  beheld  himself  one  of  the  Bonanza's  crew  in 
the  North  Pacific,  thence  in  other  keels  to  Far  Ind.  They 
all  three  roared  sea  chanteys,  and  boasted  to  the  pitying 
skies. 

**The  fortunate  man  is  he  who  cannot  take  a  couple  of 
drinks  without  becoming  intoxicated,'*  was  Jack  London's 
opinion.  **The  unfortunate  wight  is  the  one  who  can  take 
many  glasses  without  betraying  a  sign."  Though  the 
young  Jack  had  betrayed  signs  a-many  on  this  day  of 
infinite  consequence,  it  was  he,  the  virgin  carouser,  full  to 
the  guards,  who  put  the  two  seasoned  sinners  to  bed. 
Yearning  to  lose  consciousness  in  another  of  the  tempting 
mattressed  bunks,  he  yet  felt  called  upon  to  demonstrate, 
new-made  giant  that  he  was,  that  no  tottering  weakness 
moved  within  hinL  Again  at  his  tiller,  sail  set,  he  plunged 
the  skiff's  bow  into  the  crisping  channel  and  angled,  madly 


72      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

careering,  across  to  the  Oakland  shore.  **I  was  now  at  the 
pinnacle  of  exaltation.  I  sang  *Blow  the  Man  Down*  as  I 
sailed.  I  was  no  boy  of  fourteen,  living  the  mediocre  ways 
of  a  town.  ...  I  was  a  man,  a  god,  and  the  very  elements 
rendered  me  allegiance  as  I  bitted  them  to  my  will.  * ' 

The  water  was  at  lowest  mark,  and  hundreds  of  feet  of 
greasy  grey  mud  intervened  between  its  lapping  edge  and 
the  boat  landing.  With  centerboard  lifted,  he  drove  full 
speed  into  the  ooze,  and  when  the  skiff  lost  headway,  stood 
up  in  the  sternsheets  and  punted  with  an  oar.  And  here 
outraged  mind  and  flesh  refused  to  function  in  common. 
As  the  one  gave  in  to  the  poison,  the  other  crumpled  over- 
board into  the  unspeakable  slime ;  and  the  poor  little  man- 
of-the-world  knew  painfully,  as  his  skin  tore  against  the 
barnacles  of  a  broken  pile,  that  he  was  nauseatingly  drunk. 
But  not  as  the  others  were  drunk,  he  still  contended  as  he 
scrambled  to  his  feet,  for  in  the  sinuous  maze  of  his 
struggling  wits  there  stirred  a  lofty  satisfaction  that  he  had 
beaten  two  strong  men  at  their  own  game. 

Once  more,  as  in  San  Mateo  six  years  before,  he  swore 
** never  again.''  Not  even  the  limitless  vision  he  had  been 
vouchsafed,  in  addled  ecstasy,  of  the  glories  of  a  conquered 
world,  could  compensate  for  the  come-back  of  miserable 
days  of  sickness  and  depression.  Purple  as  had  been  the 
dream,  it  and  the  means  of  it  he  repudiated,  spent  his  next 
savings  on  taffy  and  ** all-day  suckers,''  and  returned  to 
his  odd  jobs  and  life  on  the  streets.  The  inexhaustible 
trove  of  the  library  seemed  ample  foreign  adventuring 
for  the  nonce. 


CHAPTER  VI 

CANNERY.      BUYS  SLOOP  *  *  RAZZLE  DAZZLE.  *  *      QUEEN  OF  THE 
OYSTER  PIRATES 

15  to  16  years 

ALTHOUGH  the  hero  of  this  book  more  than  once  ran 
away  bodily  from  manual  labor,  before  final  deser- 
tion of  it  through  conviction  of  its  conflict  with  his  remote 
ends,  a  sense  of  responsibility  never  released  him  for  long, 
if  at  all.  He  was  destined  to  become  a  sort  of  patriarch 
to  a  group  of  dependents. 

Barely  fifteen,  shore  life  for  him  had  begun  to  reveal 
itself  as  a  serious  and  manacling  thing,  and  from  the  needs 
of  the  household  there  were  left  but  few  cents  of  his  slender 
earnings,  and  fewer  hours  of  leisure,  for  amusements  and 
taffy.  His  first  steady  servitude  was  in  an  Oakland  can- 
nery, established  in  an  insanitary  old  stable  which  was 
ventilated  by  drafty  interstices  in  its  ramshackle  frame. 
Here  he  became  an  unconscious  example  of  child-exploita- 
tion— that  most  incredible  of  all  the  shames  of  civilized 
society.  His  broadening  shoulders  that  had  shaken  free 
under  the  open  sky,  or  braced  squarely  against  the  shock 
of  brave  west  wind  and  drenching  southeaster,  were  now 
rounded  above  dangerous  machinery  for  an  average  of  ten 
hours  a  day,  with  as  many  cents  compensation  per  hour. 
Roofed  from  their  divine  right  of  sunshine,  boys  and  girls 
alike  they  sat  and  stood  before  their  unprotected  machines, 
the  safety  of  tender  young  hands  and  fingers  depending 
solely  upon  deft  mental  correlation.  Some,  slower  by  na- 
ture than  others,  were  beaten  in  the  unfair  contest,  acci- 
dents were  frequent,  and  the  victims  went  mutilated  for 

73 


74      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

the  rest  of  their  lives;  the  girls  more  sadly  in  proportion 
than  their  male  companions. 

*^We  could  not  spare  a  look  or  a  qualm  from  our  own 
wariness  of  the  machinery,  when  one  of  us  was  hurt,  *  *  Jack 
has  visualized  the  scene  for  me.  **A  frightened  look  aside, 
a  moment's  let-down  of  tensest  attention  to  the  thing  in 
hand,  and  slap!  off  would  go  your  own  finger.  I  guess  I 
was  just  lucky, '*  he  disclaimed  credit  for  his  own  keen 
correlations. 

Those  fittest  to  cope  with  the  work  could  talk  back  and 
forth  down  the  bowed  rows,  boys  and  girls  chaffing  one 
another  and  making  *  ^  dates ' '  for  noon-hour  and  street-cor- 
ner trysts;  but  even  this  intermittent  social  chatter  was 
confined  to  the  forenoon  and  for  a  short  time  after  lunch. 
The  later  of  the  ten  actual  working  hours  were  passed 
under  almost  unendurable  strain  of  taut  nerves. 

Even  if  in  spirit  of  blindly  humorous  yet  grim  reprisal 
against  fate  in  general,  one  sort  of  revenge  for  their  toil 
and  pain  seems  to  have  been  taken  by  the  overdriven  em- 
ployees. From  Jack's  reminiscences  to  me,  I  have  gathered 
that  other  extraneous  matter  than  tears  of  weariness  and 
rebellion  was  often  closed  and  soldered  into  the  shiny  tin 
cans  of  tomatoes  and  peaches,  berries  and  corn ;  and  none 
felt  called  upon,  in  absence  of  the  overseer,  to  skim  off  dust 
blown  into  the  toothsome  contents  by  streams  of  wind  that 
forced  through  the  apertures  of  the  old  barn.  One  of  the 
filth-collecting  ledges  on  the  wall  that  faced  the  workers 
was  almost  on  a  level  with  their  eyes,  and  now  and  again 
contributed  its  quota  of  menace  to  the  health  of  others  than 
the  cannery's  workers.  And  thus  the  public,  also,  was  ill 
served  by  the  masters  of  labor — all  valuable  mental  pabu- 
lum for  the  fiery  reformer  Jack  London  was  soon  to  become. 

To  him  perhaps  alone  of  these  slaves  of  the  old  cannery 
was  given  a  capacity  to  react  in  good  time,  and  make  him- 
self heard  in  no  uncertain  voice,  for  the  education  of  the 
mole-minded  workers  toward  protest  and  demand  for  pro- 


QUEEN  OF  THE  OYSTER  PIRATES  75 

tection  and  adequate  compensation,  even  to  the  seizing  of 
the  very  machinery  of  production.  That  his  mind  was 
set  astir  even  in  the  thick  of  the  gruelling  experience,  one 
reads  from  his  own  view  of  that  drab  period : 

*  *  I  asked  myself  if  this  were  the  meaning  of  life — ^to  be  a  work- 
beast?  I  knew  no  horse  in  the  City  of  Oakland  that  worked  the 
hours  I  worked.  If  this  were  living,  I  was  entirely  unenamored 
of  it/' 

And  the  girls :  here  again,  those  beings  he  heard  referred 
to  as  the  ** weaker*'  sex,  and  therefore  to  be  cherished,  were 
being  despoiled  by  the  same  iron  lot  that  befell  their 
brothers.  At  the  same  time,  for  some  reason  which  he  had 
not  fathomed,  they  were  denied  the  relaxations  and  robust 
recreations  allowed  these  brothers ;  else  they  were  not  con- 
sidered **nice'*  girls.  Maintaining  pace  with  awakening 
sex-consciousness,  curiosity  urged  him  to  speculate  widely 
concerning  these  pretty,  fun-loving  creatures  of  more  deli- 
cate frame  than  himself.  More  marvelous  became  contem- 
plation and  reality  of  his  trysts  with  the  little  maids  of  the 
cannery  whose  lash-veiled  affirmative  glances  in  stolen  in- 
stants from  work  answered  the  questioning  lift  of  his  own 
brows.  Whatever  knowledge  his  curiosity  and  their  com- 
placence yielded  in  time,  he  never  forgot  the  exquisite 
spiritual  quality  of  the  aura  that  surrounded  his  first  love, 
a  couple  of  years  later. 

The  while  he  remained  a  slave,  an  irreproachable 
slave  he  was.  None  could  criticize  his  faithfulness  nor 
the  product  of  his  effort.  But  when  his  moment  struck, 
through  he  was  with  restraint  and  all  its  works.  Insurrec- 
tionary he  stood  forth;  though  along  with  a  radical  shift- 
ing of  viewpoint,  an  amazingly  careful  estimate  of  values 
coordinated  with  the  flinging  off  of  bonds.  Up  to  a  certain 
stage,  the  marshalling  of  values  must  have  been  uncon- 
scious; but  his  bursts  of  action  in  any  premise  were  as  if 
well-considered  from  every  angle.     That  he  did  not  func- 


76      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

tion  without  some  measure  of  deliberate  thought,  there  is 
ample  evidence  from  his  own  reminiscences. 

What  I  am  trying  to  present  is  this :  Out  of  a  free  range 
of  conscious  or  unconscious  thought-material,  garnered  as 
consciously  or  unconsciously  from  his  already  varied  ex- 
perience, he  abruptly  formed  concepts  that  led  him  as 
abruptly  to  rise  and  throw  off  any  complication  that  proved 
unendurable  and  unprofitable  to  his  logic.  Back  in  his  small 
but  independent  flat-bottomed  shallop  on  the  wicked  cur- 
rents of  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  treacherous  of  har- 
bors, he  suddenly  came  to  reckon  with  the  absurdity  of 
the  groveling,  destructive  existence  he  had  let  himself  sink 
into.  Which  held  the  meaning  of  life? — the  turbulent 
waters  with  their  *^ careless  captains,*'  alcohol  and  all,  or 
a  ^Wiewless,  hueless  deep''  of  dehumanizing  labor?  Per- 
haps his  thrilling  heritage  of  physical  ardor  determined 
the  issue.  At  all  events,  selfhood  asserted  overnight,  and 
heaved  the  burden  from  off  his  spirit.  And  the  only  outlet 
that  was  shown  to  him  was  the  water-way  he  so  loved. 
Money  he  must  bring  home — there  was  no  discussion  about 
that,  and  no  idea  of  evading  responsibility  crossed  his  mind. 
But  why  not  combine  his  heart 's-desire  with  bread-getting? 

He  **  remembered  the  wind  that  blew  every  day  on  the 
bay  ...  all  the  beauty  and  wonder  and  the  sense-delights 
of  the  world  denied  .  .  .  the  bite  of  the  salt  air  .  .  . 
the  bite  of  the  salt  water"  when  he  plunged  overside.  The 
pulsing  colors  of  forgotten  sunrises  and  sunsets  flushed 
in  his  jaded  brain. 

Still  again,  I  draw  on  that  '*duty"  letter  to  his  later 
sweetheart: 

'*.  .  .  worked  in  the  cannery  for  a  short  summer  vacation — 
the  reward  was  to  be  a  term  at  college.  I  worked  in  the  same  can- 
nery, not  for  a  vacation  but  for  a  year.  .  .  .  My  wages  were  small, 
but  I  worked  such  long  hours  that  I  sometimes  made  as  high  as 
fifty  dollars  a  month.  Duty — I  turned  every  cent  over.  Duty — 
I  have  worked  in  that  hell  hole  for  thirty-six  straight  hours,  at  a 


QUEEN  OF  THE  OYSTER  PIRATES  77 

machine,  and  I  was  only  a  child.  I  remember  how  I  was  trying  to 
save  the  money  to  buy  a  skiff — eight  dollars.  All  that  summer  1 
saved  and  scraped.  In  the  fall  I  had  five  dollars  as  a  result  of 
absolutely  doing  without  all  pleasure.  My  mother  had  to  have  the 
money — she  came  to  the  machine  where  I  worked  and  asked  me 
for  it.  I  could  have  killed  myself  that  night.  .  .  .  Duty — had  I 
followed  your  conception  of  duty,  I  should  never  have  gone  to  High 
School,  never  to  the  University,  never — I  should  have  remained 
a  laborer.'* 

Once  more  at  the  snn-warped  tiller  of  his  barnacled 
skiff,  leg  0 '  mutton  sail  trimmed,  frayed  sheet  slipping  de- 
liciously  through  his  fingers  as  he  blew  down  the  ebb  tide 
before  the  wind,  tremulous  with  joy  of  returning  to  what 
appealed  as  his  natural  habitat,  the  clear-eyed  young  viking 
of  the  West  expanded  long-cramped  lungs  and  gave  himself 
over  to  taking  inventory  of  his  assets :  One  good,  average 
think-box,  he  calmly  flattered  himself,  and  one  good  average 
body  that  could,  at  need,  surpass  in  resistance  others  of  its 
age  and  size,  not  to  mention  certain  older  and  bulkier 
physiques.  And  his  priceless  asset,  of  which  he  was  then 
ignorant,  was  the  cogency  of  that  brain  which  enabled  hira 
to  focus  swiftly  and  surely  upon  an  aggregation  of  data 
and  set  each  item  where  it  best  would  serve  his  ends. 

I  think  it  must  have  been  right  here,  aligning  his  equip- 
ment for  immediate  benefit  of  all  concerned  in  his  province, 
that  the  budding  philosopher  forever  renounced  idle 
dreaming.  Henceforward  ho  appeared  to  range  his  conclu- 
sions with  more  or  less  logical  application  to  practical 
solutions. 

Reviewing  the  months  just  past,  during  which  he  had 
availed  himself  of  law-abiding  means  of  making,  not  his 
way  in  the  world,  but  mere  bread  and  butter,  he  was  **un- 
enamored'*  of  the  process.  Body  and  soul  had  been  out- 
raged by  the  sodden,  bestial  dulhicss,  and  ho  was  ripe  to 
swerve  into  an  equally  pernicious  if  more  attractive  abyss. 
The  Seabreeze  bore  him  tidings  of  incommunicable  lure,  and 


78       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

his  would  have  been  the  bliss  of  blindly  answering  the  call, 
had  he  not  felt  the  cords  of  duty.  It  was  not  in  him  to  flee 
from  the  failing  ones  at  home.  A  sturdy,  law-respecting 
quality  that  ran  in  his  composition  would  best  have  been 
sustained  if  the  water  had  offered  some  honest  method  of 
livelihood.  Plainly  he  could  not  contribute  his  share  to- 
ward family  expenses  by  mere  angling  from  a  skiff. 

What  wonder,  if  his  reading  had  limned  the  charmed 
word  ** pirate"  in  illuminated  characters?  Suppressed 
boyhood  and  adventure-lusting  youth  rose  to  the  word  and 
all  its  glamor.  Why  not?  What  boy  is  withheld  from 
*  Splaying  pirates,"  or  ** burglars,"  or  Indian  or  white-man 
atrocities,  with  their  lurid  imagery  1  The  fancied  evil  of  it 
leaves  no  more  mark  on  the  playing-child's  perceptions 
than  did  the  actual  evil  cling  to  this  working-child.  Besides, 
drudgery  had  not  impressed  him  as  innocent  and  unharm- 
ful.  The  sin  of  filching  oysters  at  the  risk  of  limb  and 
liberty,  enmeshed  as  it  was  with  exaltation  of  adventure, 
appeared  a  lesser  harm.  Besides,  were  there  not  plenty  of 
oysters  for  everybody.  Again,  that  threshing  mind  flayed 
out  the  ** irrefragable  fact"  that  lurked  in  all  seeming  con- 
tradiction, and  went  on  finding  itself  through  agency  of 
empirical  research.  Who  was  to  tell  him  what  was  right 
and  what  wrong!  He  must  discover  for  himself — and  the 
exploration  promised  delight  in  its  manful  hazard. 

**I  wanted  to  be  where  the  winds  of  adventure  blew," 
his  desire  ran.  **And  the  winds  of  adventure  blew  the 
oyster  pirate  sloops  up  and  down  San  Francisco  Bay,  from 
raided  oyster-beds  and  fights  at  night  on  shoal  and  flat, 
to  markets  in  the  morning  against  city  wharves,  where 
peddlers  and  saloon-keepers  came  down  to  buy.  Every 
raid  ,  .  .  was  a  felony.  The  penalty  was  state  imprison- 
ment, the  stripes  and  the  lockstep.  And  what  of  that  ?  The 
men  in  stripes  worked  a  shorter  day  than  I  at  my  machine. 
And  there  was  vastly  more  romance  in  being  an  oyster 
pirate  than  in  being  a  machine  slave.     And  behind  it  aU, 


QUEEN  OF  THE  OYSTER  PIRATES  79 

behind  all  of  me  with  youth  a-bubble,  whispered  Romance, 
Adventure." 

** French  Frank,'*  a  man  of  fifty,  a  notorious  ** oyster- 
pirate,*'  had  stirred  Jack's  interest  in  the  water-front 
circle.  Slight,  graceful,  debonair,  a  dandy  with  the  brave 
ladies  of  his  hot-headed  class,  French  Frank's  very  foreign- 
ness  surrounded  him  with  romance.  Young  Jack  heard 
that  French  Frank  had  a  boat  to  sell,  a  nifty  sloop  with  the 
dizzy  name  of  Razzle  Dazzle  zigzagged  across  her  saucy 
stem.  Three  hundred  dollars  was  her  price — three  hun- 
dred cart-wheels!  But  he  did  not  take  time  to  gasp,  for 
his  ramping  fancy  entertained  no  obstacle.  Upon  his  vision, 
roving  for  possibilities,  impinged  Mammy  Jenny's  thrifty 
purse,  that  purse  which  ever  sagged  open-mouth  toward 
her  ** white  child."  What  of  the  social  exigencies  of  his 
new  profession  of  swashbuckling,  he  was  a  long  time  pay- 
ing back  that  three  hundred  dollars  of  her  wages  for  nurs- 
ing the  sick ;  and  it  was  a  happy  day  when  at  last  he  laid 
the  final  instalment  in  her  soft,  dark  hand. 

The  Sunday  when  he  dropped  his  skiff  on  a  long  painter 
astern  of  the  Razzle  Dazzle^  and  stood  on  his  **two  hind- 
legs  like  a  man"  talking  business  with  a  real  pirate,  albeit 
of  defenseless  bivalves,  carried  Jack  across  the  moat  into 
man's  estate.  A  twenty-dollar  gold  piece  ratified  the  agree- 
ment, which  was  to  be  drawn  up  on  the  morrow.  Then 
the  prospective  owner,  treading  almost  reverently  the  deck 
of  his  first  boat  worthy  of  the  name,  moved  in  a  dream 
down  into  the  stuffy  little  cabin  that  reeked  of  tobacco  and 
the  flowing  **red  paint"  of  abhorrent  memory. 

In  *'John  Barleycorn"  is  given  an  euphemistic  account 
of  the  affair  and  how  it  terminated.  The  sloop  was 
anchored  near  the  Alameda  bank  of  the  Creek,  not  far 
from  Webster  Street  Bridge.  French  Frank,  scintillating 
with  joy  of  much  wine  and  feminine  companionship,  made 
Jack  acquainted  with  his  friends — ** Whiskey"  Bob,  a 
hardened    character    only    a    year    older    than    himself, 


80       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

** Spider"  Healey,  ** black- whiskered  wharf-rat  of  twenty/' 
and,  for  the  most  approved  piratical  garnishing,  though 
not  the  spoils  of  sea-raiding,  two  young  and  attractive 
females  whom  Jack  has  named  Mamie  and  Tess.  Mamie, 
unbeknown  to  the  boy,  was  the  object  of  a  frantic  French 
passion;  but  the  honorable  offer  of  wifehood  from 
the  elderly  if  dapper  Frank  had  not  proved  sufficient  prize 
to  make  her  forswear  free-lancing  as  Queen  of  the  Oyster 
Pirates. 

When  the  bulgy  demijohn  of  red  wine  tipped  to  another 
tumbler,  Jack,  with  the  eye  of  the  gay  Queen  upon  him, 
all  his  childish  bridges  crashing,  swallowed  first  his 
rising  gorge  and  then  with  befitting  sang-froid  the  tum- 
blerful— and  kept  it  down  with  a  set  smile  that  he  hoped 
was  natural  in  its  seeming.  The  others  had  been  drinking 
for  hours  and,  with  the  exception  of  the  Queen,  were  soon 
paying  all  their  attention  to  the  singing  of  popular  ditties, 
at  first  in  uninterrupted  solos  and  presently  in  discordant 
medley,  each  singing  on  his  or  her  own  account. 

Jack  found  himself  **able  to  miss  drinks  without  being 
noticed  or  called  to  account."  Also,  ** standing  in  the  com- 
panionway,  head  and  shoulders  out  and  glass  in  hand,"  he 
could  cool  his  head  and  fling  the  wine  overboard.  **My 
manhood,"  he  reasoned,  **must  compel  me  to  appear  to 
like  this  wine  ...  I  shall  so  appear.  But  I  shall  drink 
no  more  than  is  unavoidable  .  .  .  And  we  sat  there, 
glasses  in  hand,  and  sang,  while  the  demijohn  went  around; 
and  I  was  the  only  strictly  sober  one  .  .  .  And  I  enjoyed 
it  as  no  one  of  them  was  able  to  enjoy  it,"  he  illustrates  his 
growing  wisdom  and  observation.  **Here,  in  this  atmos- 
phere of  bohemianism,  I  could  not  but  contrast  the  scene 
with  my  scene  of  the  day  before,  sitting  at  my  machine,  in 
the  stifling,  shut-in  air,  repeating,  endlessly  repeating,  at 
top  speed,  my  series  of  mechanical  motions.  And  here  I 
sat  now,  glass  in  hand,  in  warm-glowing  camaraderie,  with 
the  oyster  pirates,  adventurers  who  refused  to  be  slaves  to 


QUEEN  OF  THE  OYSTER  PIRATES  81 

petty  routine,  who  flouted  restrictions  and  the  law,  who 
carried  their  lives  and  their  liberties  in  their  hands.*' 

He  did  not  try  to  resist  the  Queen,  wise  beyond  her 
years.  Before  the  native  pentration  of  this  girl,  who  was 
less  commonplace  than  the  average  run  of  her  sisterhood, 
well  as  he  succeeded  in  merging  with  her  social  stratum, 
he  could  not  altogether  dissemble  his  almost  pristine  fresh- 
ness. Disregarding  any  peril  to  him  from  her  hot-headed 
suitor  of  nearly  four  times  Jack's  age,  she  swept  the  hand- 
some boy  into  her  train.  Oh,  no — he  did  not  lose  his  head ; 
show  him  the  petticoat  who  could  bring  about  such  lament- 
able disaster,  indeed!  No  Mark  Antony  he,  but  an  Augustus 
capable  of  taking  feminine  wiles  at  their  proper  worth  in 
his  career.  He  knew  his  history  books,  and  Augustus  had 
earned  his  distinct  approval. 

As  always,  a  woman 's-man,  still  women  never  interfered 
with  his  playing  the  man's  game.  I  do  not  think  any  woman 
ever  made  him  miss  an  engagement  with  a  man.  In  short, 
passionate  lover  though  he  might  be,  he  w^as  no  follower 
of  petticoats  to  the  extent  of  clouding  his  manly  attitude 
toward  his  own  sex.  It  might  be  said,  reviewing  his  rise 
to  prominence,  that  he  succeeded  in  spite  of  petticoats. 

The  Queen  abstracted  him  from  the  maudlin  crew, 
and  more  especially  from  her  not  uninterested  sister, 
and  made  love  to  him  where  they  sat  on  the  cabin  roof; 
while  the  boy,  entirely  unaware  that  he  was  poaQhing  upon 
Frank's  preserve,  added  the  charm  of  her  presence  into  the 
crucible  of  his  perfect  hour.  Even  at  that,  her  charm  was 
negligible  in  comparison  with  the  thrill  he  knew  at  prospect 
of  endless  days  that  had  no  business  with  routine,  but  were 
concerned  with  life,  more  life.  That  was  it — too  long  he 
had  made  one  with  the  unburied  dead;  and  the  renascent 
desire  for  life,  boundless  life,  bore  him  out  beyond  the  reef 
of  old  clock-watching,  whistle-obeying  standards. 

His  capacity  for  happiness  had  no  horizon  on  that  day 
of  days.     Faultless  was  the  round  blue  universe,  he  was  its 


82       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

conscious  center,  and  his  princely  ego  paced  out  upon  its 
conquering  way.  **The  afternoon  breeze  blew  its  tang 
into  my  lungs,  and  curied  the  waves  in  mid-channel.  Be- 
fore it  came  the  scow  schooners,  wing-and-wing,  blowing 
their  horns  for  the  drawbridges  to  open.  Eed-stacked  tugs 
tore  by,  rocking  the  Razzle  Dazzle  in  the  waves  of  their 
wake.  A  sugar  bark  towed  from  the  ^boneyard*  to  sea. 
The  sunwash  was  on  the  crisping  water,  and  life  was  big. 
.  .  .  There  it  was,  the  smack  and  slap  of  the  spirit  of 
revolt,  of  adventure,  of  romance,  of  the  things  forbidden 
and  done  defiantly  and  grandly.  .  .  .  To-morrow  I  would 
be  an  oyster  pirate,  as  free  a  freebooter  as  the  century  and 
the  waters  of  San  Francisco  Bay  would  permit.  Spider  had 
already  agreed  to  sail  with  me  as  my  crew  of  one,  and,  also, 
as  cook  while  I  did  the  deck  work.  We  would  outfit  our  grub 
and  water  in  the  morning,  hoist  the  big  mainsail,  and  beat 
our  way  out  the  estuary  on  the  last  of  the  ebb.  Then  we 
would  slack  sheets,  and  on  the  first  of  the  flood  run  down 
the  bay  to  the  Asparagus  Islands,  where  we  would  anchor 
miles  off  shore.  And  at  last  my  dream  would  be  realized :  I 
would  sleep  upon  the  water.  And  next  morning  I  would 
wake  upon  the  water;  and  thereafter  all  my  days  and  nights 
would  be  on  the  water.*' 


CHAPTER  Vn 

OYSTER-PIRATING 

1  NEVER  told  you,  did  I,  Mate  Woman,  the  essential 
reason  for  my  title  *  Prince  of  the  Oyster  Pirates*!** 
This  from  Jack  London  to  me  twenty  years  thereafter. 
And  here  I  warn  that  the  story  may  seem  unpretty  to  those 
who  pharisaically  shrink  from  the  facts  of  life. 

**Why,  you  see  when  I,  the  youngest  of  the  pirates, 
commanded  my  own  Razzle  Dazzle,  the  Queen  went  along 
with  me !  I  was  the  only  skipper  in  the  fleet  sailing  with  a 
woman  aboard,  and  it  made  a  sensation.  Spider  had  told 
me  French  Frank  was  *  crazy  jealous'  the  night  she  asked 
me  to  row  her  ashore  from  his  boat;  but  I  couldn't 
believe  that  a  man  of  his  age  could  be  jealous  of  a  boy  like 
myself.  So  I  dismissed  the  matter  from  mind  until  one 
night  he  tried  to  run  me  down  in  a  black  squall  on  the 
oyster-flats. 

*  *  Spider  I  paid  to  do  the  cooking  and  help  me  generally, 
and  I  did  the  deck-work  and  sailorizing — I  had  already 
learned  pride  in  a  boat.  I  guess  the  Queen  had  an  easy  time 
enough. — Why  did  I  take  her!  It  would  be  hard  to  say  it 
all,"  he  retrospected,  an  odd  bashful  expression  flitting 
across  his  face.  **I  was  making  a  career  for  myself,  after 
a  picture  I  had  created  out  of  the  books  I  always  kept  on 
exchanging  at  the  old  library.  I  was  in  revolt  from  the 
beastly  hopelessness  of  the  labor  I  had  been  performing, 
and  had  not  yet  seen  ahead  to  the  other  kinds  of  beastly 
consequences  of  the  life  I  was  entering — inescapable  to 
any  one  who  stayed  in  it.  All  I  saw  was  glamor  of  con- 
quest, of  scarlet  adventure  and  yellow  gold— which  latter  I 

83 


84       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

needed  badly. — Men  did  these  reckless  things ;  only,  I  would 
do  them  better  than  I  saw  them  done  around  me :  I  would 
preserve  the  romance  and  leave  out  the  brutality  if  pos- 
sible. 

**The  Queen  again? — you ^11  never  know  her  real  name, 
my  dear.  ...  It  was  largely  a  hard-headed  manifestation 
of  myself  as  a  man  among  men.  And  she  wanted  to 
go  with  me.  But  in  all  my  life,  in  its  roughest,  toughest 
aspects,  surrounded  by  brutal  men  and  brutal  acts,  I  never 
laid  my  hand  on  a  woman  except  in  gentleness — I  hardly 
need  tell  you  this.  But  my  personal  feeling — why,  I  liked 
the  girl.  She  was  good-looking,  and  warm  and  kind,  and 
best  of  all  she  made  a  real  home  in  that  little  bit  of  a  cabin. 
It  stirred  my  imagination — I  glimpsed,  beyond  adventure, 
dim  visions  of  a  future  in  which  wife  and  children  and 
home  figured.  Besides,  she  was  a  sort  of  waif  herself  and 
we  had  that  unspoken  sympathy  between  us.  Then,  too,  I 
could  not  help  admiring  a  certain  pluck  she  had  about  her, 
good  fellow  all  through,  unafraid  of  God  or  man  or  devil. 
But  along  with  a  prestige  that  obtained  from  holding  my 
own  woman  against  all  comers,  I  knew  the  handicap  of 
being  considered  tied  by  apron-strings;  and  there  were 
times  when  the  Queen  knew  better  than  to  show  her  head 
above  deck. — And  then  you  must  take  into  account,''  he 
referred  to  the  human  passion  of  a  body  that  ever  remained 
incorruptibly  normal,  **I  was  a  husky  man  at  sixteen,  and 
already  knew  girls — my  first  wondering  knowledge  had  been 
presented  to  me  by  one  much  older  than  myself;  and  the 
Queen  met  more  than  one  need  I  had  come  to  recognize. '  * 

The  real  comradeship  that  existed  between  them  par- 
tially redeemed  the  precocity  of  the  affair.  There  was  noth- 
ing of  the  moral  imbecile  about  the  Queen.  In  her  make-up 
was  no  weakness  of  ** squealing''  at  danger,  nor  for  hurt 
feelings  nor  even  the  desertions  incident  to  her  chosen  ad- 
venturings.  She  took  the  world  as  it  came,  and  this  re- 
markable new  friend's  very  unsentimentality  appealed  to 


OYSTER-PIRATING  85 

her  along  with  his  vital  charm.  That  he  did  not  spill  over 
nor  deceive  her  as  to  the  shallowTiess  of  his  ultimate  regard, 
was  to  her  in  his  favor.  She  asked  no  more  than  he  gave, 
and  she  appreciated  his  hmnanity. 

As  one  wise  woman  has  remembered  him:  ** Sincerity- 
was  the  greatest  trait  of  his  character.  He  never  made  pre- 
tensions and  he  built  neither  his  work  nor  his  life  on 
sophisms  and  evasions." 

**I*m  a  funny  sort  of  fellow,  I  guess,*'  he  pursued  the 
self-revelation.  **  Because  I  have  sung  the  paian  of  the 
strong,  and  despite  the  whole  heart  I  threw  into  showing 
the  weak  how  to  become  strong,  as  I  saw  it,  the  world  has 
given  me  the  personal  reputation  of  a  cave-man!  How 
much  of  a  cave-man  have  you,  or  has  any  one,  found  meT 
.  .  .  Sometimes  I  almost  wonder  if  even  you  would  not 
have  more  respect  for  me,  love  me  more  if  I'd  beat  you 
up  soundly  once  in  a  while" — laughingly  whirling  me  into 
an  embrace.  **You  know  my  opinion  of  woman  in 
general,  and  that  it's  not  all  flattering  by  any  means; 
but  even  in  my  *  violent  youth'  a  woman  was  always  to 
me  something  to  handle  tenderly.  Oh,  I'll  rough-house 
with  a  bunch  of  romping  boy-girls  and  give  as  good  as  I 
take,  and  then  some.  But  that's  different."  And  once 
he  mused:  *^I  cannot  understand  the  type  of  man  who, 
having  held  a  woman  in  his  arms,  thinks  less  of  her.  Girls 
have  told  me  of  such  *  lovers,'  and  I  was  aghast.  To  you  I 
say  solemnly  that  no  woman,  howsoever  little  dear  to  me, 
whom  I  have  ever  held  in  my  arms,  but  has  been  dearer  to 
me  for  it." 

And  so,  the  Queen  of  the  Oyster  Pirates,  now  herself 
long  dead,  clasped  the  shadow  of  the  lover  he  was  in  ripe- 
ness of  time  to  discover  himself.  Indeed,  she  clasped  but 
the  shadow  of  what  he  then  was,  for  he  gave  her  no  more 
of  himself  than  was  expedient,  not  even  yet  having  been 
touched  with  the  shy  madness  of  first  love. 

The  maturing  philosopher  would  perform  no  uncon- 


86       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

genial  work,  so  long  as  there  were  others  willing  to  receive 
his  pay  for  the  same ;  yet  he  would  rupture  a  blood-vessel 
or  rip  off  his  sensitive  nail-quick,  jumping  into  a  breach  or 
doing  what  appealed  to  a  whim,  or  to  accomplish  an  end. 
And  he  asked  no  man  to  do  what  he  could  not  himself  do. 
That  he  did  not  break  his  neck  or  cripple  himself  for  life, 
was  due  to  his  exquisite  balance.  Waste  motion  was  a 
crime  against  common  sense.  Master  of  life  that  he  in- 
tended to  become,  he  would  eliminate  every  effort  that  did 
not  bear  directly  upon  his  success.  And  success  in  what? 
Merely  living  to  the  full  while  he  earned  something  over 
and  above  his  bread  and  butter.  The  cannery  masters 
worked  with  their  heads — ^why  not  he  1  Seven  years  later, 
and  a  year  before  his  precipitate  first  marriage,  he  wrote 
to  Cloudesley  Johns : 

*  *  I,  too,  have  worked  like  a  horse,  and  eaten  like  an  ox ;  but  as 
to  work— while  no  comrade  can  ever  say  Jack  London  shirked  in 
the  slightest,  I  hate  the  very  thought  of  thus  wasting  my  time. 
It's  so  deadening — I  mean  hard  labor.  .  .  .  While  I  have  a  strong 
will,  I  deliberately  withhold  it  when  it  happens  to  clash  with  de- 
sire. I  simply  refuse  to  draw  the  curb.  When  I  was  just  sixteen 
I  broke  loose  and  went  off  on  my  own  hook.  Took  unto  myself  a 
mistress  of  the  same  age,  lived  a  year  of  wildest  risk  in  which  I 
made  more  money  in  one  week  than  I  do  in  a  year  now,  and  then, 
to  escape  the  inevitable  downward  drift,  broke  away  from  every- 
thing and  went  to  sea.'* 

During  school  days  and  afterward,  he  had  been  an  in- 
defatigable trader  and  collector  of  everything  under  the 
sun.  There  were  his  painstakingly  hunted  and  labeled  bird- 
eggs  ;  a  treasure  of  marbles — finest  collection  of  agates  he 
had  even  seen,  won  by  skill  in  schoolyard  or  street  games ; 
and  his  cigarette-pictures  and  posters  and  albums  had  been 
the  envy  of  associates.  Not  having  had  the  spending 
of  his  own  money,  he  had  made  use  of  duplicate  papers  in 
trading  with  the  newsboys.  Foreshadowing  what  was  to 
become  a  perfect  system  in  larger  matters,  he  amassed  a 


OYSTER-PIRATING  87 

series  of  pictures  complete  from  every  cigarette  manu- 
facturer, **such  as  the  Great  Racehorses,  Parisian  Beauties, 
Women  of  All  Nations,  Flags  of  All  Nations,  Noted  Actors, 
Champion  Prizefighters.*'  And  each  series  he  had  in  three 
different  ways:  **in  the  card  from  the  cigarette  package, 
in  the  poster,  and  in  the  album.''  After  which,  he  set  out 
to  gather  sets  for  trading  purposes.  In  addition,  through 
barter  he  had  accumulated  an  excellent  album  of  postage 
stamps,  a  fair  shelf  of  minerals,  and  some  good  curios  that 
whetted  his  instinct  to  rove  in  far  countries. 

Because  this  hoarding  depended,  not  upon  money,  but 
upon  his  wits,  he  achieved  a  name  as  a  sharp  trader,  and 
trading  became  to  him  a  game.  *  ^  I  could  make  even  a  junk- 
man weep  when  I  had  dealings  with  him, ' '  he  refers  to  one 
branch  of  operations  that  lasted  into  his  pirate  days. 
*  *  Other  boys  called  me  in  to  sell  for  them  their  collections 
of  bottles,  rags,  old  iron,  grain  and  gunny  sacks,  and  five- 
gallon  oil-cans — aye,  and  gave  me  a  commission  for 
doing  it." 

And  now,  determined  fledgling  in  a  cutthroat  crowd  who 
sneered  at  boyish  sports  which  to  some  of  them  were  in- 
deed unknown,  he  steadily  strengthened  his  pinions  among 
** birds"  vain  of  titles  like  ** Whiskey"  Bob,  Joe  Goose, 
Nicky  the  Greek,  ** Scratch"  Nelson,  **Soup"  and  **Stew" 
Kennedy,  **Clam"  Bart,  *^ Irish"  and  ** Oyster"  Kelly, 
Patsy  Haggerty,  ** Harmonica"  Joe,  **Hell  and  Blazes." 
He  wrote  to  his  dumbfounded  mother  to  distribute  his 
wealth  according  to  the  choices  of  his  erstwhile  cronies. 
Here  it  must  have  been  that  he  commenced  to  foster  that  dis- 
taste for  looking  behind  him  with  which  I  came  to  reckon 
early  in  our  friendship.  **We  are  now  concerned  with  to- 
day," was  his  familiar  adjuration.  **  Forget  the  mistakes 
of  yesterday,  except  as  warning  against  making  the  same 
mistake  twice."  He  would  have  no  commerce  with  what  he 
termed  **the  rule  of  the  dead."  The  living  present  was  the 
thing. 


88       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Inimical  he  knew  this  new  world  to  be :  therefore  he 
would  concentrate  upon  becoming  one  with  it  only  insofar 
as  it  gave  him  pleasure  and  profit.  Oh,  he  did  not  reason 
it  in  so  many  words ;  but  his  cerebration  was  to  that  effect. 
The  old  shackling  sense  of  poverty  he  resolutely  disowned, 
and  with  free  fist  spent  all  of  eighty  cents  upon  detested 
liquor  when  it  served  the  purpose  of  educating  himself  in 
mastership  of  the  human  elements  that  surrounded  him. 
Abandoning  a  measure  of  caution,  drink  for  drink  he  tossed 
them  down.  And  he  marveled  and  gloated  upon  the  patent 
fact  that  he  could  as  before  win  laurels  from  the  well  pickled 
villains  with  whom  he  had  cast  lot.  If  the  whiskey  route 
was  the  only  one  by  which  he,  the  rank  tyro,  could  overtake 
his  book-heroes,  the  whiskey  route  for  him — on  the  surface 
at  any  rate.  But  there  were  stolen  occasions  when  the 
Razzle  Dazzle's  snug  cabin,  locked  from  the  inside,  was  the 
scene  of  blissful  secret  orgies  of  reading  and  sucking  *  *  can- 
non-balls''  and  taffy.  For  **  dollars  and  dollars,  across 
the  bar,  couldn  't  buy  the  satisfaction  that  twenty-five  cents 
did  in  a  candy  store.*' 

*'I  was  aware  that  I  was  making  a  grave  decision,'*  he 
declared.  **I  was  deciding  between  money  and  men,  be- 
tween niggardliness  and  romance.  Either  I  must  throw 
overboard  all  my  old  values  of  money  and  look  upon  it  as 
something  to  be  flung  about  wastefully,  or  I  must  throw 
overboard  my  comradeship  with  those  men  whose  peculiar 
quirks  made  them  care  for  strong  drink.'* 

The  very  embodiment  of  the  thrilling  baresark  of  the 
boy's  Norse  mythology  was  ** Young  Scratch"  Nelson — 
one  day  to  be  the  mightiest-shouldered  cadaver  that 
the  Benicia  undertaker  ever  laid  out.  That  he  could 
neither  read  nor  write,  far  from  diminishing,  rather  en- 
hanced the  figure  he  was  to  Jack.  What  had  his  ViJiing 
ancestral  drift  to  do  with  type  and  ink?  ** Squarehead"  did 
not  suit  the  younger  boy  as  a  just  or  beautiful  appellation 
for  this  blond  beast  of  unconsidered  rages  that  flared  in 


OYSTER-PIRATING  89 

terrible,  admiration-compelling  deeds.  The  first  of  these 
which  came  under  Jack's  observation  was  a  mad  freak  in  a 
nasty  blow  one  starless  night,  when  the  Scandinavian  sailed 
his  piratical  sloop  Remdeer,  dredging  a  record  burglary  of 
oysters,  around  and  around  the  other  boats  that  fearfully 
clung  at  anchor  in  the  pounding  shallow  waves. 

As  for  **01d  Scratch,*'  young  Nelson's  sire,  blue- 
eyed  and  yellow-maned,  o\STier  and  master  of  the  great 
scow  schooner  Annie  Mine — ^what  wonder  Jack's  most  ex- 
alted pinnacle  seemed  reached  on  the  day  when  Old  Scratch 
accepted  quite  as  a  matter  of  course  his  shyly-dared  invita- 
tion to  have  a  drink!  Treat  by  treat,  mere  ** beer-bust" 
though  it  was,  the  session  was  protracted  until  the  dis- 
tended brace  of  salts  succumbed.  But  what  of  that?  Old 
Scratch  was  as  helpless  as  he,  the  novice — more  helpless 
than  he,  was  the  one  thing  of  which  the  latter  felt  sure. 
And  before  the  hops  and  the  heat  of  the  summer  afternoon 
had  reduced  him  to  slumbrous  defeat,  out  of  his  book-lore 
and  the  connivance  of  his  and  the  bartender's  combined  tact 
in  supplying  beers  large  and  small,  he  had  led  the  old  sea 
dog  into  unbelievable  reminiscence  of  his  youth  in  northern 
seas.  The  telling  sobriquet  of  ** Scratch,"  by  the  way,  had 
been  won  by  virtue  of  a  tigerish  mode  of  clawing  off  the 
faces  of  opponents  in  his  Berserker  brawls.  And  when  the 
rumor  came  to  Jack's  ravished  ears  that  he  had  been 
"soused  all  afternoon  with  Old  Scratch,"  his  cup  of  self- 
esteem  brimmed. 

Little  had  he  dreamed,  that  day  aboard  the  Idler^  filled 
as  he  was  with  idolatry  of  the  runaway  sailor  Scotty  and 
the  harpooner  and  the  whole  neighborhood,  that  ho  would 
80  soon  be  his  own  fearless  buccaneer.  But  here  he  was, 
causing  the  water-front  of  his  home  town,  that  once  had 
been  his  awe,  in  turn  to  feel  the  shock  of  his  dare-devil 
exploits,  and  beholding  his  one-time  hero,  Sootty,  and  the 
impish  ** Irish,"  and  ** Spider,"  suooessively  taking  orders 
aboard  his  own  ship.    For  government  was  in  his  veins, 


90      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

unguessed  by  the  very  ones  who  submitted  to  his  vital  charm 
and  admirable  ability  to  make  good  in  the  matter  of  their 
wages.  The  very  air  whispered  deviltry,  and  the  whimsy 
of  his  altered  relation  must  have  shaken  thoughtful  mo- 
ments with  silent  mirth.  Gone  were  parsimonious  days, 
flung  to  the  four  winds.  I  can  see  the  glint  of  eye  and  firm 
clutch  of  jaw,  when  he  ranged  the  sloop  alongside  the 
wharf  with  the  biggest  load  of  stolen  oysters  of  any  two- 
man  craft  in  the  raffish  fleet.  I  can  see  him  with  a 
cocked  double-barreled  shotgun  in  his  small  salt-grimed 
hands,  crouched  feet-on-wheel  holding  the  plunging  Eazzle 
Dazzle  on  her  course  under  a  racing  dark  sky,  that  exciting 
night  French  Frank  failed  to  ram  him. 

**And  there  was  the  time  when  we  raided  far  down  in 
Lower  Bay,'*  he  recounts,  **and  mine  was  the  only  craft 
back  at  daylight  to  the  anchorage  off  Asparagus  Island. 
.  .  .  And  the  Thursday  night  we  raced  for  market  and  I 
brought  the  Razzle  Dazzle  in  without  a  rudder,  first  of  the 
fleet,  and  skimmed  the  cream  of  the  Friday  morning  trade. 
.  .  .  And  the  time  I  brought  her  in  from  Upper  Bay  under 
jib,  when  Scotty  burned  my  mainsail.''  (In  1909,  among 
those  seeing  us  off  on  the  steamer  Loongana  from  Mel- 
bourne to  Launceston,  Tasmania,  was  Scotty  of  the  Razzle 
Dazzle  days.  Jack,  grinning  at  the  recollection,  could  not 
forbear  a  reference  to  the  burned  mainsail.  **But  i/ou 
burned  the  mainsail,'*  Mr.  Scott  disputed  stoutly,  where- 
upon argument  waxed.  But  after  we  had  waved  our  last 
to  the  receding  quay,  my  ex-oyster-pirate  smiled,  **Well, 
after  all,  if  it  makes  him  happy  to  think  I  burned  that  main- 
sail, why  shouldn't  I  let  him  have  it  that  way!") 

As  for  fear  of  the  law  and  its  enforcement,  read  this : 
*  *  .  .  .  lying  at  the  wharf  disposing  of  my  oysters,  there 
were  dusky  twilights  when  big  policemen  and  plainclothes 
men  stole  on  board.  And  because  we  lived  in  the  shadow 
of  the  police,  we  opened  oysters  and  fed  them  to  them  with 
squirts  of  pepper  sauce,  and  rushed  the  growler  or  got 


OYSTER-PIRATING  91 

stronger  stuff  in  bottles.*'  Jack  would  ruflSe  with  pride 
at  remembrance  of  the  **A.  No.  1"  oyster-cocktails  he  had 
mixed. 

** Mayn't  I  meet  Johnny  Heinold  some  timet"  I  once 
asked  Jack,  learning  that  he  had  been  into  the  **  First  and 
Last  Chance"  Saloon  on  Webster  Street,  to  see  his  old 
friend.  The  stamping-ground  of  the  water-front  habitues, 
where  the  boy's  intrepid  foot  had  rested  upon  the  brass 
rail,  bore  this  two-faced  pseudonym  by  reason  of  its  ac- 
commodating relation  to  comers  as  well  as  goers  across 
the  drawbridge.  **Why,  I'd  like  you  to  feee  Johnny,"  he 
acknowledged  pleasedly.  **I'll  ask  him  up  to  the  Ranch 
some  time.  It  would  be  pretty  diflficult  to  manage  so  you 
could  meet  him  in  the  old  place,"  he  hesitated  at  my  sug- 
gestion. **It's  a  rough  crowd  that  congregates  there — 
though  I  might  slip  you  in  at  a  slack  hour."  But  the  time 
never  was  decided  upon  in  our  busy  lives,  and  Heinold 
never  found  his  way  up  to  Glen  Ellen ;  so  that  I  have  yet  to 
shake  his  hand. 

Jack  first  crossed  Johnny's  threshold  on  that  fateful 
Monday  morning  he  turned  up  missing  at  the  cannery. 
French  Frank,  dissembling  his  choler  toward  the  lad  for 
the  unwitting  theft  of  his  inamorata,  had  met  him  here  by 
appointment  to  receive  the  price  of  the  Razzle  Dazzle  in 
exchange  for  a  bill  of  sale.  The  transaction  completed,  the 
new-made  skipper  of  the  tidy  sloop  underwent  initiation, 
unsuspected  save  by  the  proprietor  of  the  bar,  into  public- 
house  etiquette.  French  Frank,  once  with  Jack's  funds  in 
pocket,  proceeded  to  demonstrate  the  wastrel  progress 
of  camaraderie  amongst  men  of  his  loose  profession. 
Readily  could  Jack  grasp  the  logic  of  the  seller,  which 
caused  him  ''to  wet  a  piece  of  it  [the  money]  in  the  estab- 
lishment where  the  trade  was  consummated."  Bat  on  top 
of  this,  Frank  ** treated  the  house."  The  boy  speedily  con- 
cluded that  the  saloonkeeper  made  a  profit  on  the  drink  he 
accepted — which  reasoning  was  upset  when  Johnny  treated 


92       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

in  return.  He  could  also  see  why  Spider  and  Whiskey 
Bob  were  included  in  the  invitation,  along  with  Pat,  the 
Queen's  brother.  But  why  in  the  name  of  sense  should 
everj^  one  else  standing  about  the  sawdusted  floor  be  bidden 
to  help  squander  the  Frenchman's  money — Mammy  Jenny's 
hard-won  savings! 

Although  it  was  early  morning,  the  entire  company  or- 
dered whiskey.  So  *  *  whiskey  for  mine, ' '  the  freshman  out- 
law registered  indifference.  But  his  soul  sickened  that  he 
must  make  of  himself  a  martyr  to  this  silly  custom  of 
pouring  a  nauseous  and  expensive  draught  down  his  throat, 
when  his  desire  was  to  be  off  to  his  new  command. 

With  his  thoughts  upon  the  sloop,  he  failed  to  notice  an 
awkwardness  that  crept  into  the  manner  of  the  others, 
though  he  did  vaguely  sense  a  growing  antagonism  in 
French  Frank,  which  also  seemed  to  tincture  the  Queen's 
brother.  All  waited  for  him,  the  boat-buyer,  to  treat 
as  the  seller  had  treated.  And  here  Johnny  Heinold 
rendered  the  first  of  many  kind  services  to  the  youth,  whom 
he  alone  of  the  foolish  gang  understood  in  his  ignorance 
of  drinking  usages.  *' Watch  out  for  French  Frank," 
Heinold  breathed,  bending  close  as  he  reached  for  the 
soiled  glasses.  On  many  another  occasion,  closely  follow- 
ing the  amateur  drinker 's  unwilling  matriculation  into  the 
brotherhood  of  the  saloon,  Johnny  took  it  upon  his  elastic 
conscience  to  save  Jack  from  himself  by  warning  when  he 
had  had  enough  small  beers  or  other  liquor,  by  which  magic 
potions  the  student  of  raw  human  nature  beguiled  its  tradi- 
tions from  this  same  human  nature. 

Whiskey  Bob,  and  Spider,  too,  softly  articulated, 
**Keep  your  eye  peeled  for  Frenchy,"  or  ^^Frank's  ugly, 
take  my  tip  and  look  out."  To  their  friendly  signals  he 
nodded  comprehension  where  comprehension  was  not,  and 
perhaps  this  very  bepuzzlement  preserved  him,  what  of  his 
apparent  cool  poise  in  a  tense  and  vibrant  situation.  How 
was  he,  hardly  sixteen,  who  had  worked  sordidly  for  his 


OYSTER-PIRATING  93 

living  and  gleaned  his  romance  from  the  books,  *'who  had 
not  dreamed  of  giving  the  Queen  of  the  Oyster  Pirates  a 
second  thought,  and  who  did  not  know  that  French  Frank 

was  madly  and  Latinly  in  love  with  her '*  how  was  he 

to  know?  *^And  how  was  I  to  guess  that  the  story  of  how 
the  Queen  had  thrown  him  down  on  his  own  boat,  the  mo- 
ment I  hove  in  sight,  was  already  the  gleeful  gossip  of  the 
water-front?**  When  he  presently  learned  the  inward- 
ness of  his  celebrity  as  a  bold  gallant,  he  could  not 
help  feeling  elation  *'that  French  Frank,  the  adventurer 
of  fifty,  the  sailor  of  all  the  seas  of  all  the  world,  was 
jealous  .  .  .  and  jealous  over  a  girl  most  romantically 
named  the  Queen  of  the  Oyster  Pirates.  I  had  read  of  such 
things  in  books,  and  regarded  them  as  personal  proba- 
bilities of  a  distant  maturity.  Oh,  I  felt  a  rare  young  devil, 
as  we  hoisted  the  big  mainsail  that  morning,  broke  out 
anchor,  and  filled  away  close-hauled  on  the  three-mile  beat 
to  windward  out  into  the  bay.  .  .  .  Such  was  my  escape 
from  the  killing  machine-toil,  and  my  introduction  to  the 
oyster-pirates.  True,  the  introduction  had  begun  with 
drink.  But  was  I  to  stay  away  from  it  for  such  reason? 
Wherever  life  ran  free  and  great,  there  men  drank.  Ro- 
mance and  adventure  seemed  always  to  go  down  the  street 
locked  arm  in  arm  with  John  Barleycorn.  To  know  the  two, 
I  must  know  the  third.  Or  else  I  must  go  back  to  my  free- 
library  books  and  read  of  the  deeds  of  other  men  and  do  no 
deeds  of  my  own  save  to  slave  for  ten  cents  an  hour  at  a 
machine  in  a  cannery.'* 

Even  after  losing  one  hundred  and  eighty  dollars  in 
one  glorious  night  of  inchoate  induction,  ashore  with 
Nelson,  his  sobered  aching  head  still  deduced:  ** Bet- 
ter to  reign  among  booze-fighters,  a  prince,  than  to  toil 
twelve  hours  a  day  at  a  machine  for  ten  cents  an  hour. 
There  are  no  purple  passages  in  machine  toil.  But  if  the 
spending  of  one  hundred  and  eighty  dollars  in  twelve  hours 
isn't  a  purple  passage,  then  I*d  like  to  know  what  is.''    But 


94       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

he  would  avoid  over-drinking  when  drink  was  thrust  upon 
him,  he  forewarned  himself,  and  there  should  be  no  alco- 
holic beverage  of  whatsoever  description  aboard  his  own 
sloop  except  in  port  at  anchor  when  it  devolved  upon  him 
to  entertain.  Alcohol  and  his  austere  ideal  of  seamanship 
had  nothing  in  common. 

Ashore,  however,  one  of  his  proudest  moments  after  he 
had  adjusted  to  the  necessity  of  ** boozing*'  with  those 
whose  temper  he  must  discern,  was  when  Johnny  Heinold, 
quite  as  a  matter  of  course,  reached  down  his  book 
and  opened  a  charge  account  for  the  young  reveler's  con- 
venience, his  name  at  the  top  of  a  clean  page.  A  trusted  cus- 
tomer he  was  established,  as  behooved  one  in  this  man- 
world  wherein  he  had  elected  to  distinguish  himself. 

The  vicissitudes  of  several  months'  living,  earning, 
spending,  landed  him  metaphorically  high  and  dry  one  com- 
fortless foggy  dawn  after  a  wild  orgy  on  the  sand-flats, 
with  empty  pockets,  a  burned  mainsail,  and  a  breach  with 
Scotty  resulting  from  an  overnight  fistic  engagement. 
Young  Nelson  in  similar  fashion  had  forfeited  his  crew, 
and  bore  one  wounded  hand  in  a  sling  to  boot.  Their 
mutual  plight  and  a  consultation  terminated  in  a  pact 
whereby  Jack  and  Nelson  cast  together  their  fortunes  as 
partners  in  rakish  crime  on  the  smart  Reindeer,  and  forth- 
with departed  for  the  oyster-beds.  But  first  Johnny  Hein- 
old was  approached  for  a  loan  with  which  to  buy  stores, 
and  he,  knowing  their  ethics  in  such  matters,  trusted  them 
without  misgiving.  Eeviewing  that  night.  Jack  London 
makes  an  appeal  for  sympathy  of  understanding  of  the 
unsatisfied  boy-soul  that  was  his : 

^^And  now,  of  all  this  that  is  squalid,  and  ridiculous, 
and  bestial,  try  to  think  what  it  meant  to  me,  a  youth  not 
yet  sixteen,  burning  with  the  spirit  of  adventure,  fancy- 
filled  with  tales  of  buccaneers  and  sea-rovers,  sacks  of 
cities  and  conflicts  of  armed  men,  and  imagination-mad- 
dened by  the  stuff  I  had  drunk.    It  was  life  raw  and  naked, 


OYSTER-PIRATING  95 

wild  and  free — the  only  life  of  that  sort  which  my  birth 
in  time  and  space  permitted  me  to  attain.  And  more  than 
that.  It  carried  a  promise.  It  was  the  beginning.  From 
the  sand-pit  the  way  led  out  through  the  Golden  Gate  to  the 
vastness  of  adventure  of  all  the  world,  where  battles  would 
be  fought,  not  for  old  shirts  and  over  stolen  salmon  boats, 
but  high  purposes  and  romantic  ends." 

His  own  boat  was  raided  by  a  rival  gang  of  pirates, 
dismantled  and  set  adrift.  By  the  time  Jack  found  the 
battered  hulk,  she  was  hardly  worth  the  twenty  dollars  he 
got  for  her. 

**  Never  have  I  regretted  those  months  of  mad  deviltry 
I  put  in  with  Nelson,  *'  Jack  always  averred.  The  Norse- 
man was  a  blind  genius  in  affairs  nautical,  and  luck  played 
its  part  in  that  the  pair  escaped  with  their  lives.  **To 
steer  to  miss  destruction  was  his  joy.  .  .  .  Never  to  reef 
down  was  his  mania,  and  in  all  the  time  I  spent  with  him, 
blow  high  or  low,  the  Reindeer  was  never  reefed.  Nor  was 
she  ever  dry.  We  strained  her  open  and  sailed  her  open 
continually.'* 

The  odd  thing  is  that  far  from  the  making  of  Jack  a 
reckless  sailor,  he  became  an  exceptionally  cautious  one. 
The  only  tangible  harm  that  seemed  wrought  by  associa- 
tion with  Nelson  was  the  ruination  of  his  vocal  cords 
and  his  ear,  and  by  the  same  process  that  had  been  worked 
on  him  by  the  teacher  in  East  Oakland.  Nelson  had 
no  sense  of  pitch,  and  bawled  endless  rowdy  songs  and 
sea  chanteys  regardless  of  key.  Jack,  doing  his  val- 
orous best  toward  augmenting  the  unmelodious  din,  be- 
reft himself  of  what  he  has  told  me  was  a  **  golden 
voice.'*  (ITis  speaking  tone  remained  pleasant,  even  mu- 
sical; but  the  mellow  timbre  was  gone,  to  return  wholly, 
but  once.  When  he  was  about  twenty-five,  on  the  lecture 
platform  one  evening  he  discovered  himself  listening  to  a 
voice  that  had  been  asleep  for  nearly  a  decade.  **It  was 
the  *  golden  voice,*  Mate — I'd  give  anything  if  you  could 


96       THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

have  heard  it,*'  he  said  long  afterward.  **I  don't  believe 
it — but  I  heard  it,  I'm  telling  you.  I  reveled  in  it,  turned  it 
over  on  my  tongue,  sounded  its  clarion  for  all  I  was  worth. 
When  I  stopped  speaking — just  to  show  you  this  is  no  fairy 
tale — people  came  up  the  hall  and  told  me  what  a  beautiful 
voice  I  had!  And  that  was  the  one  and  only  time,  since 
Nelson  finished  the  spoiling  of  my  ear.  It's  the  only  thing 
I've  got  against  Nelson!") 

To  the  mad-cap  masters  of  the  Reindeer  the  lower-bay 
haunts  soon  became  inadequate.  In  the  opposite  direction 
they  ranged  over  the  vast  and  devious  waters  behind  the 
Golden  Gate,  and  eastward  into  the  terrific  narrowed  tides 
of  the  tributary  San  Pablo  and  Suisun  Bays.  Well  Jack 
fixed  in  mind  the  Forbidden  Anchorages  of  the  traffic 
routes  of  the  main  harbor,  and  the  violent  habits  of  Rac- 
coon Straits,  between  Angel  Island  and  Tiburon.  And  high 
and  quiet  his  happiness,  the  time  they  first  voyaged  north- 
west across  the  big  waters  of  the  inland  sea,  Golden  Gate 
and  Angel  Island  sliding  by  on  the  left ;  on  past  that  sunset 
cabochon  jewel,  Red  Rock,  so  long  coveted  from  afar; 
northerly  skirting  The  Brothers,  with  Marin  Islands  to 
port;  thence  entering  San  Pablo  Bay.  Then  the  joy  of 
running  into  anchorage  in  the  purpling  dusk  on  the  flats; 
heaving  over  the  sturdy  hook;  watching  the  vessel  swing 
to  the  proper  length  of  cable  that  slipped  through  his  meas- 
uring hands;  while  the  heavenly  odor  of  frizzling  bacon 
and  strong,  rich  coffee  floated  up  the  companionway  from 
the  hot  little  galley  stove,  and  the  wild  geese  honked  over- 
head. Life  was  sweeter  than  honey  on  his  tongue,  and  he 
dreamed  dreams  of  seeing  the  whole  wide  world  some  day, 
in  a  boat  of  his  very  own.  How  well  I  know  it  all — ah,  do 
I  not?  who  have  done  it  with  him  in  that  very  boat  of 
his  own! 

Steadily,  through  the  muck  and  ruck  that  mixed  with 
the  healthier  material  of  his  experience  at  this  time, 
there  burned  the  pure  flame  of  adventure's  passionate  en- 


I 


THE  liKEAT  GATE   OF  KEDWOUD   LOUS   INTO  THE   "BEAITY    KANCir' 


1905.     "JACK'S    HOUSE"    AT    WAKE    ROBIN    LOIHJK 


OYSTER-PIRATING  97 

chantment:  the  falling  asleep  peacefully  to  the  rocking  of 
the  sloop  to  the  rippled  ebb  and  flow  of  tides  along  her  sleek 
sides ;  the  opening  of  happy  eyes  each  morning  upon  a  dif- 
ferent spaciousness  of  sky  and  water;  the  adjusting  and 
stabilizing  of  himself  in  relation  to  undependable  mankind 
and  the  rolling  planet,  victory  resting  upon  his  acuity  in 
gauging  the  capriciousness  of  all  things. 

Intermittently  within  this  succession  of  months  between 
the  ages  of  a  little  under  sixteen  and  up  to  say  twenty- 
one,  the  incipient  sage,  adding  to  his  knowledge  of  man- 
kind and  its  singular  way  upon  the  earth,  must  have  com- 
mitted nearly  every  natural  crime  in  the  calendar,  save  dis- 
loyalty and  murder.  Nothing,  in  liis  view  or  temperament 
in  any  period,  was  meet  to  invite  him  to  the  taking  of 
life,  little  as  he  came  to  respect  life;  and  even  when  it 
was  merely  the  question  of  honor  among  thieves,  his  in- 
stinctive ethic,  if  an  ethic  may  be  instinctive,  was  that  dis- 
loyalty was  the  only  real  sin.  And  he  died  reverencing 
this  self-made  axiom.    To  me  he  has  confessed : 

**If  I  should  serve  sentences  on  end  for  pranks  I  did 
in  sheer  pursuit  of  the  tang  of  living,  from  time  to  time  dur- 
ing the  scattered  months  I  was  busy  *  finding  myself*  on 
the  Bay,  or  tramping,  or  ashore  with  the  *Boo  Gang'  and 
the  *  Sporting  Life  Gang'  that  terrorized  Oakland^  I'd 
languish  behind  prison  bars  for  a  hundred  years!" 

As  for  unnatural  crimes,  these  were  not  admissible  in 
his  magnificently  balanced  body  and  mind.  No  inbred 
fastidiousness  was  weak  enough  to  unfit  him  for  eating  and 
sleeping,  playing  or  working,  with  the  unmoral  and  the 
unwashed,  to  their  complete  befoolraent  as  to  his  in- 
trinsic difference  from  them.  He  could  love  with  them, 
and  fight  with  them;  for  he  had  ** kissed  his  woman  and 
struck  his  man,"  although  he  did  not  know  the  lusty  old 
phrase.  But  in  all  his  days,  let  the  unnatural,  the  ab- 
normal, creep  near,  and  his  trigger-like  rec>oil  of  sense  and 
perception  and  swift  reaction  left  no  uncertain  impact  upon 


98       THE  BOOK  OP  JACK  LONDON 

the  aggressor,  be  he  brutal  or  subtle.  Except  in  one  or  two 
defensive  incidents,  such  as  when  French  Frank  was  out 
hunting  for  him  on  the  oyster-beds,  either  with  the  pirates 
or  the  subsequent  fish-patrol  contingent.  Jack  went  unpro- 
tected by  other  arms  than  an  ordinary  table-fork.  The 
sole  provocation  under  which  this  ridiculous  but  effective 
weapon  was  drawn,  was  in  the  case  of  a  degenerate  Greek 
fisherman  he  had  aboard  in  capacity  of  sailor.  The  hap- 
pening does  not  lend  itself  to  polite  literature,  and  should 
be  treated  by  some  one  compounded  of  a  Balzac  and  a 
Havelock  Ellis. 


CHAPTER  Vin 

FISH-PATBOIi 
17th  Tear 

WHERE  Jack  London  differed  most  essentially  from 
his  rough-neck  associates  was  in  the  divine  unrest 
that  forever  withheld  him  from  content  with  any  static 
condition.  One  thing  or  a  group  of  things  mastered,  he 
was  done  with  it  so  far  as  it  represented  an  end,  and  hot  on 
the  trail  of  the  unexplored.  Each  experience,  or  succession 
of  experiences  of  a  kind,  was  automatically  retired  to  its  due 
niche  in  a  mind  that  had  become  surfeited  with  that  particu- 
lar phase,  laid  by  for  reference  when  needed.  With  him, 
only  in  minor  details  did  habit  replace  definite  thought; 
whereas  his  comrades,  as  time  passed,  reflected  less  and 
functioned  more  through  blind  habit. 

Vital  in  his  phychology  was  that  law-respecting  ten- 
dency which  drew  him  to  realize,  under  all  paint  of  ro- 
mance, the  unsavoriness,  the  rotten  structure  of  this 
^*  pirate '*  society.  It  had  looked  so  bright  on  the  sur- 
face. Even  Nelson,  through  blood  if  not  brain  the  truest, 
maddest  adventurer  of  all  whom  Jack  had  overtaken  and 
passed  in  their  own  game,  even  he,  young  Scratch,  urged 
by  his  eager  partner  to  new  fields  of  exploit  up  country, 
wavered.  He  was  unenthusiastic  from  sheer  lack  of  ca- 
pacity, and  melted  back  into  the  Oakland  water-front  life 
that  was  now  outworn  of  value  to  the  superior  youth.  Jack 
had  touched  at  all  points  upon  its  restrictcdness— ex- 
hausted the  most  intricate  processes  of  its  once  mysteriouB 
denizens,  as  well  as  become  familiar  to  boredom  with  the 
hundreds  of  miles  of  indented  shore  line  of  the  lower  and 

00 


100      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

main  harbor  aiid  the  peculiar  currents  thereof.  Wider 
activities  were  calling  to  be  shared,  and  far-stretching 
water  lanes  to  be  investigated,  some  of  which  he  and  Nelson 
had  sailed  but  not  lingered  upon. 

And  so,  the  two  parted  in  all  friendliness. 

Almost  a  foreign  port  seemed  the  quaint  interior  town 
of  Benicia.  From  its  great  wharf  the  Solano,  the  largest 
ferry  steamer  in  the  world,  conveyed  transcontinental 
trains  of  imposing  railway  carriages,  with  their  leviathan 
locomotives,  to  and  from  the  main-line  tracks  at  Port  Costa 
across  the  risky  Carquinez  Straits.  On  the  voyage 
from  Oakland,  nearing  Benicia,  Jack  had  passed  Vallejo, 
and  Mare  Island  Navy  Yard  with  its  fascinating  old 
training-ship  that  was  none  other  than  the  historic,  many- 
decked  hull  of  the  1812  battleship  Independence, 

Once  at  Benicia,  he  proceeded  to  become  at  one  with 
the  fisherman  element  which  housed  in  a  floating  suburb 
of  little  arks  moored  or  half-grounded  in  the  rustling  tules. 
And  never  far  from  this  bachelor  purlieu  flickered  the 
scarlet  night  lights  of  one  or  another  of  the  pleasure  barges 
that  swung  to  anchor  on  the  fringes  of  such  communities. 
Sometimes,  as  in  his  initiation  with  the  lower-bay  people, 
he  was  struck  afresh  with  the  belief  that  he,  newest  in 
their  midst,  was  having  a  much  better  time  than  these  older, 
more  experienced  men,  whether  workers  or  vagabonds. 
Their  obtuse  sensibilities  were  in  greater  or  less  degree 
numb  to  the  very  romance  of  which  they  were  part.  Sheer 
animal  spirits  might  be  theirs;  but  to  Jack's  glorious  and 
contagious  animal  spirits  that  brought  to  him  admiration 
and  affection  from  the  most  unlit  of  the  roystering  inhab- 
itants, was  added  comprehension.  Not  only  did  he  envision 
the  romance  of  the  present,  but  further  romance  for  which 
the  day  at  hand  was  a  preparation,  a  stepping-stone. 

Missing  no  smallest  sheaf  of  joy-gleaning  by  the  way, 
he  still  must  keep  a  circumspect  eye  to  business  chance ;  and 
surely  it  tickled  his  fancy  that  the  most  lucrative  employ- 


FISH-PATROL  101 

ment  in  sight  should  be  with  the  Fish  Patrol  service. 
Combing  for  possibilities,  he  had  fallen  in  with  a  trio  of 
deputy  patrolmen,  one  Charley  Le  Grant,  Billy  Murphy, 
and  Joe  Boyd,  who  put  the  idea  into  his  head.  The  patrol- 
man proper,  under  whose  orders  they  worked,  was  a  sal- 
aried employee,  while  the  deputies  depended  for  their  pay 
upon  a  certain  percentage  of  the  fines  collected  from  vio- 
lators of  Fish  Patrol  rules. 

Knowing  so  well  the  illicit  side  of  the  shield.  Jack  nat- 
urally found  the  other  face  of  it  keenly  interesting;  and 
being  anything  but  retrogressive  in  his  bent,  the  restraining 
of  a  felony  was  more  to  his  liking  and  logic  than  the  com- 
mitting. His  all-round  nature  at  the  same  time  re- 
sponded warmly  to  a  pity  for  even  the  most  insubordinate 
Italian  and  Greek  and  Chinese  desperadoes  he  must  assist 
in  holding  down.  To  these,  who  had  to  abstract  their  living 
from  the  waters,  the  half -understood  Fish  Patrol  laws  and 
the  drastic  punishments  for  trifling  with  them  seemed 
captious  and  unjust.  To  Jack  this  eternal  strife  for 
existence,  by  land  or  sea,  often  appeared  a  dog-eat-dog 
matter  at  best.  As  he  says:  **We  menaced  their  lives,  or 
their  living,  which  is  the  same  thing.  .  .  .  We  confiscated 
illegal  traps  and  nets,  the  materials  of  which  had  cost  them 
considerable  sums  and  the  making  of  which  required  weeks 
of  labor.  We  prevented  them  from  catching  fish  at  many 
times  and  seasons,  which  was  equivalent  to  preventing  them 
from  making  as  good  a  living  as  they  might  have  made  had 
we  not  been  in  existence.  ...  As  a  result,  they  hated  us 
vindictively.  .  .  .  They  looked  upon  the  men  of  the  Fish 
Patrol  as  their  natural  enemies.** 

Following  his  calling,  he  knew  hazards  many  and  hair- 
breadth. Sometimes  it  was  a  perilous  contest  outmaneuver- 
ing  a  clever  Greek  or  Italian  or  vicious  oriental  fishcnnan 
whom  he  was  trying  to  apprehend ;  sometimes  it  was  a  battle 
with  the  shouting  waves  when  terrific  Northers  from  across 
the  illimitable  valleys  whipped  the  frenzied  incoming  and 


102      THE  BOOK  OP  JACK  LONDON 

outgoing  ocean  tides  into  mighty  upstanding  tide-rips; 
sometimes  it  was  all  together.  Pitting  his  seamanship 
against  enemies  and  elements  was  to  him  the  acme  of  high 
living,  and  he  won  praise  for  both  that  seamanship  and  his 
cunning  from  the  smartest  of  his  companions  as  well  as 
from  the  outwitted  law-breakers.  His  capacity  for  enjoy- 
ment is  expressed  in  a  tale  of  that  time : 

*'I  was  as  wildly  excited  as  the  water.  The  boat  was 
behaving  splendidly,  leaping  and  lurching  through  the 
welter  like  a  racehorse.  I  could  hardly  contain  myself 
with  the  joy  of  it.  The  huge  sail,  the  plunging  boat — I,  a 
pygmy,  a  mere  speck  in  the  midst  of  it,  was  mastering  the 
elemental  strife,  flying  through  it  and  over  it,  triumphant 
and  victorious.  .  .  .  Conflicting  currents  tore  about  in 
all  directions,  colliding,  forming  whirlpools,  sucks,  and 
boils,  and  shooting  up  spitefully  into  hollow  waves  which 
fell  aboard  as  often  from  leeward  as  from  windward.  And 
through  it  all,  confused,  driven  into  a  madness  of  motion, 
thundered  the  great  smoking  seas  from  San  Pablo  Bay,'' 
through  which  he  ** roared  like  a  conquering  hero."  He 
knew  of  deep-sea  vessels  that  had  confidently  made  their 
way  here  and  ignominiously  capsized,  drowning  their  as- 
tounded captains.    There  would  be  no  capsizing  for  him. 

Leaving  out  the  factors  of  his  robustness,  luck,  and 
common  sense.  Jack's  survival  of  this  taxing  period  in  his 
growth  is  due  to  two  things :  out-door,  active  days,  and  his 
unconquerable  aversion  to  the  taste  of  alcohol,  which  pre- 
vented him  from  being  a  regular  tippler.  Even  so,  it  is  a 
marvel  that  the  quantities  of  whiskey  consumed  at  intervals 
did  not  wreck  him  beyond  nature 's  repairing.  He  had  not 
glimpsed  the  delicate  esthetic  of  imbibing  artistically  for 
the  sake  of  stimulating  wit  and  other  social  graces,  nor  yet 
for  the  purpose  of  inhibiting  sorrow  and  the  disillusion 
of  merciless  truth.  He  cast  off  from  his  moorings  of  cau- 
tion for  a  time  and,  in  the  frequent  leisure  spaces  between 
raids  on  the  fishermen,  abandoned  himself  to  becoming 


FISH-PATROL  103 

congenial  to  the  men  with  whom  he  made  headquarters. 
Gradually  he  *  developed  the  misconception  that  the  secret 
of  John  Barleycorn  lay  in  going  on  mad  drunks,  rising 
through  the  successive  stages  that  only  an  iron  constitu- 
tion could  endure  to  final  stupefaction  and  swinish  uncon- 
sciousness.*' Wherever  he  walked,  saloon  doors  swung 
open  to  him,  the  **poor  man's  clubs''  that  drew  together 
those  who  knew  no  higher  amusement  and  relaxation.  On 
the  way  home  to  ark  or  sloop,  the  youngster  would  accumu- 
late enough  ** snake  poison"  to  deprive  his  bed  of  its  occu- 
pant ;  and  when,  of  a  morning,  his  **  unconscious  carcass  was 
disentangled  from  the  nets  of  the  drying  frames"  whither 
he  had  *^ stupidly,  blindly  crawled,"  and  when  the  water- 
front buzzed  over  it  **with  many  a  giggle  and  laugh  and 
another  drink, ' '  he  quite  excusably  regarded  his  inebriation 
as  something  to  be  vain  of. 

An  eminent  American  writer  who,  desiring  to  be  a 
realist,  yet  recoiled  temperamently  from  observing  realism 
at  first  hand,  once  appealed  to  Jack  London  in  this  strain : 
'*Must  I,  in  order  to  describe  a  saloon,  myself  become  fa- 
miliar with  saloon  life?"  Jack,  true  apostle  of  the 
real,  was  uncompromising  in  his  counsel.  *  *  But, ' '  quavered 
the  would-be  realist,  *Mo  you  mean  to  say  that  you  ever 
have  been  actually  drunk?" 

**Man,  I  have  not  only  been  drunk,  beastly,  hopelessly 
drunk  unnumbered  times,"  Jack  assured  him,  with  inward 
cheer  at  the  jolt  he  was  delivering,  **but  once  I  was  drunk 
for  three  weeks  on  end.  I  mean,  literally,  that  I  did  not 
draw  one  single,  sober  breath  for  twenty-one  days  and 
nights." 

It  was  this  very  debauch,  coupled  with  a  fearful  inci- 
dent which  grew  out  of  it,  which  first,  if  not  permanently, 
aroused  the  decision  that  he  was  making  little  progress 
toward  the  fair  ideals  he  had  set  for  himself.  He  dis- 
covered, when  it  was  almost  too  late,  **  abysses  of  intoxi- 
cation   hitherto    undreamed."      His    was    too    fine    an 


104      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

organism  to  trifle,  unscathed,  with  this  insidious  destruc- 
tion of  mental  as  well  as  physical  fiber.  He,  who  loved  life 
so  vitally,  to  whom  the  idea  of  suicide  had  always  appeared 
an  abnormal  ferment  in  the  cowardly  and  unfit,  suddenly 
came  to  consider  death.  Poisoned  through  and  through,  it 
seemed  to  his  undermined  vision  that  he  had  lived  life  to 
the  last,  lowest  ebb,  and  the  dregs,  plainly  to  be  drunk  with 
the  bums  and  loafers  at  world's  end,  should  not  be  for 
him. 

It  came  about  by  his  stumbling  overboard  from 
the  sloop  where  he  had  reeled  to  sleep.  In  his  stupefac- 
tion, the  best  the  shock  could  do  for  him  was  to  show  up  the 
worthlessness  of  this  mundane  existence.  A  powerful  chan- 
nel run-out  laid  hold  and  swept  him  seaward,  while  he, 
keeping  afloat  effortlessly  as  any  untutored  young  animal, 
developed  a  dream  of  going  out  literally  and  figuratively 
with  the  tide,  yielding  his  useless  sordid  self  to  the  all- 
embracing  sea  that  was  his  mother  o*  dreams.  With  con- 
tradictory fervor  he  luxuriated  in  tipsy  sentiment  and  the 
silken  flood  that  enveloped  him,  exalted  in  deliberate,  kingly 
choice  of  a  romantic  passing  that  proved  him,  after  all, 
not  entirely  devoid  of  definite  will  and  ambition.  Then, 
as  is  the  way  of  alcoholic  sentimentality,  he  broke  down  and 
reveled  unctuously  in  tears. 

Greatly  fancying  the  courage  of  his  non-resistance,  he 
began  to  chant  heaven  knows  what  funereal  song,  as  the 
still  tide  carried  him  past  the  town.  But  he  was  not  yet 
clear  of  Dead  Man's  Island,  around  the  end  of  which  he 
knew  the  strong  suck  and  sweep  of  the  tide  under  the  long 
steamboat  wharf.  Abruptly  remembering  the  menace  of 
barnacled  piling,  he  worked  off  all  clothing  and  swam 
for  his  life  so  that  he  might  better  court  death  according 
to  program.  Only  when  he  had  left  behind  the  last  of  the 
wharf-end  lights  did  he  cease  to  swim,  and  rest  on  his 
back  under  the  stars.    Again  in  mid-channel,  with  none  to 


FISH-PATROL  105 

hear  and  interfere  with  his  disposal  of  his  fate,  the  enthu- 
siastically lugubrious  death-song  was  resumed. 

But  the  worst  alcoholic  fever  must  give  way  to  hours  in 
cold  water,  and  the  ever-moving  currents  hereabout  are 
far  from  tropical.  Before  dawn  the  boy  was  thoroughly 
chilled,  soberly  wretched,  and  in  a  fine  panic  at  thought  of 
drowning,  which  was  now  imminent  enough  by  reason  of 
weakness.  Swinging  resistlessly  into  the  ugly  tide-rips 
between  Vallejo  and  the  Contra  Costa  shore,  he  was  becom- 
ing exhausted  and  already  swallowing  salt  water.  And  he 
would  indeed  have  been  lost,  unwillingly  doomed,  except  for 
a  Greek  salmon  fisherman  who  chanced  along  in  the  smother. 

One  last  raid,  he  concluded,  and  he  would  move  on.  In 
that  raid,  he  nearly  forfeited  his  life  at  the  hands  of  a 
murderous  Chinese  shrimp  poacher  who  marooned  him 
gagged  and  bound,  on  one  of  the  Marin  Islands,  and  re- 
turned alone  to  kill  him.  How  Jack  outwitted  the  would- 
be  assassin,  he  tells  in  ** Yellow  Handkerchief,'^  one  of  the 
stories  in  *^ Tales  of  the  Fish  Patrol.'* 

The  **vast  good  luck''  in  which  at  all  times  he  liked  to 
think  he  believed,  preserved  him  then  and  thereafter  in  all 
his  cool  chance-taking.  He  made  himself  acquainted  with 
other  towns  on  the  straits  and  bays  and  rivers,  towns  with 
alluring  names — Martinez,  Black  Diamond,  Antioch,  Rio 
Vista — knocking  about  seeing  what  he  could  see,  and  finding 
as  always,  look  where  he  would,  that  the  swinging  portals  of 
**poor  man's  clubs"  were  the  only  doors  to  companion- 
ship for  such  as  he.  In  a  short  while  he  had  drifted  back 
to  Nelson  and  the  old  Oakland  crowd,  although  only  socially. 
He  had  quit  pirating  for  good. 

But  he  never  referred  with  much  pleasure  to  this  period. 
Gone  was  the  zest  he  had  known  when  the  Estuary  and  the 
publio-house  and  the  gilded  sin  of  pirating  shellfish  were 
untried  domain.  Nothing  new  presenting  itself,  he  loafed 
between  sporadic  jobs  ashore,  spending  far  more  time 
carousing  and  ruiming  with  the  hoodlum  gangs  than  was 


106      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

good  for  his  best  self,  especially  in  lack  of  the  out-door 
life  he  had  become  used  to.  Occasionally  there  was  chance 
to  cruise  for  a  few  days  as  an  extra  hand  on  one  of  the 
scow  schooners  peculiar  to  this  region — great,  flat- 
bottomed,  square-ended  hulls  that  carry  cargo  and  sail 
incredible,  and  that  have  made  more  than  one  fine  yacht, 
built  for  speed  championship,  lose  her  laurels  in  the  racing 
winds  and  seas  of  the  harbor. 

He  went  on  drinking,  sometimes  to  excess;  and  it  took 
another  knockout  jolt  from  this  source  to  set  his  face 
toward  deep  water,  the  thought  of  which  had  at  no  time 
been  entirely  buried.  It  was  during  a  free-for-all  saloon 
rouse,  incident  to  electioneering  in  Oakland.  He  awoke 
one  evening,  quite  alone,  with  aching  jaw  and  head, 
from  nearly  twenty-four  hours  of  unconsciousness,  in  a 
strange  room  in  a  dingy  lodging  house  where  Nelson  and 
the  boys,  for  whom  he  had  been  fighting,  had  put  him  to 
bed.  All  of  the  details  of  the  ridiculous  but  dangerous 
exploit  he  had  figured  in,  and  which  had  so  effectually  put 
him  out,  were  not  clear  in  his  mind.  He  could  not  remem- 
ber whether  it  was  a  Democratic  or  a  Eepublican  parade 
he  had  joined,  in  another  town  whither  the  politicians  had 
given  a  train-ride  gratis  to  as  many  loafers  as  were  will- 
ing to  assume  a  fire  brigade  helmet  and  red  shirt  and  carry 
a  torch  to  the  glory  of  the  party.  He  recalled  that  the 
saloons  had  been  reported  as  bought  for  the  day  by  the 
merry  politicians,  and  that  he  and  his  clique  had  not  been 
backward  in  testing  the  validity  of  the  rumor.  There  was 
a  head-splitting  memory  of  smashed  train  windows  on  the 
return  trip,  when  the  maniacally-drunken  anti-Nelson  and 
pro-Nelson  factions  locked  in  a  fray  that  wrecked  the  in- 
terior of  the  coach.  And  his  last  conscious  impression  was 
of  the  start  toward  him  of  an  anti-Nelson  fist  that  had 
sent  him,  too  whiskey-suffocated  to  defend  himself,  for  a 
night  and  a  day,  into  the  black  as  of  death.  He  was  sick- 
ened with  the  unlovely  spectacle  of  himself  and  the  mean- 


FISH-PATROL  107 

ingless  madness  of  the  conditions  that  had  laid  him  so  low. 
Body  and  soul,  he  was  very,  very  sick. 

**So  I  considered  my  situation,**  he  writes,  **and  knew 
that  I  was  getting  into  a  bad  way  of  living.  It  made  toward 
death  too  quickly  to  suit  my  youth  and  vitality.  And  there 
was  only  one  way  out  .  .  .  and  that  was  to  get  out. 
.  .  .  Whiskey  was  dangerous,  like  other  dangerous  things 
in  the  natural  world.  Men  died  of  whiskey ;  but  then,  too,  * ' 
his  wide-awake  philosophical  twist  asserted,  **  fishermen 
were  capsized  and  drowned,  hoboes  fell  under  trains  and 
were  cut  to  pieces.*'  At  the  same  time,  while  in  a  moral 
sense  he  did  not  consider  drinking  wrong,  he  reverted  to 
a  former  conviction  that  it  must  be  done  with  discretion. 

**It  struck  me,**  he  sums  up,  **from  watching  those  with 
whom  I  associated,  that  the  life  we  were  living  was  more 
destructive  than  that  lived  by  the  average  man.**  He  could 
see  no  fun  in  becoming  a  helpless,  dependent  sot,  nor  yet 
in  giving  up  the  ghost.  His  one  experiment  had  cured 
any  desire,  even  in  his  silliest  cups,  for  suicide.  There  was 
something  ahead — he  felt  it  in  his  bones.  Also,  he  could 
never  quite  disabuse  himself  of  that  old  pride  in  the  cap- 
taincy of  his  own  powers. 

In  line  with  this,  ** Everywhere,*'  he  reasoned,  **I  saw 
men  doing,  drunk,  what  they  would  never  dream  of  doing 
sober.  .  .  .  Saloon  mates  I  drank  with,  who  were  good 
fellows  and  harmless,  sober,  did  most  violent  and  lunatic 
things  when  they  were  drunk.  And  then  the  police  gath- 
ered them  in  and  they  vanished  from  our  ken.  Sometimes 
I  visited  them  behind  the  bars  and  said  good-by  ere  they 
journeyed  across  the  bay  to  put  on  the  felon's  stripes. 
.  .  .  *//  /  hadn't  been  drvmk  I  wouldn't  a-done  it.*  "  He 
listened  to  their  pitiful  and  unavailing  plea  as  they  reviewed 
the  cause  of  their  undoing.  The  boy  did  a  world  of  thinking 
about  these,  for  in  those  days  a  criminal  was  a  criminal, 
— whether  he  waa  or  not,  so  he  was  convicted  of  crime. 
Jack  London  lived  to  see  a  glimmer  of  the  light  that  psy- 


108      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

chologists  are  increasingly  permitted  to  sift  into  the  courts 
and  punitive  institutions.  But  in  the  years  of  his  un- 
trained observation  of  the  sightless  legal  disposition  of 
misguided  human  souls  and  bodies,  he  was  puzzled  and 
distressed  at  the  very  apparent  contradictions  that  outraged 
his  embryonic  logic  of  justice. 

So  it  will  be  seen  that  this  second  unmistakable  warn- 
ing dealt  by  John  Barleycorn  was  but  one  item  in  the 
mass  of  data  which  pointed  a  conclusion  that  he  was  on 
the  road  to  destroy  his  efficiency  as  master  of  his  own  des- 
tiny. Realizing,  beyond  all  loyalty  to  his  late  congenial 
heroes  and  friends,  that  he  was  unendurably  bored  with 
them  and  their  standards,  he  shook  the  mislaid  dreams  of 
conquest  into  the  forefront  of  his  curly  head.  He  began 
without  delay,  although  of  course  in  the  saloons,  to  affect 
the  society  of  the  seasoned  personnel  of  a  sealing  fleet  then 
wintering  in  San  Francisco  Bay.  Mingling  freely  with 
them,  from  boat-pullers  and  -steerers,  up  to  the  keen-eyed 
hunters,  the  chesty  mates,  and  the  to  him  imposing  cap- 
tains, grown  men  all,  he  felt  his  way  to  the  big  adventure. 
A  friend  he  made  of  one  of  the  seal-hunters,  Pete  Holt, 
who  was  looking  for  a  likely  schooner,  and  in  a  half-dozen 
glasses  they  pledged  that  Jack  sign  on  as  his  boat-puller 
for  the  next  cruise  to  the  coast  of  Japan  and  Bering  Sea. 
So  possessed  with  relief  and  recrudescent  joy  was  the 
boy  at  cutting  loose  from  the  old  life  which  row  gloomed 
so  dun  to  his  retrospective  eye,  that  he  fell  victim  to  mo- 
mentary fear  lest  its  ginny  **death-road*'  might  trip  him 
before  the  day  of  departure.  **I  lived  more  circumspectly,*' 
he  confesses,  *  *  drank  less  deeply,  and  went  home  more  fre- 
quently.   When  drinking  grew  too  wild,  I  got  out.*' 

^  *  Home '  *  at  this  juncture  meant  a  plain,  unattractive  cot- 
tage at  Clinton  Station,  one  of  several  built  from  the  ma- 
terials of  torn-down  recreation  buildings  on  the  site  of  old 
Badger  Park,  where  once  Jack  had  set  up  ninepins  and 
swept  out  lemonade  booths,  and  which  he  subsequently  em- 


FISH-PATROL  109 

ployed  under  the  name  of  Weasel  Park  as  setting  for  a 
scene  in  ** Martin  Eden.'*  From  this  house  he  went  forth 
to  see  the  world.  With  a  regret  in  his  heart  that  he  could 
not  share  this  supreme  adventure,  he  noted  the  wistful 
look  in  John  London's  gray  eyes  at  parting. 

Never,  since  the  day  he  paid  over  the  Razzle  Dazzle's 
price  to  French  Frank,  had  he  known  quite  such  thrilling 
contentment  as  upon  his  seventeenth  birthday.  On  that 
date,  January  12,  1893,  before  a  real  shipping  commis- 
sioner, he  signed  as  boat-puller  on  the  articles  of  a  real 
sea-going  vessel,  the  beautiful  three-topmast  schooner 
Sophie  Sutherland y  bound  for  Japan  and  Bering  Sea.  And 
in  his  being  swelled  the  lofty  purpose  of  making  good  in  all 
respects  with  man-size  men  in  a  man-size  universe. 


CHAPTEE  IX 

**  SOPHIE  SUTHERLAND, ''  SEALING 
17  to  nearly  18  years 

WHENEVER  Jack  London  set  foot  upon  deck-plank- 
ing, he  left  behind  more  than  the  solid  earth. 
Whatsoever  load  of  soul-sickness  or  care  he  had  borne  to 
the  water's  edge  fell  from  him,  or,  more  fitly,  shrank  to  its 
true  scant  measure  under  the  springing  arch  of  life.  Any 
embarcadero  was  a  wharf  of  dreams  where,  glad  face  to 
sweeping  river  or  to  open  sea,  he  felt  the  burthen  upon  his 
shoulders  transfigured  into  blithe  immateriality  as  of 
wings. 

Even  so  early,  the  dollar  had  ceased  to  stand  as  an 
unqualified  goal;  it  was  but  a  means  to  an  end,  or  to 
many  ends.  Money  bought  larger  life,  and  life  to  the  full, 
was  all  his  goal.  Good  indeed  it  was  to  know  that  he 
possessed  ability  to  earn  gold  and  silver  which  in  turn  was 
good  to  spend  in  playing  the  game  as  he  saw  it,  the  game 
wherein  duty  and  pleasure  were  two  of  many  points  to 
win.  The  concept  which  had  caused  that  clean  break  with 
a  miserly  past  when  he  gave  away  his  boyish  treasures, 
had  rendered  it  unlikely  that  mere  money-getting  should 
ever  again  hold  him  from  the  joy  of  living.  **And  some- 
how," he  puts  his  case,  **from  the  day  I  achieved 
that  concept  ...  I  have  never  cared  much  for  money. 
No  one  has  ever  considered  me  a  miser  since,  while  my 
carelessness  of  money  is  a  source  of  anxiety  to  some  that 
know  me." 

Descending  the  steep  companionway  into  the  fresh-paint 
air  of  the  Sophie  Sutherland's  renovated  forecastle,  he  de- 

110 


*^  SOPHIE  SUTHERLAND, '»  SEALING         111 

posited  his  bulging  canvas  sea-bag,  packed  the  previous 
night  at  Eliza's,  in  a  bunk  selected  for  the  best  lighting 
from  the  hatch.  And  in  that  moment  he  relegated  to  its 
expedient  limbo  all  worry  as  to  finances.  Fixed  wages 
would  be  accumulating  against  the  day  of  his  return,  and 
in  that  day  the  coin  should  be  applied  where  it  would 
benefit  the  most.  Meantime  thought  of  the  same  need  not 
vex  his  head,  a  head  which  must  be  bent  upon  the  study, 
moment  by  moment,  of  fitting  himself  into  his  exact  place, 
be  it  audacious  first  or  humble  twelfth,  among  the  round 
dozen  deep-sea  veterans  in  this  deep-sea  bottom.  There 
was  no  call  for  currency  in  the  fo'c's'le,  and  thank  heaven 
the  last  round  of  drinks  for  many  a  month  had  been  bought. 
The  schooner  carried  no  liquor  of  any  sort. 

Do  not  conceive  of  him  as  reflecting  at  any  length  with 
idle  hands.  A  **busy  child"  he  had  been;  a  busier  man  he 
now  was.  Child-dreamer  or  man-dreamer,  he  worked  while 
he  dreamed,  he  ** thought  on  his  feet,"  to  use  his  words,  and 
with  him  action  was  quick  as  the  thought.  Throughout  his 
complex  mechanism  there  resided  that  unity  which  defied 
either  misapplied  effort  or  unproductive  inertia. 

While  the  handsome  schooner's  crew  was  typical  of  its 
rough  Scandinavian  class.  Jack  was  immediately  struck  by 
an  incongruity  higher  up.  The  sealer's  owner,  a  somewhat 
unusual  circumstance,  sailed  in  her  for  personal  reasons 
unfathomed  by  the  ship's  company,  unless  it  was  to  make  a 
sailor  of  his  son,  who  was  also  on  board.  Apparently  the 
father  was  a  land-lubberly  soul  in  a  quiet,  pensive  way 
— ^his  exterior,  to  their  simple  judgment,  even  suggesting 
piousness.  Little  he  seemed  to  know  or  care  about  sea- 
manship, always  preserving  an  air  of  detachment  from 
the  management  of  his  vessel,  which  was  left  entirely  in 
the  hands  of  the  sailing  master.  **He  thinks  he's  on  his 
yacht,"  one  of  the  men  guffawed  below  deck  a  few  days  out. 

Jack,  one  eye  on  sailing-master  and  mate,  the  other  alert 
to  his  companions  of  the  forecastle,  kept  tongue  between 


112      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

teeth  as  he  had  done  with  unprofessional  ones  of  their 
stripe,  and  walked  warily.  Things  were  different  now — no 
longer  was  he  master  of  his  own  keel,  nor  even  partner, 
as  on  the  Reindeer.  No  authority  of  any  kind  was  his, 
except  over  his  inner  self,  and  that  was  a  confidential  mat- 
ter. He  had  had  the  ** nerve,''  as  Pete  Holt  had  grinned, 
to  sign  on  as  A.  B.,  he,  who  had  never  been  more  than  a  mile 
outside  the  Golden  Gate.  But  what  of  that? — ^he  was  able- 
bodied  if  any  of  them  were,  and  he  was  a  seaman  or  he 
did  not  know  what  the  word  meant.  lie  would  see  to  it 
that  he  was  an  able  one. 

**I  was  an  able  seaman,"  he  asserts.  *'I  had  graduated 
from  the  right  school.  It  took  no  more  than  minutes  to 
learn  the  names  and  uses  of  the  few  new  ropes.  It  was 
simple.  I  did  not  do  things  blindly.  As  a  small-boat  sailor 
I  had  learned  to  reason  out  and  know  the  why  of  everything. 
It  is  true,  I  had  to  learn  to  steer  by  compass,  which  took 
maybe  half  a  minute;  but  when  it  came  to  steering  *full- 
and-by'  and  *  close-and-by, '  I  could  beat  the  average  of 
my  shipmates,  because  that  was  the  very  way  I  had  always 
sailed.  Inside  fifteen  minutes  I  could  box  the  compass 
around  and  back  again.  And  there  was  little  else  to  learn 
during  that  seven-months'  cruise,  except  fancy  rope-sailor- 
izing,  such  as  the  more  complicated  lanyard  knots  and  the 
making  of  various  kinds  of  sennit  and  rope-mats. ' ' 

It  must  be  remembered  that,  while  he  realized  he  was 
measuring  against  better-informed  sailors  than  those  he 
had  known,  his  undue  reverence  for  deep-water  men  had 
been  shaken  when  they  came  to  managing  small  sailing 
craft.  Scotty's  fiasco  with  the  little  old  skiff  of  tender 
remembrance  was  not  the  only  one  he  had  witnessed. 

Of  him  there  should  be  no  complaint  from  captain  or 
officers.  Simultaneously  he  appreciated  that  any  difficulty 
in  making  good  lay  in  relation  to  the  forecastle  rather  than 
to  the  deck.  He  sensed  a  sneering  antagonism,  in  certain 
able-bodied  salts  for'ard,  toward  the  mere  undersized  bay- 


''SOPHIE  SUTHERLAND,"  SEALING         113 

sailor  he  indubitably  was,  and  his  chest  rose  and  his  eye 
darkened  with  the  zest  of  strife  against  odds.  Oh,  not  strife 
with  his  hands,  unless  forced ;  he  would  make  no  hasty  nor 
false  moves.  But  the  conquesting  of  minds  of  their  caliber 
he  well  knew  was  easily  possible,  though  only  by  keeping 
one  jump  ahead  of  them.  One  did  it  with  animals,  and 
he  had  found  the  same  method  practicable  with  most  boys 
he  had  known  and  with  some  men. 

Swiftly  ''sizing  up"  the  seamed  visages  of  the  elder 
A.  B.^s,  he  divined  without  error  the  ones  he  must  deal 
with  from  the  word  go.  Not  for  nothing  had  he  pondered 
the  weird  unreckonable  quality  of  the  order  of  Scandina- 
vian intelligence  that  had  come  his  way  in  the  past.  And 
here  he  uncovered  the  same  mental  quirks,  although  not  one 
of  these  ' '  squareheads '  *  could  boast  of  the  physical  beauty 
or  charm  of  either  of  the  "Scratches." 

He  must  make  no  blunders.  These  seasoned  tars  would 
make  capital  of  the  raw  material  they  deemed  him,  as  they 
were  traditionally  accustomed.  He  would  degenerate  to 
a  mere  cabin-boy,  a  door-mat,  and  worse,  if  he  were  not 
cautious  and  more  than  cautious.  Obliging  he  would  be, 
of  course;  but  he  must  firmly  entrench  himself  short  of 
being  imposed  upon.  He  gave  them  credit  for  a  primitive 
cunning  that  would  pounce  upon  an  unguarded  weakening. 
Difficult  clay  this  for  a  youngster  to  mold  for  his  own 
survival,  but  malleable  clay  nevertheless,  which  he  must 
steel  himself  to  thumb  without  fumbling.  Here  he  laid 
foundation  for  the  tactician  without  hypocrisy  which  in 
time  he  came  to  be. 

Reviewing  his  problem,  he  writes:  "These  hard-bit 
Scandinavian  sailors  had  come  through  a  hard  school.  As 
boys  they  had  served  their  mates,  and  as  able  seamen  they 
looked  to  be  served  by  other  boys.  I  was  a  boy  ...  I 
had  never  been  to  sea  before — withal  I  was  a  good  sailor 
and  knew  my  business  ...  I  had  signed  on  as  an  equal, 
and  an  equal  I  must  maintain  myself,  or  else  endure  seven 


114      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

months  of  hell  at  their  hands.  And  it  was  this  very  equality 
they  resented.  By  what  right  was  I  an  equal?  I  had  not 
earned  that  high  privilege.  I  had  not  endured  the  mis- 
eries they  had  endured  as  maltreated  boys  or  bullied  ordi- 
naries. Worse  than  that,  I  was  a  land-lubber  making  his 
first  voyage.  And  yet,  by  the  injustice  of  fate,  on  the  ship 's 
articles  I  was  their  equal. 

*  *  My  method  was  deliberate,  and  simple,  and  drastic.  In 
the  first  place,  I  resolved  to  do  my  work,  no  matter  how 
hard  or  dangerous  it  might  be,  so  well  that  no  man  would 
be  called  upon  to  do  it  for  me.  Further,  I  put  ginger  in 
my  muscles.  I  never  malingered  when  pulling  on  a  rope, 
for  I  knew  the  eagle  eyes  of  my  forecastle  mates  were 
squinting  for  just  such  evidence  of  my  inferiority.  I  made 
it  a  point  to  be  among  the  first  of  the  watch  going  on  deck, 
among  the  last  going  below,  never  leaving  a  sheet  or 
tackle  for  some  one  else  to  coil  over  a  pin.  I  was  always 
eager  for  the  run  aloft  for  the  shifting  of  topsail  sheets  and 
tacks,  or  for  the  setting  or  taking  in  of  topsails ;  and  in  these 
matters  I  did  more  than  my  share. '  * 

While  he  adjusted  and  outlined  further  adjustment, 
he  was  sensible  of  being  very  much  alone;  but  he  was 
always  that,  in  almost  any  group.  It  was  his  fate  to  be 
isolate,  owing  to  a  faculty  for  anticipating,  which  left  him 
little  to  learn  from  the  average  run  of  individuals.  And  in 
his  predicament  aboard  the  schooner,  as  usual  there  seemed 
to  be  none  to  help  him;  he  must  work  everything  out  for 
himself.  Although  he  did  not  know  it  then,  this  was  be- 
cause he  was  actually  preeminent  in  judgment  of  the  fit- 
ness of  things.  Seldom  did  he  come  in  contact  with  per- 
sons who  could  discriminate  as  quickly  as  he,  due  to  that 
supreme  awareness  which  quickened  his  every  wakeful  mo- 
ment.   His  keynote  was  awareness,  consciousness. 

Making  this  appraisement  of  the  Sophie  Suther- 
land's complement  and  his  relation  to  it,  meanwhile  exert- 
ing his  mightiest  in  setting  sail  and  making  fast  and  coiling 


^*  SOPHIE  SUTHERLAND, '»  SEALING         115 

down,  he  retained  capacity  to  glory  in  the  fact  that  he  was 
at  last  clearing  the  Golden  Gate  on  the  beautiful,  lifting 
highway  to  Heart's  Desire.  When  the  tug  had  cast  off  out- 
side the  Heads,  and  the  trim  sailer  breasted  the  Bar  and 
filled  to  her  course  on  *'the  sea's  blue  swerve,''  surging 
past  the  rocky  Farallones  and  slowly  burying  the  high  coast 
line,  the  young  voyager  filled  his  lungs  with  the  flowing 
Seabreeze  and  realized  with  enormous  relief  that  he  was 
also  clearing  the  moral  morass  ashore  that  had  threatened 
to  engulf  him.  **I  shudder  to  think  how  close  a  shave  I 
ran,"  once  he  referred  to  his  escape.  Never  again, 
he  promised  himself,  would  he  more  than  skim  the  sur- 
face of  that  morass — for  the  sake  of  old  times  and  friends 
to  whom  he  felt  and  owed  loyalty. 

But  there  was  another  and  very  important  factor  that 
entered  into  his  calculations,  namely  his  own  temper,  which 
was  itself  *^on  a  hair-trigger  of  resentment"  in  face  of 
*'any  abuse  or  the  slightest  patronizing."  And  the  men 
were  not  unnoting  of  the  warning  advertised  by  an  invol- 
untary setting  of  that  square  jaw  or  a  tightening  curl  at 
one  comer  of  the  full  mouth,  nor  of  the  sudden  omen  of 
darkening  eyes  behind  their  long  crescent  lashes.  Several 
times  he  ** mixed"  hotly  with  one  or  another  of  them,  in 
sudden  flares  that  as  suddenly  subsided;  but  **I  left  the 
impression  that  I  was  a  wild-cat  and  that  I  would  just  as 
willingly  fight  again,"  he  recalls.  **I  proved  that  the  man 
that  imposed  upon  me  must  have  a  fight  on  his  hands.  And, 
doing  my  work  well,  the  innate  justice  of  the  men,  assisted 
by  their  wholesome  dislike  for  a  clawing  and  rending  wild- 
cat ruction,  soon  led  them  to  give  over  their  hectoring." 

Comparatively  seldom,  considering  the  way  of  his  life, 
had  he  hit  out  with  his  fists.  There  had  been  the  usual  school 
and  street  ** scraps,"  in  the  course  of  determining  his  status 
among  the  boys.  Once,  when  he  was  running  with  the  hood- 
lum crowd,  one  real  battle  royal  between  the  two  bad  Oak- 
land gangs,  had  taken  place  on  a  bridge  which  spanned  the 


116      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

neck  of  water  separating  Lake  Merritt  from  the  Bay.  The 
water-front  brawls  had  drawn  him  in  on  more  than  one 
occasion.  He  never  forgot  the  day  he  made  good  his 
threat,  twice  repeated,  to  knock  the  daylights  out  of  a 
stupid  lunk-head  of  a  sailor  on  the  Reindeer,  who  had  as 
many  times  let  go  the  main-sheet  in  a  delicate  maneuver 
Jack  was  essaying  in  a  tight  corner.  Practically,  these  were 
the  only  times  he  had  used  his  hands  in  this  way.  And 
he  was  punctilious  always  in  a  determination  never  to 
threaten  unless  he  intended  to  make  good.  ^^I  hope  I'll 
never  have  to  draw  a  gun,*'  I  have  heard  him  say,  *^ be- 
cause, if  I  did,  I  'd  have  to  use  it ! ' ' 

On  the  Sophie  Sutherland,  however,  it  remained  for  one 
decisive  victory  to  clarify  the  atmosphere  for  all  the  voy- 
age. 

Bed  John,  a  huge-boned  Swede,  had  not  yet  ceased  look- 
ing for  trouble  with  this  smooth-cheeked  boy  who  declined 
to  be  mere  boy,  nor  heeded  the  signs  that  boy  hung  out 
in  plain  sight  from  time  to  time  as  the  other  tried  to  incite 
him  to  protest.  But  one  day,  when  Jack,  on  watch  below, 
was  sitting  in  his  bunk  engaged  in  the  unoffending  task  of 
weaving  a  rope-yarn  mat  for  sister  Eliza  at  home,  the 
inevitable  moment  presented,  and  he  recognized  and  dealt 
with  it  for  all  it  was  worth. 

It  was  Bed  John's  peggy-day — ^his  turn  at  cleaning 
house  in  the  sailor's  quarters;  and  Bed  John's  eagerness 
to  impress  the  greenest  hand  into  personal  service  cost  him 
his  caution  and  a  distinct  loss  of  dignity.  Some  rough 
order  he  flung  at  Jack,  who  woke  from  pleasant  reverie 
and  bristled  and  tensed,  but  paid  no  other  attention  to  the 
bully,  while  he  went  on  making  his  love-gift. 

Bed  John  mumbled  and  cursed  without  noticeable  effect 
on  the  mat-weaver.  Suddenly  boiling  over,  the  incensed 
giant  let  go  the  coffee-pot  he  was  carrying,  and  gave  the 
boy  a  back-handed  blow  across  the  mouth.  Like  a  flash 
Jack  landed  on  the  other's  eye,  dodged  the  return  swing 


** SOPHIE  SUTHERLAND/'  SEALING         117 

of  the  sledge-hammer  fist,  and  the  combat  was  on — the 
strangest  ever  seen  by  their  mates,  who  scuttled  into  bunks 
to  be  out  of  the  way  and  enjoy  the  show.  With  that  cat-like 
swiftness  he  later  ascribed  to  his  **Sea  Wolf,*'  Jack 
had  outflanked  the  foe  and  sprung  upon  his  shoulders, 
where  he  clasped  powerful  short  legs  in  a  strangle-hold 
about  the  roaring  bull-throat,  while  his  fingers  sought  eyes 
and  windpipe  of  the  confounded,  raging  brute  under  him. 
The  only  recourse  left  the  Swede  was  main  strength,  which 
he  used,  perhaps  by  mere  instinct,  in  butting  his  captor 
against  the  deck  beams.  This  inflicted  bloody  and  painful 
damage  to  the  young  tiger's  scalp  and  crouched  shoulders. 
But  those  excruciating  pointed  digits  in  larynx  and  eye- 
sockets  settled  the  issue,  and  the  tormented  Berserker  was 
forced  to  give  in  by  hoarsely  bellowing  assent  to  Jack's 
breathless  repetition  of  **Will  y 'leave  me  alone,  now?  Will 
y'let  up  on  me  for  keeps?  Will  y 'leave  me  be? — Will  yuh? 
TFtWyuh?" 

Once  more  on  his  feet,  quivering  and  weak  amidst  the 
wreck  of  the  forecastle,  but  wrapt  in  the  solicitous  congrat- 
ulations of  admiring  colleagues,  he  cemented  their  respect- 
ful regard  by  an  utter  lack  of  swank  over  his  victory. 
** That's  all  right,  boys,"  and  a  ** Thank  you  kindly,"  was 
all  they  could  get  out  of  him  as  he  grinned  through  the  blood 
that  dripped  from  his  lacerated  scalp,  and  went  about 
cleansing  it.  Hardly  needful  to  mention.  Red  John  became 
the  staunchest  admirer  and  champion  of  this  valiant  cub 
whom  he  had  failed  to  whip.  As  for  the  others,  **It  was 
my  pride  that  I  was  taken  in  as  an  equal,  in  spirit  as  well  as 
in  fact.  From  then  on,  everything  was  beautiful,  and  the 
voyage  promised  to  be  a  happy  one."  Quite  opposed,  it 
will  be  seen,  to  accounts  from  inexcusably  careless  biogra- 
phers, that  the  friendly  schooner  was  a  hell-ship  in  which 
Jack  London  had  a  fight  on  his  hands,  or  provoked  one, 
every  day  of  the  voyage ! 

And  very  happy  it  was.    While  he  could  get  along  com- 


118      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

fortably  without  approbation,  his  content  was  enhanced  by 
it;  and  the  pleasure  of  camaraderie  with  his  fellows  below 
or  on  deck,  or  aloft  in  the  shrieking  rigging  in  a  gale,  was 
not  to  be  calculated.  No  exhausting  strain  could  dampen 
the  ardor  of  holding  his  own  with  the  best  in  sheer  mus- 
cular rivalry.  Even  in  middle  age,  for  him  to  be  able  to 
say,  **I  have  toiled  all  night,  both  watches  on  deck,  off  the 
coast  of  Japan,''  meant  more  to  him  than  the  best 
passage  he  had  ever  written.  It  should  be  remembered 
that  eye-to-eye,  strain-to-strain,  blow-to-blow,  with  these 
rougher  forces,  he  overbore  the  unjust  handicap  of  su- 
persensitiveness — making  no  allowance  for  small-boned 
wrists  and  ankles  that  were  foredoomed  to  injury.  But 
whatever  his  disgruntlement  may  have  been  as  regarded 
those  fragile  extremities,  he  could  be  secretly  pleased  with 
the  augmenting  bulge  of  muscle  on  back  and  shoulders,  legs 
and  biceps,  although  it  may  be  the  strenuousness  of  his 
hit-or-miss  education  in  hardship  cost  him  an  inch  or  so 
of  stature. 

He  was  never  apathetic  to  the  beauty  of  the  world 
about  the  pretty  schooner  he  took  prideful  hand  in  sail- 
ing. His  trick  at  the  wheel,  ably  and  faithfully  dis- 
charged, brought  him  inexhaustible  delights,  not  the  least  of 
which  was  the  satisfaction  of  holding  his  own  as  a  helmsman 
among  helmsmen.  The  chronometer,  that  *4east  imperfect 
time-piece  that  man  has  devised,"  and  the  nautical  instru- 
ments, were  things  almost  of  enchantment,  and  again  he 
dreamed  dreams  of  some  day  working  his  own  ship  by  their 
aid  under  sun  and  star.  The  wide  sea  and  dome  of  sky, 
with  all  their  moods  of  color  and  motion,  pervaded  him  with 
a  never-palling  joyance  of  eye  and  spirit.  In  the  night 
watches,  swinging  majestically  under  the  wintry  steel-blue 
stars,  or  fighting  through  big  seas  beneath  low  scudding 
moonlit  cloud-masses,  with  only  the  pale-glimmering  bin- 
nacle for  company,  he  knew  again  those  lofty,  cool  levels  of 


^^ SOPHIE  SUTHERLAND,"  SEALING         119 

contemplation  wherein  his  vision  was  extended  into  ever- 
receding  distances  of  thought. 

Because  of  the  extravagant  and  unappeased  hunger  of 
his  mind,  sleeping  hours  he  divided  with  the  books  he  had 
smuggled  aboard.  At  the  nearest  possible  inch  to  the  inner 
wall  of  his  confined  bunk,  he  crept  with  a  tiny  improvised 
light,  fitted  with  a  shade  so  that  he  might  not  disturb 
the  men.  I  think  he  has  described  the  contrivance  as  a 
saucer  of  slush-oil  containing  a  floating  bit  of  wick, 
which  **lamp"  he  was  obliged  to  hold  in  his  hand.  To  such 
lengths  he  went  to  feed  that  mind-hunger.  Two  reasons 
there  were  for  this  stealth — a  decent  consideration  toward 
the  men,  and,  still  more  important,  an  unmistaken  intuition 
that  good  fellowship  depended  upon  hiding  propensities 
they  might  construe  as  **airish."  There  was  too  much  at 
stake. 

It  was  some  years  since  this  inquisitive  pilgrim,  with 
his  disturbing  aptitude  for  looking  aside  into  the  amazing 
by-ways  of  cause  and  effect,  had  begun  to  outstrip  the 
childish  methods  of  argument  conunon  amongst  sailor 
folk.  He  concealed  his  advanced  opinions,  thrashing  out 
in  busy  solitude  the  questions  that  arose  in  him,  and 
nursing  an  increasing  wonder  at  what  Dana  has  called 
**the  simple  psychology  of  the  forecastle.*'  Hour  upon 
hour  he  barkened  to  these  huge  men  argue  prodigiously 
and  earnestly,  and  even  come  to  blows,  over  the  most 
obviously  infantile  details,  splitting  hairs  ad  infinitum  and 
ad  nauseam.  He  had  to  play  down  to  their  intelligence — 
caught  himself  time  and  again  anticipating  their  conclu- 
sions, with  leisure  to  indulge  in  speculations  of  his  own 
while  automatically  following  their  talk. 

Nevertheless  certain  simplicities  of  code  were  beneficial, 
and  perhaps  in  the  Sophie  Sutherland's  crowded  forecastle 
were  fixed  in  him  economies  of  habit  that  stayed  with  him 
always,  such  as  orderliness  with  personal  belongings,  and  a 
notable  scarcity  of  the  same.    It  was  only  right  that  one's 


120      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

private  possessions  and  convictions  should  not  get  in  the 
way  of  others.  There  were  places  for  both  groups,  and  they 
should  not  be  misplaced  to  the  harassment  of  persons  one 
had  to  live  with  and  vice  versa.  Besides,  such  encroach- 
ment was  promptly  resented  in  no  uncertain  terms  and 
actions. 

Though  they  were  really  children  mentally,  he  noted 
vital  differences  of  character.  Victor  and  Axel,  Swede 
and  Norwegian  respectively,  were  the  youngest  and  most 
congenial  to  the  antic  side  of  his  own  personality,  and 
after  the  wild  adventure  of  the  first  landfall,  they  became 
known  as  **the  Three  Sports'*  aboard  ship  and  ashore. 
Pete  Holt,  the  hunter.  Jack  always  liked  to  work  with  in  the 
boats.  For  the  vanquished  Eed  John  he  felt  good-humored 
tolerance  along  with  ungrudged  admiration  for  his  gigantic 
proportions.  And  Long  John  was  a  fair  sport.  The  senior 
member  of  the  crew,  poor  fat  Louis,  old  at  fifty,  was  in 
Jack's  sailor  psychology  that  most  unfortunate  of  wrecks, 
a  broken  skipper.  He  was  deeply  impressed  to  learn  that 
drink  had  been  the  cause  of  Louis  going  to  pieces  and 
losing  his  papers.  There  it  was  again — drink  had 
*Hhrown''  a  good  man,  **and  he  was  winding  up  his  ca- 
reer where  he  had  begun  it,  in  the  forecastle. ' '  The  worst 
of  this,  the  boy  was  almost  convinced,  was  that  it  had  not 
killed  the  reduced  skipper  outright,  but  had  done  **much 
worse  .  .  .  robbed  him  of  power  and  place  and  comfort, 
crucified  his  pride,''  and  sailor-pride  remained  to  Jack  a 
superfine  quality.  And  now  the  luckless  Louis,  once  master 
of  a  ship,  was  *  *  condemned  to  the  hardships  of  the  common 
sailor. ' ' 

But  when  this  youngest  A.  B.  discovered  himself  repeat- 
ing that  solemn  vow  of  Never  Again,  there  would  leap  be- 
hind his  eyes  the  rollicking  high  times,  the  ^*  purple  pas- 
sages ' '  that  went  hand  in  hand  with  lusty  drinking.  *  *  Often, 
of  course,"  he  relates,  *Hhe  talk  in  the  forecastle  turned 
on  drink,  and  the  men  told  of  their  more  exciting  and  hu- 


^^ SOPHIE  SUTHERLAND/'  SEALING         121 

morous  drunks,  remembering  such  passages  keenly,  with 
greater  delight,  than  all  the  other  passages  of  their  adven- 
turous lives."  The  eternal  riddle  propounded  by  alcohol 
took  place  in  his  thinking  as  a  cosmic  contradiction. 

Then,  when  he  had  failed  to  reach  any  congenial  solu- 
tion, he  would  turn  to  another  sort  of  derelict,  the  man  in 
their  midst  whom  he  always  thought  of  as  the  twelfth  and 
last  of  the  dozen.  No  one  knew  his  name.  The  only  per- 
sonal items  he  had  let  slip  were  that  he  was  a  Missouri 
bricklayer,  and  had  never  seen  salt  water  before.  That 
would  have  been  enough  to  disqualify  him;  for  not  only 
in  this  respect  was  he  an  insult  to  the  forecastle — **he 
was  vicious,  mahgnant,  dirty,  and  without  common  de- 
cency." Apparently  he  was  strong,  and  perpetually  he 
looked  for  a  fight,  though  an  unfair  opponent.  The  first 
day  out,  he  had  reached  for  Jack's  table  knife  to  cut  a  plug 
of  chewing  tobacco.  Jack  ''promptly  exploded,"  and  the 
first  row  of  the  voyage  ensued.  Subsequently,  the  man 
came  to  blows  with  every  one  of  the  other  ten  men.  Com- 
bined with  personal  nastiness,  his  uselessness  fomented 
the  hatred  of  the  crew,  whom  he  bullied  by  indirection. 
**Try  as  they  would,  they  could  never  teach  him  to  steer. 
.  .  .  He  never  mastered  its  [the  compass's]  cardinal  points, 
much  less  the  checking  and  steadying  of  the  ship  on  her 
course.  It  was  mentally  impossible  for  him  to  learn  the 
easy  muscular  trick  of  throwing  his  weight  on  a  rope  in 
pulling  and  hauling.  ...  He  was  mortally  afraid  of  going 
aloft.  He  managed  to  get  under  the  cross-trees,  and  there 
he  froze  to  the  ratlines.  Two  sailors  had  to  go  after  him 
to  help  him  down. ' ' 

Fifteen  years  later,  the  subject  of ' '  praying  to  death ' '  by 
the  Kahunas  (witch  doctors)  one  day  came  up  when  we  were 
in  Hawaii.  Jack  declared  a  wholesome  respect  for  the 
belief,  soberly  enough  recalling  the  uncanny  ending  of  the 
** Bricklayer"  in  the  forecastle  of  the  Sophie  Sutherland, 
in  the  sealing  grounds  off  Japan.     **He  was  a  beast,  and 


122      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

we  treated  him  like  a  beast,"  I  find  him  saying.  **It  is  only 
by  looking  back  through  the  years  that  I  realize  how  heart- 
less we  were.  ...  He  had  not  made  himself,  and  for 
his  making  he  was  not  responsible.  Yet  we  treated  him 
as  a  free  agent  and  held  him  personally  responsible  for 
all  that  he  was  and  that  he  should  not  have  been.  As  a 
result,  our  treatment  was  as  terrible  as  he  was  himself 
terrible."  The  man  was  ill  of  some  mysterious  ailment, 
but  he  had  long  since  forfeited  kindness  from  any  one.  Nor 
did  he  want  kindness.  Instead,  he  repelled  any  tentative 
offer.  **For  weeks  before  he  died  we  neither  spoke  to  him 
nor  did  he  speak  to  us.  And  for  weeks  he  moved  among  us, 
or  lay  in  his  bunk  in  our  crowded  house,  grinning  at  us  his 
hatred  and  malignancy.  ...  He  encumbered  our  life 
with  his  presence,  and  ours  was  a  rough  life  that  made 
rough  men  of  us.  And  so  he  died,  in  a  small  space  crowded 
by  twelve  men  and  as  much  alone  as  if  he  had  died  on  some 
desolate  mountain  peak.  .  .  He  died  as  he  had  lived,  a 
beast,  and  he  died  hating  us  and  hated  by  us." 

Strange  mental  food  for  one  so  young  and  so  thought- 
ful as  Jack.  But  whatever  remorse  he  may  have  felt 
was  neutralized  by  the  inevitable  memory  of  the  man^s 
awfulness.  Yet  after  the  body  had  been  flung  overboard 
from  the  ice-rimed  vessel,  he  did  what  no  one  else  dared 
do — calmly  moved  his  belongings  into  the  thoroughly 
cleansed  deserted  bunk,  mainly  for  the  reason  that  it  was 
dryer  than  his  and  commanded  a  better  light  for  reading. 
By  now  the  boys  had  accepted  his  little  row  of  books 
as  an  amiable  idiosyncrasy.  *  *  My  other  reason  was  pride, '  * 
he  explains.  *^I  saw  the  sailors  were  superstitious,  and 
I  determined  to  show  that  I  was  braver  than  they.  I  would 
cap  my  proved  equality  by  a  deed  that  would  compel  their 
recognition  of  my  superiority.  Oh,  the  arrogance  of 
youth  1  .  .  .  Then  they  begged  and  pleaded  with  me,  and 
my  pride  was  tickled  in  that  they  showed  they  really  liked 
me  and  were  concerned.    ...   I  moved  in,  and  lying  in 


^*  SOPHIE  SUTHERLAND, '»  SEALING         123 

the  dead  man  *s  bunk,  all  afternoon  and  evening  listened  to 
dire  prophecies  of  my  future.  .  .  .  Also  stories  of  awful 
deaths  and  grewsome  ghosts  that  secretly  shivered  the 
hearts  of  all  of  us.'* 

Although  not  recorded  that  the  Bricklayer's  obscene 
wraith  was  cognizant,  it  had  its  revenge  upon  at  least  one 
hated  survivor.  That  night,  hovering  just  above  the  identi- 
cal spot  where  the  unsavory  corpse  had  been  consigned  to 
the  deep,  followed  by  his  belongings,  which  the  most  avari- 
cious had  no  stomach  to  appropriate,  Jack  saw  wavering 
what  seemed  a  long,  gaunt  ghost,  and  himself  stood  not 
upon  the  order  of  his  going,  but  *' leaped  like  a  startled 
deer  and  in  a  blind  madness  of  terror  rushed  aft  along  the 
poop,  heading  for  the  cabin.*'  His  ** arrogance  of  youth 
and  intellectual  calm*'  deserted  him  cold,  and  he  was 
** panic-stricken  as  a  frightened  horse."  Through  him 
**were  vibrating  the  fiber-instincts  of  ten  thousand  genera- 
tions of  superstitious  forebears  who  had  been  afraid  of  the 
dark  and  the  things  of  the  dark.**  He  excuses  or  explains 
his  abrupt  terror  on  a  biological  basis :  **I  was  not  I.  I  was, 
in  truth,  those  ten  thousand  forebears.  I  was  the  race,  the 
whole  human  race,  in  its  superstitious  infancy.** 

He  came  to  himself  descending  the  cabin  companion- 
way,  **  suffocating,  trembling,  dizzy.  ...  I  clung  to  the 
ladder  and  considered.  I  could  not  doubt  my  senses. 
.  .  .  But  what  was  it?  Either  a  ghost  or  a  joke.  .  .  . 
If  a  ghost.  .  .  would  it  appear  again  t  * '  and  pride  rushed 
to  his  rescue :  if  it  did  not  appear  again  and  he  awoke  the 
ship*s  officers,  he  would  become  the  laughing  stock  of  all 
on  board — which,  of  course,  was  unthinkable  dishonor. 
Even  more  unthinkable  would  be  his  plight  if  the  officers 
turned  out  to  witness  a  practical  joke.  So  he  figured,  **If 
I  were  to  retain  my  hard-won  place  of  equality,  it  would 
never  do  to  arouse  any  one  until  I  ascertained  the  nature 
of  the  thing.** 

'*I  am  a  brave  man,'*  he  asserts.    **I  dare  to  say  so; 


124      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

for  in  fear  and  trembling  I  crept  up  the  eompanionway  and 
went  back.  ...  It  had  vanished.  My  bravery  was  quali- 
fied, however,**  he  temporizes.  ** Though  I  could  see  noth- 
ing, I  was  afraid  to  go  forward  to  the  spot  where  I  had  seen 
the  thing.  .  .  As  my  equanimity  returned.  .  .  I  con- 
cluded that  the  whole  affair  had  been  a  trick  of  the  imagina- 
tion and  that  I  had  got  what  I  deserved  for  allowing  my 
mind  to  dwell  on  such  matters  .  .  .  and  then,  suddenly, 
I  was  a  madman,  rushing  wildly  aft.  I  had  seen  the  thing 
again,  the  long,  wavering  attenuated  substance  through 
which  could  be  seen  the  fore-rigging.  This  time  I  only 
reached  the  break  of  the  poop.  .  .  .  Again  I  reasoned 
.  .  .  and  it  was  pride  that  counseled  strongest.  .  .  . 
And  for  a  third  time  I  resumed  my  amidships  pacing.'* 
Growing  angrier  and  angrier  with  the  idea  that  he  was  the 
butt  of  hoaxers  who  had  seen  him  twice  run,  at  the  third 
demonstration  he  drew  his  sheathe-knife  and  started  for 
the  Thing,  though  almost  curdled  with  fear.  *  *  Step  by  step, 
nearer  and  nearer,  the  effort  to  control  myself  grew  more 
severe.  The  struggle  was  between  my  will,  my  identity,  my 
very  self,  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other,  the  ten  thou- 
sand ancestors.    .    .    .** 

**And  then,  right  before  my  eyes,  it  vanished  .  .  . 
faded  away,  ceased  to  be.  ...  I  swear,  from  what  I  ex- 
perienced in  those  few  succeeding  moments,  that  I  know 
full  well  that  men  can  die  of  fright.  ...  In  all  my  life  I 
never  went  through  more  torment  and  mental  suffering 
than  on  that  lonely  night  watch.** 

Of  course,  he  never  mentioned  the  incident  aboard  the 
schooner,  nor  how,  in  despair  at  the  impossibility  of  run- 
ning away  from  **the  malevolent  world  of  ghosts**  to  which 
he  had  suddenly  given  credence,  he  had  as  suddenly  dis- 
covered the  cause  of  the  apparition  in  the  shadow  of  a 
rocking  topmast  against  the  cloud-dinamed  moon  radiance 
on  the  fore-rigging.  ^  *  Once  again  I  have  seen  a  ghost,  *  *  he 
admits,  and  he  was  done  with  ghosts  forever.    *^It  proved 


** SOPHIE  SUTHERLAND,''  SEALING         125 

to  be  a  Newfoundland  dog,  and  I  don't  know  which  of  us 
was  the  more  frightened,  for  I  hit  that  Newfoundland  a 
full  right-arm  swing  to  the  jaw.'' 

It  may  have  been  it  was  the  happiest  period  of  his  whole 
life,  that  voyage  in  the  Sophie  Sutherland;  for  then  even 
his  disillusionments  were  healthy,  and  the  compensations 
ample.  Within  him,  as  the  active  days  of  the  exceptionally 
fine  passage  rolled  by,  was  the  delicious  anticipation  of  his 
first  foreign  port,  which  was  to  be  in  the  Bonin  Islands,  a 
cluster  to  the  southeast  of  Japan,  once  known  as  the  Arzo- 
bispo  group.  And  they  would  be  wholly  foreign.  Thus  he 
foretasted  the  bliss  of  lifting  their  heads  above  the  sea- 
rim,  for  he  had  read  that  since  recognition  of  their  Japa- 
nese ownership  over  thirty  years  before,  American  and 
English  settlements  had  been  deserted.  And  even  though 
dead,  these  were  volcanic  isles,  which  was  another  thrilling 
consideration — albeit  not  the  first  he  had  seen.  For  the 
Sophie  Sutherlmid  had  navigated  the  southern  route,  skirt- 
ing Hawaii,  the  highest  island  in  the  world;  and  he  had 
gazed  spellbound  upon  the  night-glow  and  day-smoke  of  the 
world's  greatest  active  crater,  Kilauea,  in  the  foreground 
of  a  snow-capped  mountain  nearly  fourteen  thousand  feet 
high. 

The  young  Argonaut  was  deeply  aflPected  when  at  last 
the  blue-distant  peaks  of  the  Bonins  pierced  the  horizon, 
steadily  growing  less  mirage-like,  until  he  could  make  out 
the  heavy  green  forestage,  and  smell  what  no  voyager 
ever  forgets,  that  scent,  borne  on  the  ocean  breeze,  of  a 
tropic  garden-isle  of  fruit  and  flowers  and  cocoa-palms. 
And  presently  the  schooner  was  threading  the  surfy  reefs 
and  sounding  her  way  into  a  landlocked  harbor.  Here  were 
anchored  twenty-odd  sail  of  the  American  and  Canadian 
fleets,  put  in  for  repairs  and  replenishing  of  water  sup- 
plies, in  readiness  for  the  seal-hunting  to  the  north.  All 
about  were  sampans  and  queer  native  canoes  paddled  by 


126      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

oriental  aborigines,  who  made  for  the  latest  arrival  and 
swarmed  aboard  as  Jack  had  read  in  old  chronicles. 

**I  had  won  to  the  other  side  of  the  world,"  he  rejoiced, 
**and  I  would  see  all  I  had  read  in  the  books  come  true.  I 
was  wild  to  get  ashore/' 

He  could  hardly  wait,  when  on  leave  they  rowed  across 
the  clear  green  water  above  a  fairy  jungle  of  branching 
coral,  to  beach  on  the  gleaming  coral  sands.  Such  fishing 
as  they  would  have  on  that  reef,  from  those  outlandish  sam- 
pans, after  all  that  was  possible  had  been  seen  of  the  palmy, 
blossomy  heights.  Somehow  he  did  not  think  so  much  about 
the  village  itself.  He  wanted  to  stretch  himself  out  of 
doors,  on  that  mountainside,  and  perhaps  find  other  vil- 
lages, much  more  strange  and  picturesque  than  the  one  on 
the  beach,  which  was  alive  with  white-skinned  mariners 
anyway.  And  so,  he  and  Victor  and  Axel  **  walked  across 
the  fringe  of  beach  under  the  cocoanut  palms  and  into  the 
little  town,  and  found  several  hundred  riotous  seamen  from 
all  the  world  drinking  prodigiously,  singing  prodigiously, 
dancing  prodigiously — and  all  on  the  main  street,  to  the 
scandal  of  a  helpless  handful  of  Japanese  police.'' 

Victor  and  Axel  proposed  that  they  have  one  drink  for 
old  sake's  sake,  before  starting  on  their  long,  warm  hike. 
Jack  did  not  want  the  drink — ^but  what  should  be  his  trou- 
bles to  them?  **  Could  I  decline  to  drink  with  these  two 
chesty  shipmates?  Drinking  together,  glass  in  hand,  put 
the  seal  on  comradeship."  Fifty-one  days  had  worked  all 
the  alcohol  out  of  his  system,  and  he  swears  he  had  not 
known  the  desire  for  it,  doubting  if  he  once  thought  of 
a  drink.  But  apparently  **It  was  the  way  of  life.  Our 
teetotaler  owner-captain  was  laughed  at,  and  sneered  at, 
by  all  of  us  because  of  his  teetotalism.  I  didn't  in  the  least 
want  a  drink,  but  I  did  want  to  be  a  good  fellow  and  a 
good  comrade. ' '  He  thought  of  poor  old  Louis 's  case,  but 
his  own  swamp  was  far  behind  him,  and  he  felt  too  strong, 
from  the  splendid  conditioning  of  the  voyage,  to  be  fearful. 


•* SOPHIE  SUTHERLAND,''  SEALING         127 

**My  blood  ran  full  and  red,"  he  was  healthily  conscious; 
**I  had  a  constitution  of  iron;  and — well,  youth  ever  grins 
scornfully  at  the  wreckage  of  age." 

The  feet  of  the  Sailors  Three  never  trod  that  flowery 
path  into  the  perfumed  fastnesses  of  the  mountain  isle. 
The  pitfalls  of  the  town  were  too  numerous  to  step  over  or 
around.  Their  long-deprived  eyes  were  captivated  by 
the  flower-faces  of  the  impossibly  tiny,  doll-like  girls, 
dressed  in  bright  kimonos  with  their  reversed  obis.  **  Little 
bits  of  things  off  a  fan,"  Jack  once  described  the  Japanese 
women  to  me.  And  provokingly  unreal  they  appeared  to 
his  young  fancy,  the  little  butterfly  courtesans.  So 
Jack  and  Axel  left  the  turbulent  village  only  in  order  to 
carry  Victor,  a  lunatic  from  vast  quantities  of  adulterated 
whiskey  and  the  pale-golden  native  sake,  back  to  the 
schooner,  which  he  proceeded  to  ** clean  up."  Balked  in 
this,  he  threw  himself  overboard.  The  other  two  followed 
to  the  rescue,  for  though  the  keenest  of  the  older  crew, 
Victor  evidently  was  one  of  the  notorious  able  seamen 
who  could  swim  little.  Jack  and  Axel  were  not  so  tipsy 
but  they  wanted  to  return  to  the  delights  ashore,  which 
they  did  after  getting  the  subdued  Victor  into  his  bunk.  **It 
was  curious,"  Jack  reflected  later,  **the  judgment  passed  on 
Victor  by  his  shipmates,  drinkers  themselves.  They  shook 
their  heads  disapprovingly  and  muttered:  *A  man  like  that 
ought  n  't  drink. '  ' ' 

Jack  seems  to  have  kept  his  head  long  enough  to 
capture  his  meed  of  the  satumalian  orgy  that  ran  wide 
open  that  night.  **  Ashore,  snugly  ensconsed  in  a  Japanese 
house  of  entertainment,"  he  and  Axel  had  several  quiet 
nips  of  sake,  first  alone  together,  then  with  succeeding  ship- 
mates who  dropped  in.  Just  as  they  were  luxuriously 
settling  on  their  native  wooden  head-rests  to  enjoy  the  nov- 
elty of  music  made  on  samisens  and  taikos  they  had  en- 
gaged, **came  a  wild  howl  from  the  street  .  .  howling, 
disdaining  doorways,  with  bloodshot  eyes  and  wildly  waving 


128      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

muscular  arms,  Victor  burst  upon  us  through  the  fragile 
walls.'*  It  developed  later  that  Victor  had  dreamed  that 
a  pretty  Japanese  girl  whom  he  had  kno\vn  earlier  in  the 
afternoon  was  appropriated  by  Jack,  and  he  forthwith 
ran  amuck.  *  *  The  orchestra  fled, ' '  Jack  recounts ;  *  *  so  did 
we.  We  went  through  doorways,  and  we  went  through 
paper  walls — anything  to  get  away. '  *  They  returned,  how- 
ever, to  pay  for  the  demolished  house. 

**The  main  street  was  a  madness.  Because  the  chief 
of  police  with  his  small  force  was  helpless,  the  Governor 
of  the  colony  had  issued  orders  to  the  captains  to  have  all 
their  men  on  board  by  sunset. ' '  This  was  the  signal  for  a 
^* general  debauch  for  all  hands.*'  The  men  **went  around 
inviting  the  authorities  to  try  to  put  them  aboard.** 
Jack,  still  sober  enough  to  take  it  all  in,  **  thought  it  was 
great.  It  was  like  the  old  days  of  the  Spanish  Main  come 
back.  It  was  license;  it  was  adventure.  And  I  was  part 
of  it,  a  chesty  sea-rover  along  with  all  these  other  chesty 
sea-rovers  among  the  paper  houses  of  Japan.** 

Many  pictures  he  remembered,  in  which  he  uncon- 
sciously posed,  the  last  one  *' standing  out  very  clear  and 
bright  in  the  midst  of  vagueness  before  and  blackness  after- 
ward. *  *  He  and  several  angel-faced  apprentices  of  his  own 
age  from  the  Canadian  sealers,  *^are  swaying  and  clinging 
to  one  another  under  the  stars  .  .  .  singing  a  rollicking 
sea-song,  all  save  one  who  sits  on  the  ground  and  weeps; 
and  we  are  marking  the  rhythm  with  waving  square-faces. 
From  up  and  down  the  street  come  far  choruses  of  sea- 
voices  similarly  singing,  and  life  is  great,  and  beautiful,  and 
romantic,  and  magnificently  mad.** 

As  in  his  babyhood  beer-bust,  returning  intelligence 
was  under  the  anxious  eyes  of  some  one,  this  time  a  strange 
Japanese  woman,  the  port  pilot's  wife,  where  Jack, 
stripped  of  everything  but  his  trousers— money,  watch, 
shoes,  belt,  everything — ^had  been  left  upon  her  threshold 
as  a  joke  by  the  angelic  blond  apprentices. 


**  SOPHIE  SUTHERLAND, '»  SEALING         129 

For  ten  days  it  was  the  same  story,  except  that  the  Three 
Sports  ** caroused  somewhat  more  discreetly.'^  Even  Vic- 
tor, repentant  of  excesses,  saw  the  wisdom  of  discretion. 
But  why  regret  that  one  adventure  went  wrong?  Jack  un- 
doubtedly figured,  then  and  after,  that  because  he  missed 
exploring  the  island  he  perhaps  lived  more  than  he  would 
have  in  all  the  mountain  climbing  on  earth.  Of  him  I  have 
observed,  when  on  occasion  one  arrangement  was  inter- 
fered with  by  some  other,  that  he  forgot  regret,  or  at  least 
replaced  regret,  with  wholesouled  interest  in  the  substitu- 
tion. Eventually  he  summed  up  the  entire  Bonin  incident 
in  his  customary  philosophical  way,  though  in  this  instance 
pointing  the  immorality  of  alcohoPs  accessibility  to  the 
young. 

**I  might  have  seen  and  healthily  enjoyed  a  whole  lot 
more  of  the  Bonin  Islands  if  I  had  done  what  I  ought  to 
have  done.  But,  as  I  see  it,  it  is  not  a  matter  of  what  one 
ought  to  do,  or  ought  not  to  do.  It  is  what  one  does  do. 
That  is  the  everlasting,  irrefragable  fact.  I  did  just  what 
I  did.  I  did  what  all  those  men  did  in  the  Bonin  Islands. 
I  did  what  millions  of  men  over  the  world  were  doing  at 
that  particular  point  in  time.  I  did  it  because  the  way  led 
to  it,  because  I  was  only  a  human  boy,  a  creature  of  my 
environment,  and  neither  an  anemic  nor  a  god.  I  was  just 
human,  and  I  was  taking  the  path  in  the  world  that  men* 
took — men  whom  I  admired,  if  you  please ;  full-blooded  men, 
lusty,  breedy,  chesty  men,  free  spirits  and  anything  but 
niggards  in  the  way  they  foamed  life  away. 

**And  the  way  was  open.'* 

Each  daybreak  on  the  northward  run  brought  its  fresh 
excitement  of  locating  the  positions  of  other  vessels  in 
their  race  for  the  sealing  grounds.  These  reached,  for 
twelve  weeks  they  saw  the  sun  hardly  as  many  times. 
Jack,  boat-puller,  did  his  man's  work  at  the  oars,  and  skin- 
ning as  well  as  packing  the  fabulously  valuable  pelts  which 


130      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

he  could  scarce  credit  were  the  same  furs  that  made  the 
lovely,  plushy  coats  he  had  seen  on  fine  ladies  who  could 
not  forego  wearing  them  even  in  California's  mild  winters. 
With  habitual  thoroughness  he  had  soon  informed  himself 
of  the  process  of  plucking  and  softening  the  unbeautiful 
slimy  hides  he  was  instrumental  in  securing. 

**The  deck  was  a  slaughter-house,  week  in  and  week 
out,*'  he  has  told  me.  ** There  wasn't  a  malingerer  left 
among  us  since  the  Bricklayer  slid  overside ;  and  we  kept 
up  a  lively  competition  to  see  who  would  have  the  biggest 
number  of  skins  salted  down  at  the  close  of  the  season.  It 
was  wild,  heavy  work  off  the  coast  of  Siberia,  with  no  let-up 
weeks  on  end.  We  had  our  fun,  though — savage  fun  it 
sometimes  was,  but  wholly  good-natured.  One  horrid 
practical  joke  I  remember,*'  he  exploded  in  that  giggle 
which  every  one  about  him  always  enjoyed,  ** — oh,  it  was 
silly,  and  dirty  and  disgusting  and  everything  else — and 
it  did  nearly  cost  us  Long  John's  friendship;  but  he  got 
back  at  us  in  some  way,  I  forget  how,  and  all  was  for- 
given. 

** Maybe  it  was  Long  John's  length  that  put  the  idea  into 
some  one 's  mind,  or  his  custom  of  sleeping  naked — there  'd 
be  so  much  of  him  to  shock !  Now  a  skinned  seal  is  not  a 
pretty  object  nor  nice  to  touch — all  grease  and  blood,  and 
colder  than  hell.  We  had  a  time  getting  it  into  the  fore- 
castle unknown  to  Long  John — it  was  a  whale  for  size — and 
into  his  bunk,  where  we  laid  it  close  to  the  ship 's  side,  and 
covered  it  all  up.  When  we  went  to  bed  those  nights,  we 
were  so  dog-tired  we  turned  in  all-standing,  never  looked 
first  but  just  grabbed  up  the  bedclothes,  flopped  in  with 
them  on  top,  raised  our  feet  to  swoop  the  blankets  under 
and  around,  and  were  dead  to  the  world.  No  reading  for 
me  those  nights. — ^You  can  follow,  can't  you,"  he  inter- 
rupted himself,  **how  I  got  the  habit  you've  noticed,  of 
spoiling  my  nicely  made  bed,  pulling  the  blankets  out  with 


** SOPHIE  SUTHERLAND,''  SEALING         131 

my  feet  and  rolling  up  in  them.    I'm  a  savage  anyway,  in 
spite  of  my  tender  skin ! 

*'But  anyway — we  were  all  on  hand  for  the  show;  and 
some  show  I  It  went  like  a  charm.  Long  John  ripped  off  his 
oilskins  and  woollens,  everything,  and  in  one  big  movement 
landed  under  the  covers  full  length  of  his  bare,  warm  body 
against  that  horrible,  blood-slimy,  half-frozen  corpse.  God ! 
— but  he  let  out  the  most  soul-curdling  yell  I've  ever  heard, 
and  shot  out  of  that  bunk  a  hundredfold  quicker  than  he 
went  in.  I'll  bet  his  first  thought  was  of  the  Bricklayer — 
but  his  next  was  no  slower,  for  he  tried  to  lay  out  the 
whole  fo'c's'le.  When  a  slow  man  does  get  mad.  .  .  . 
I  can  tell  you  no  one  of  us  ever  turned  in  again  on  that 
voyage  without  examining  the  bed!" 

About  the  only  relaxation  the  crew  got  was  an  occasional 
*  *  gam ' '  aboard  the  other  sealers,  scattered  widely  over  the 
face  of  the  gray  sea.  One  of  these,  the  schooner  Herman, 
in  1907  under  the  name  of  the  Roberta  trading  in  the 
South  Seas,  put  into  Taiohae  while  we  were  visiting  the 
Marquesas  Islands  in  the  Snark, 

The  sole  indisposition  I  know  of,  that  claimed  Jack  on 
the  Sutherland  voyage,  was  a  sudden  and  severe  attack 
upon  his  sensory  nerves  by  the  excruciating  ** shingles" 
(herpes  zoster) — an  intercostal  manifestation  that  came 
near  to  proving  fatal. 

One  more  adventure  Jack  was  promised,  and  they  would 
be  bound  home  with  a  big  catch.  Into  the  capacious  Bay  of 
Tokyo  the  Sophie  Sutherla/nd  made  her  way,  and  let  go 
anchor  off  Yokohama's  imposing  docks.  Those  docks,  with 
the  modem  public  buildings,  invested  the  Far  East  metrop- 
olis with  a-disappointingly  European  character.  It  was  the 
largest  city  he  had  ever  seen,  its  population  totaling  upward 
of  200,000,  and  incredulously  he  referred  to  one  of  the  his- 
tory books  he  had  brought  on  the  voyage,  which  stated  that 
Yokohama  had  been  a  mere  fishing  hamlet  less  than  thirty- 
five  years  earlier.    Ever  afterward  he  nourished  an  admir- 


132      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

ing  respect  for  these  short-legged,  canoe-bodied,  brilliant- 
minded  sub-Mongolians  and  the  shorter-legged,  gentle- 
voiced,  flower-faced  mothers  of  the  wonderful  race.  The 
preceding  generation  of  average  Calif  omians  is  apt  to  be 
slipshod  to  a  degree  not  understood  by  citizens  of  the  At- 
lantic seaboard,  concerning  both  Chinese  and  Japanese 
immigrants  of  whatsoever  station.  This  because  the  fa- 
miliar cook  and  coolie,  house-servant,  laundryman,  and 
vegetable  peddler,  of  western  pioneer  occupation,  were 
usually  Mongolian.  Jack,  in  his  hoodlum  antics,  had  un- 
doubtedly not  been  guiltless  of  teasing  a  Japanese  or  Chi- 
nese boy  or  two.  Still,  I  have  heard  him  indignantly 
descant  upon  how  he  had  seen  a  ruthless  gang  jump  off  a 
moving  Seventh  Street  *4ocar*  in  order  to  besmirch  and 
tear  to  bits  the  clean  laundry  on  a  wagon,  first  binding  the 
helplessly  chattering  Chinese  driver  by  his  long  queue  to  a 
telegraph  post.  ** Teasing"  of  this  criminal  sort  seems  not 
to  have  been  funny  to  Jack. 

In  skiff -voyaging  on  San  Francisco  Bay,  then  populous 
with  lofty-masted  ships  of  all  the  world,  toward  which  his 
eyes  had  yearned  so  worshipfully,  he  had  dwelt  upon  the 
scented  cargoes  which  he  imagined  lay  in  their  holds — rar- 
est teas  and  glossy  silks,  perfumed  fans  of  carven  sandal- 
wood, lacquered  furniture  and  bamboo  wares.  And  now  he 
was  making  ready  to  land  upon  one  of  the  massive  piers 
of  the  very  emporium  of  Japan's  silk  industry. 

The  sailors  were  kept  aboard  at  ship's  work  all  the 
first  day ;  and  none  more  anxious  than  Jack  London  that  his 
American  vessel  should  be  the  most  immaculate  and  trim 
in  port.  That  ship-pride  kept  pace  with  his  years,  and  be- 
came as  natural  as  his  efficiency  or  his  sense  of  the  beautiful. 
Evening  came  at  last,  and  spic  and  span  the  young 
mariners  disembarked  from  their  rowboat  upon  a  warf ,  and 
pursued  their  laughing  way  in  'rickshaws  directly  to  a 
Japanese  public-house.  There  they  were  to  meet  the 
hunters,  to  whom  the  Captain  had  given  their  pay.    The 


** SOPHIE  SUTHERLAND/'  SEALING         133 

hunters  were  already  in  full  possession  of  the  gay,  paper- 
partitioned  building  and  its  engratiating  entertainers. 

When  the  fortnight  was  ended,  and  he  bent  to  the 
windlass  to  break  out  the  schooner's  hook,  and  braced  to 
her  heeling  pace  before  the  homing  West  Wind  of  the 
northern  passage,  he  knew  what  his  undeviating  course 
was  to  be  when  he  landed  in  Oakland :  steady  work  of  some 
sort  and  what  schooling  he  could  cram  in.  As  the  thirty- 
seven  days  of  the  voyage  neared  completion,  each  of  the 
crew  conceived  a  plan  of  sheerest  virtue  for  himself.  They 
were  all  going  to  cut  out  this  drink  stuff  for  good,  and  make 
up  for  wasted  time  and  money.  A  good  pay-day  was  still 
due,  despite  those  wastrel  Japan  nights — they  could  live,  if 
they  lived  decently,  until  next  year's  sealing,  on  what  was 
coming  to  them.  And  warmly  they  vowed  to  sail  together 
the  following  season. 

**They  refused  to  buy  anything  more  from  the  slop- 
chest.  Old  rags  had  to  last,  and  they  sewed  patch  upon 
patch,  turning  out  what  are  called  *  homeward-bound 
patches '  of  the  most  amazing  dimensions.  They  even  saved 
on  matches,  waiting  till  two  or  three  were  ready  to  light 
their  pipes  from  the  same  match." 

When  they  had  reentered  the  Golden  Gate  and  were  tow- 
ing slowly  past  the  San  Francisco  wharves,  the  crew 
in  profane  language  warned  off  predacious  sailor-boarding- 
house  runners  who  flocked  aboard  from  Whitehall  boats. 
Once  ashore,  and  the  owner  departed  for  his  home,  all  the 
Sophie  Sutherland's  family,  from  sailing-master  and  mate 
to  her  youngest  sailor.  Jack,  agreed  that  they  must  have 
one  drink  to  pledge  friendship  and  safe  return.  There 
were  nineteen  all  told,  and  each  of  course  must  treat.  And 
so  it  went.  Every  good  intention  of  the  older  men  was 
shattered  that  night,  as  it  had  been  shattered  on  former  re- 
turns. **From  two  days  to  a  week  saw  the  end  of  their 
money  and  saw  them  being  carted  by  the  boarding-house 
masters  on  board  outward-bound  ships." 


134      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Jack,  lucky  enough  to  have  a  home,  did  not  spend  all 
his  pay-day  nor  get  shanghaied.  In  the  early  morning  he 
withdrew  and  crossed  to  Oakland.* 

The  following  year,  Pete  Holt  reminded  Jack  of  his 
promise  to  sail  another  voyage  with  him  as  boat-puller,  this 
time  on  the  schooner  Mary  Thomas,  But  Jack  declined  on 
some  pretext,  for  his  reading  had  by  then  fired  him  to  in- 
spect quite  a  different  part  of  the  world — the  South  Seas. 
The  Mary  Thomas  never  was  spoken  after  she  passed  the 
Farallones.  Her  disappearance,  remains,  in  so  far  as  I 
know,  a  mystery  to  this  day. 

•  Referring  to  his  first  sea  voyage,  in  the  **duty*'  letter  to  his  girl  in  1898, 
he  says:  "Aye,  I  at  last  kicked  over  the  traces;  but  even  then,  did  I  wholly 
run  away  from  duty?  Many  a  gold  piece  went  into  the  family  when  I  returned 
from  seven  months  at  sea.  What  did  I  do  with  my  pay  day?  I  bought  a 
second-hand  hat,  some  forty-cent  shirts,  two  fifty-cent  suits  of  underclothes, 
and  a  second-hand  coat  and  vest.  I  spent  exactly  seventy  cents  for  drinks 
among  the  crowd  I  had  known  before  I  went  to  sea.  The  rest  went  to  pay  some 
debts  of  my  father  and  to  the  family. ' ' 


CHAPTER  X 

AUTUMN    INTO    SPRING,,    1893-1894 JUTE-MILL;    CX)AL,-8H0VEL.- 

ING;  BOY-AND-GIRIi  LOVE 

17-18  years 

SOMETHING  was  wrong,  very  wrong.  There  was  a 
sense  of  confusion,  and  he  could  not  see  the  light.  Here 
he  was,  man-strong  with  mighty  shoulders  and  chest  and 
biceps  developed  in  fair  competition  with  veteran  seamen. 
He  had  measured  up  in  work  and  endurance  with  the  best, 
and  felt  entitled  to  all  the  arrogance  of  individuality  that 
welled  up  at  thought  of  his  ** hard-won  place  of  equality'' 
with  the  professionally  able-bodied;  he  had  experience  of 
the  world — a  being  far  removed  from  the  mere  boy  of 
less  than  a  year  before  who  had  worked  in  a  cannery  for 
ten  cents  an  hour.  And  yet,  the  best  job  that  offered  to 
him,  big  sailor  with  a  rolling  gait,  was  at  **  hum-drum 
machine  toiP'  in  a  jute-mill — at  the  same  old  ten  cents  an 
hour  for  the  same  old  ten  hours  and  more  a  day.  He  was 
thoroughly  persuaded  by  his  mother  that  he  had  roamed 
enough ;  that  his  allotment  of  dreaming  and  blond-bcasting 
had  ended ;  that  he  must  acquire  a  trade  and  settle  down. 
But  for  the  accident  of  a  restless  intellect  which  could 
not  tolerate  unrelieved  routine,  Jack  London  might  have 
lived  and  died  an  artisan  instead  of  artist  and  greatly  more. 
No  outrage  was  so  ill-entertained  by  him  as  outrage  to 
his  common-sense.  And  this  thing  was  ridiculous.  Like 
Eapling's  tramp-royal,  **Me  that  have  been  what  I've  been" 
— and  still  ten  cents  an  hour,  **mel"  Notwithstanding,  he 
must  get  to  work,  and  immediately,  for  his  parents  needed 
his  strength  to  lean  upon.    So  he  dismissed  the  unresolved 

136 


136      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

and  confused  issues,  and  buckled  to  in  that  single-minded 
way  he  could  assume  which  made  him  such  an  exemplary- 
asset  to  employers  of  unskilled  labor.  Once  going  straight 
in  the  shafts,  being  an  artist  he  took  pride  in  his  work,  and 
became  quite  a  conventional  member  of  the  proletariat, 
pleased  with  his  own  capability.  *^As  for  the  unfortunates, 
the  sick  .  .  .  and  old  and  maimed,''  he  reviewed  his  posi- 
tion, *^I  vaguely  felt  that  they,  barring  accidents,  could  be 
as  good  as  I  if  they  wanted  to  real  hard.  .  .  .  Further,  the 
optimism  bred  of  a  stomach  which  could  digest  scrap  iron, 
and  a  body  which  flourished  on  hardships,  did  not  permit 
me  to  consider  accidents  as  even  remotely  related  to  my 
glorious  personality. ' ' 

He  has  also  declared  that  to  him  at  that  time  the  dignity 
of  labor  came  to  be  the  most  impressive  thing  in  the  world, 
and  he  evolved  a  *^ gospel  of  work''  that  put  Kipling's  and 
Carlyle  's  in  the  shade,  though  he  knew  it  not.  *  ^  The  pride 
I  took  in  a  hard  day's  work,"  he  marveled,  *^ would  be  in- 
conceivable to  you.  It  is  almost  inconceivable  to  me  now  as 
I  look  back  upon  it."  For  him  to  shirk  on  the  man  who 
paid  him  wages  was  a  sin  second  only  to  that  greatest  sin, 
disloyalty;  indeed,  it  was  a  disloyalty.  In  short,  as  he 
says  in  an  essay,  *^my  joyous  individuality  was  dominated 
by  the  orthodox  bourgeois  ethics.  I  read  the  bourgeois 
papers,  listened  to  the  bourgeois  preachers,  and  shouted  at 
the  sonorous  platitudes  of  the  bourgeois  politicians." 
Such  a  virtuous  conformist  did  he  become  that  he  could  not 
understand  his  old  infatuation  for  the  water-front.  **I 
didn't  care  for  the  drinking,  nor  the  vagrancy  of  it,"  he 
affirms. 

Back  he  wandered  to  the  Free  Library,  and  read  and 
reread  the  books,  with  eyes  made  wide  by  experience.  Boy- 
ish enthusiasm  had  been  satiated  for  a  time  and  he  felt 
superior,  steadied.  He  had  done  some  of  these  slashing 
and  romantic  things  himself — and  could  tell  a  few  more 
that  were  not  in  the  books  if  he  were  so  minded. 


BOY-AND-GIRL  LOVE  137 

This  several  months'  interval  between  the  sealing  voy- 
age and  his  next  abrupt  break-away  from  Oakland  is  notable 
especially  for  producing  his  first  literary  effort  viewed 
as  such.  In  a  letter  to  a  friend  he  says:  **When  I  was 
working  in  the  jute-mills,  I  received  forty  dollars  pay  and 
at  the  same  time  twenty-five  dollars  from  a  prize  in  a  lit- 
erary contest.  I  bought  a  ten  dollar  suit  of  clothes  and 
got  my  watch  out  of  hock.  That  was  all  I  spent.  Two 
days  afterward,  I  had  to  soak  my  watch  to  get  money  for 
tobacco. ' ' 

It  was  his  mother  who  noticed  the  prize-offer  from  the 
San  Francisco  Call  for  the  best  descriptive  article  sub- 
mitted within  a  given  time.  Jack  was  slaving  for  thirteen 
hours  a  day,  finding  it  difficult  to  get  enough  rest  as  it  was. 
Finally  he  gave  in  to  her  urge  that  he  try  for  the  prize. 
**Only,  what  shall  I  write  about  T'  he  complained.  It  was 
evening,  and  in  his  wearied  eye  was  the  prospect  of  rising 
at  half-past  five.  **0h,  why  not  tell  about  something  you 
did  or  saw  in  Japan,  or  at  sea,''  Flora  pricked  his  mem- 
ory. This  he  mulled  with  knit  brows.  All  at  once,  with  a 
grin,  he  swooped  down  upon  the  kitchen  table  with  an  old 
school  tablet,  where  he  wrote  furiously  without  note  of 
the  clock  until  breakfast.  Two  thousand  words  was  the 
limit  fixed  by  the  Call,  and  he  had  already  exceeded  this, 
with  his  idea  but  half  worked  out. 

**The  next  night,  under  the  same  conditions,"  he  says, 
**I  continued,  adding  another  two  thousand.''  And  the 
third  night,  in  a  wakeful  trance  from  exhaustion,  he  re- 
vised his  story  into  the  proper  length.  The  manuscript, 
signed  **John  London,"  published  in  The  Morning  Call, 
Sunday,  November  12,  1893,  and  entitled  **  Typhoon  Off  the 
Coast  of  Japan,"  to  his  amazement,  carried  off  the  first 
prize,  probably  because  it  had  been  whipped  out  hot  from 
the  mind  of  one  who  possessed  exceptional  powers  of 
observation  and  instinct  for  beauty.  Still  more  amazing, 
the  contestants  who  took  second  and  third  awards  were  stu- 


138      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

dents  of  Stanford  and  the  University  of  California  respec- 
tively. Jack^s  father  was  so  elated  that  he  bought  up  every 
copy  he  could  lay  his  hands  on,  to  distribute  to  friends. 

Jack  himself,  greatly  excited,  harking  back  to  dreams  in 
the  days  when  he  had  pored  over  *^Signa,^'  could  hardly 
wait  to  catch  up  with  sleep  before  putting  his  hand  again  to 
such  fascinating  and  lucrative  work,  which  had  been  mere 
amusement  so  far.  But  what  he  next  sent  to  the  Call  editor 
he  designates  as  **gush.''  It  was  promptly  rejected,  and 
he  contented  himself  with  his  regular  employment. 

But  some  sort  of  recreation  beside  reading  did  the 
subdued  and  amiable  young  factory  hand  naturally  crave. 
He  did  not  drink.  He  did  not  want  to  drink.  He  never  in 
his  whole  life  wanted  to  drink  for  drink  *s  sake.  He 
devoutly  wished,  from  beginning  to  end,  that  drinking  never 
had  been  invented  as  a  social  function.  *  ^  I  wish  there  had 
never  been  any  alcohol  in  the  world."  I  have  heard  him 
say,  **it  is  all  to  the  bad.'* 

And  here  lies  the  pity  of  his  preceding  youthful  experi- 
ence. It  had  for  the  most  part  unfitted  him  for  the  health- 
ful, normal  youngness  of  fellows  of  his  own  age.  He  knew 
of  the  opportunities  for  athletics  as  well  as  education  in 
>^  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association.  All  his  future,  in- 
deed, he  spoke  warmly  in  appreciation  of  the  work  and  scope 
of  this  organization. 

The  Y.  M.  C.  A.  was  all  right,  he  conceded ;  it  was  he  who 
was  at  fault,  or,  more  concisely,  so  unfortunate  as  to  be  too 
worldly-wise  to  find  its  atmosphere  congenial.  To  him,  the 
sophisticated,  it  proved  juvenile  to  boredom.  It  had  come 
too  late,  even  though  he  was  for  the  moment  the  perfect 
conformist  in  a  bourgeois  environment.  *^I  had  bucked 
big  with  men,"  was  his  regret.  *^I  knew  mysterious  and 
violent  things.  I  was  from  the  other  side  of  life  so  far  as 
concerned  the  young  men  I  encountered  in  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
I  spoke  another  language,  possessed  a  sadder  and  more 
terrible  wisdom" — although  it  seemed  far  from  ** terrible" 


BOY-AND-aiRL  LOVE  139 

to  him  then.  And  he  **got  more  out  of  the  books  than 
they.  .  .  .  Their  meager  physical  experiences,  plus  their 
meager  intellectual  experiences,  made  a  negative  sum  so 
vast  that  it  overbalanced  their  wholesome  normality  and 
healthful  sports.*' 

Still,  though  he  could  not  command  social  advantages 
that  would  have  helped,  these  months  formed  a  clean  and 
pleasing  period,  singularly  innocent  and  satisfying  to  one 
so  lately  roughing  his  way  over  the  world.  He  always  re- 
called the  purity  of  his  first  love  and  the  idyllic  way  of  its 
pursuit,  idyllic  despite  its  setting;  and  his  companionship 
with  Louis  Shattuck,  who  led  him  into  its  sweet  paths. 

Louis  Shattuck,  blacksmith's  apprentice  and  dandy,  con- 
sidered himself  quite  a  devil  of  a  Lothario.  Nevertheless 
it  was  through  his  tutelage  in  town  ways  of  their  class  that 
Jack  happily  regressed  to  boyhood's  simple  consciousness, 
and  overtook  somewhat  of  the  pristine  ecstasy  which  had 
not  come  to  him  in  the  usual  order  of  adolescence. 

Remember,  in  their  stratum,  there  were  no  chaperoned 
calls  in  cozy  parlors  of  the  working  class  homes,  no  formal- 
ity of  any  sort  in  the  mode  of  getting  acquainted,  no  dancing 
schools  other  than  the  dubious  and  expensive  public  dance- 
halls  and  picnio-park  Sunday  whirls.  And  neither  Louis 
nor  Jack  could  afford  these.  At  sunset  and  twilight  of 
Sunday  afternoon,  in  linked  pairs  the  young  girls  strolled 
the  sidewalks,  the  boys  likewise.  The  head-gear  of  the 
boys  tilted  at  angles  esteemed  smart :  the  smarter  the  angle 
of  **tile"  and  glance,  the  greater  impression  upon  the  de- 
mure or  tittering  female  of  the  species  in  her  'Afresh  print 
gown. ' ' 

Jack  was  suddenly  devastated  of  the  pride  he  had  nour- 
ished in  his  manhood's  prowess  toward  man  and  woman. 
He  discovered  himself  without  knowledge  of  the  guileless 
methods  of  boys  like  Louis,  who  was  **  without  one  vicious 
trait  .  .  .  handsome,  and  graceful,  and  filled  with  love  for 
the  girls."    In  Louis's  manner,  alas,  Jack  did  not  know 


140      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

girls  at  all.  He  **had  been  too  busy  being  a  man''  in  all 
departments  of  his  buccaneering  life.  *'And  when  I  saw 
Louis  say  good-bye  to  me,  raise  his  hat  to  a  girl  of  his  ac- 
quaintance, and  walk  by  her  side  down  the  sidewalk,  I 
was  made  excited  and  envious.  I,  too,  wanted  to  play  this 
game. ' ' 

Recalling  personal  ways  of  my  husband,  it  seems  to  me  I 
often  lingered  pleasantly  upon  the  movement  with  which  l;.e 
lifted  his  cap  or  hat — almost  diffidently,  with  an  expression 
as  if  it  were  a  practice  newly  sweet  and  consciously  lovable. 
When  he  was  Louis's  chum,  of  course  he  already  knew 
that  hats  were  *' tipped"  to  ladies,  but  with  him  it  was  far 
from  having  become  an  involuntary  gesture.  Louis, 
modestly  charmed  that  he  could  teach  anything  whatsoever 
to  such  a  traveled  hero,  planned  how  Jack  should  ^^get  a 
girl."  Which  was  more  difficult  than  it  sounded.  Jack 
found :  ^  ^  We  both  lived  at  home  and  paid  our  way.  When 
we  had  done  this,  and  bought  our  cigarettes"  (Jack  had 
smoked  steadily  since  his  newsboy  days)  *^and  .  .  .  clothes 
and  shoes,  there  remained  to  each  of  us  ...  a  sum  that 
varied  between  seventy  c^nts  and  a  dollar  for  the  week. 
We  whacked  this  up,  shared  it,  and  sometimes  loaned  all  of 
what  was  left  when  one  of  us  needed  it  for  some  more 
gorgeous  girl-adventure,  such  as  carfare  out  to  Blair's 
Park  and  back — twenty  cents,  bang,  just  like  that;  and 
ice  cream  for  two — thirty  cents;  or  tamales,  which  came 
cheaper  and  which  for  two  cost  only  twenty  cents."  He, 
who  as  pirate  had  squandered  nearly  two  hundred  dollars 
in  one  night!  And  right  here  he  reiterates  that  disdain 
of  his  for  money ;  but  characteristically,  in  his  philosophy 
he  completed  the  circle,  finding  himself  **as  equable  with 
the  lack  of  a  ten-cent  piece"  as  he  had  been  in  the  lurid 
months  passed  by. 

Listen  how  they  went  about  it:  ** Louis's  several  girls 
he  wanted  for  himself.  ...  He  did  persuade  them  to  bring 
girl-friends  for  me ;  but  I  found  them  weak  sisters,  pale  and 


BOY-AND-GIRL  LOVE  141 

ineffectual  alongside  the  choice  specimens  he  had.'*  So 
Louis  had  to  initiate  Jack,  who  was  bordering  on  panic 
worthy  of  a  lad  of  thirteen,  in  the  accepted  manner  of 
getting  acquainted  with  some  one  whose  looks  did  appeal 
to  him.  All  spruced  up,  the  two  boys  met  of  evenings  in 
a  little  candy  shop,  where  they  bought  their  smokes  and 
sometimes  a  nickel's  worth  of  *' red-hots. * '  Louis  was 
as  frankly  fond  of  sweets  as  Jack. 

Consider  this  quondam  lover  of  cannery  maidens ;  Prince 
of  the  Queen  of  the  Oyster  Pirates;  gay  reveler  of  red- 
lanterned  barges  on  the  winding  rivers ;  squire  of  more  than 
one  lowly  Madame  Chrysantheme  on  her  native  heath:  it 
would  seem  that  he  was  yet  undespoiled  of  delicacy  and 
virginity  of  imagination.  Struggling  with  diffidence,  he  en- 
tered into  what  he  has  termed  the  ^* Arcadian  phase'*  of  his 
career,  and  learned  hjow  to  overtake  with  a  jaunty  lift  of  his 
hat  the  pretty  young  things  who  did  not  look  unapproach- 
able ;  and  how  to  walk  and  joke  lightly  and  make  speeches 
that  commanded  approving  glances  and  laughter.  But  the 
infatuation  he  craved,  as  he  saw  it  working  in  Louis,  did 
not  immediately  descend  upon  him,  although  he  *^ pursued 
the  quest.'*  Looking  back  upon  it  all,  he  wrote:  **Some  of 
Louis's  and  my  adventures  have  sinc«  given  me  serious 
pause  when  casting  sociological  generalizations.  But  it 
was  all  good  and  innocently  youthful." 

At  length  it  came,  **A11  the  dear  fond  dcliciousness  of 
it,  all  the  glory  and  the  wonder"  of  boy-love  and  girl-love. 
I  almost  think  it  was  the  most  wonderful,  beautiful,  up- 
lifting thing  in  his  whole  life  of  learning  how  the  world 
was  made.  One  evening  he  had  found  himself,  out  of  curi- 
osity, at  a  Salvation  Army  meeting,  and  the  little  woman 
of  under  sixteen,  there  for  the  same  reason,  sat  next  to  him 
beside  her  aunt. 

He  has  called  her  llaydec,  and  never  divulged  her  true 
name.  She  was  somehow  different  from  the  other  good 
little  girls  he  had  flirted  with;  and  he  caught  himself  think- 


142      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

ing  the  shape  of  her  faxje  and  delicate  coloring,  her  brown 
sweet  eyes  and  tip-tilted  nose,  her  pretty  brown  hair  and 
petulant  rosy  mouth,  were  the  loveliest  he  had  ever  seen. 
I  can  see  now  why  he  always  favored  a  tarn  o  'shanter.  Hay- 
dee  wore  a  tarn  o'shanter.  It  must  have  been  about  this 
time  that  he  bought  for  a  nickel,  at  a  rummage  sale,  an  old 
brown  **tam"  which  made  an  item  of  his  wardrobe  aboard 
the  Snark  into  the  South  Seas,  from  Australia  to  Ecuador 
in  the  tramp  collier  Ti/meric,  up-river  in  California  on  the 
Roamer,  and  around  Cape  Horn  on  the  Birigo;  the  which  I 
darned,  darn  upon  dam,  and  which  finally  with  regret  he 
pronounced  too  far  gone  for  further  service,  and  had  laid 
away  in  the  attic  with  other  beloved  old  ^  ^  gear. ' ' 

To  this  blond,  awkward-bashful  sailor,  already  tanned' 
for  life,  face  and  hands,  it  was  a  **  great  half-hour '^  they 
spent  in  the  Salvation  tent,  the  while  they  ^^  glanced 
shyly  at  each  other,  and  shyly  avoided  or  as  shyly  returned 
and  met  each  other's  glances  more  than  several  times." 
Indeed,  so  great  was  that  half -hour  that  he  was  solemnly 
ever  afterward  **  convinced  of  the  reality  of  love  at  first 
sight.'' 

As  stern  fate  would  have  it,  when  he  followed  the  girl 
and  her  aunt  from  the  tent,  that  he  might  learn  where  they 
lived,  he  in  turn  was  followed  by  quite  another  sort  of 
woman,  and  accosted  by  her.  She  was  not  unknown  to  him 
— ^I  wonder  if  it  was  the  Queen  herself! — and  wished  to  tell 
him  of  young  Nelson,  who  when  he  was  shot  had  died  in  her 
arms.  But  when  he  had  listened  to  all  she  had  to  relate,  he 
pulled  himself  back  from  a  host  of  undesired  memories  of 
his  rampaging  past,  bade  her  farewell  and  hurried  on  after 
his  love.  Although  he  lost  her  that  evening,  Louis  was 
able  to  tell  him  something  of  Haydee :  she  was  a  Lafayette 
School  pupil,  he  knew  girl  friends  of  hers,  and  an  introduc- 
tion would  be  easy.  Jack  could  not  wait,  and  begged  one  of 
the  girls  to  carry  a  note  to  her  from  him. 

His  experience  with  regard  to  Haydee  is  almost  incred- 


BOY-AND-GIRL  LOVE  143 

ible.  That  be,  *^who  could  sail  boats,  lay  aloft  in  black  and 
storm,  or  go  into  the  toughest  bang-outs  in  sailor  town'* 
and  be  quite  at  home,  ** didn't  know  the  first  thing  I  might 
say  or  do  with  this  slender  little  chit  of  a  girl-woman  whose 
scant  skirt  just  reached  her  shoe-tops  and  who  was  as 
abysmally  ignorant  of  life,  as  I  was,  or  thought  I  was,  pro- 
foundly wise'M  He  came  to  know,  in  brief  meetings, 
sitting  on  a  bench  under  the  stars,  with  **  fully  a  foot  of 
space**  between  them,  **all  the  sweet  madness  of  boy's  love 
and  girPs  love."  He  goes  on  to  record  that  **so  far  as 
it  goes  it  is  not  the  biggest  love  in  the  world,  but  I  do  dare 
to  assert  that  it  is  the  sweetest.  .  .  .  Never  did  girl  have 
a  more  innocent  boy-lover  than  I  who  had  been  so  wicked- 
wise  and  violent  beyond  my  years.'* 

He  could  not  believe,  as  in  all  ages,  first-lovers  have 
failed  to  believe,  that  so  exquisite  a  creature  as  his  worship 
made  her  could  be  merely  human ;  that  she  really  had  to  eat 
to  live — though  once  she  daintily  shared  with  him  a  nickel's 
worth  of  red-hots;  that  she  could  be  similar  in  any  mere 
human  way  to  other  humans.  I  have  heard  him  tell  it  I  He 
did  not  know  how  to  act.  Should  he  kiss  her!  She,  the 
chrysalis  Eve,  tapped  his  lips  with  her  glove.  Hear  this: 
**I  was  like  to  swoon  ^\4th  delight.  It  was  the  most  wonder- 
ful thing  that  had  ever  happened  to  me."  Then  followed 
an  "agony  of  apprehension  and  doubt."  Should  he  im- 
prison that  little  hand  along  with  the  glove!  ** Should  I 
dare  to  kiss  her  there  and  then,  or  slip  my  arm  around  her 
waist?  Or  dared  I  even  sit  closer!"  But  he  dared  noth- 
ing. **I  merely  continued  to  sit  there  and  love  with  all  my 
soul." 

They  never  met  more  than  a  dozen  stolen  half-hours, 
and  **  kissed  perhaps  a  dozen  times — as  boys  and  girls  kiss, 
briefly  and  innocently,  and  wonderingly. "  The  quality  of 
his  adoration  was  so  mysteriously  holy,  passionless,  clean 
—as  if  for  an  angel  or  a  bird.  This  is  the  way  he  closes  the 
incident : 


lU  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

*  *  I  have  always  fondly  believed  that  she  loved  me.  I  know 
I  loved  her;  and  I  dreamed  day  dreams  of  her  for  a  year 
and  more,  and  the  memory  of  her  is  very  dear/* 

'When  winter  came  on,  social  recreation  perforce  termi- 
nated. It  was  too  wet  and  shivery  to  promenade,  and  Louis 
and  Jack,  unable  to  buy  overcoats,  were  driven  to  search 
for  the  most  quiet  saloon  where  they  could  keep  warm 
whilst  playing  cards — they  were  deep  in  the  intricacies  of 
two-handed  euchre.  They  did  not  want  to  drink,  but  self- 
respect  pressed  them  each  evening  to  indulge  in  a  small  beer 
apiece,  as  tacit  rent  for  the  table  and  the  boon  of  the  big 
stove.  Sorely  they  grudged  the  two  nickel  pieces,  wishing 
they  could  be  spent  on  red-hots.  But  Louisas  girl  friends 
who  waited  on  customers  in  the  little  candy  shop  were  not 
allowed  to  entertain  in  the  sitting  room  where  their  idle 
moments  between  customers  were  lived. 

The  saloon  least  distasteful  in  its  crowd  was  the  old 
National,  at  Tenth  and  Franklin  Streets,  where  the  two 
young  men  met  some  of  their  childhood  schoolmates.  But 
the  inevitable  consequent  treating  ^^ skinned"  them  of  forty 
to  fifty  cents  a  ^* clatter,'*  and  the  two  were  *^ broke*' 
until  next  pay-day.  The  National  was  too  speedy  for  them ; 
and  meantime  their  thin  coats  were  buttoned  higher  at  the 
necks  while  they  played  euchre  and  casino  in  a  livery  stable. 
Sometimes  discomfort  made  them  cast  tentative  glances 
at  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  reading  and  social  rooms,  and  their  specu- 
lations even  strayed  as  far  as  Sunday-school  socials,  where 
girls  whom  they  knew  told  of  jolly  good  times.  But  Jack 
for  one  felt  distressedly  alien,  the  very  delicacies  of  his 
diffidences  standing  in  the  way. 

Unskilled  labor,  reason  presently  unfolded  to  Jack,  was 
getting  him  nowhere — in  a  favorite  phrase,  **  buying  him 
nothing**;  even  a  promised  increase  to  $1.25  a  day  was  not 
made  good.  He  looked  about,  and  with  his  usual  delibera- 
tion selected  a  trade  he  believed  would  give  him  the  chance 


JACK  AND  CtlAKMlAN   LONl'« 


BOY-AND-GIRL  LOVE  145 

to  rise.    As  an  electrician  he  could  go  far;  and  ambition, 
which  never  was  denied  for  long,  swelled  afresh. 

**He  saw  me  coming,  all  right,"  Jack  reminisced  a  bit 
grimly,  telling  the  story  of  his  call  upon  the  superintendent 
of  the  power  plant  of  an  Oakland  street  railway.  This 
man,  by  name  Grimm,  was  of  a  towering  patriarchal  pres- 
ence, his  face  winged  with  huge,  snowy  burnside  whis- 
kers. ^ '  How  could  I  know  he  was  mad  that  morning  at  the 
quitting  of  two  coal-passers  who  didn't  like  their  pay,  and 
that  I  looked  good  to  him  merely  from  the  standpoint  of 
coal-passing!  I,  young  fool,  intent  on  learning  electrical 
engineering  from  the  ground  up,  listened  entranced  to  his 
suave  elucidation  of  the  necessity  of  beginning  on  the  lowest 
floor,  literally,  in  this  case ;  and  I  calculated  I  could  shovel 
coal  with  anybody.  I  could,  too,  it  seems,  for  until  I  learned 
through  an  admiringly  compassionate  fireman  that  I,  a 
youth  of  eighteen,  was  doing  by  day,  for  thirty  a  month, 
with  only  one  day  off,  what  two  horny-handed  laborers, 
working  day-and-night  shifts  and  getting  eighty,  had  thrown 
down  as  too  stiff  for  them — well,  until  I  found  out  this, 
under  binding  seal  not  to  give  the  fireman  away,  I  staid  with 
it  though  it  nearly  laid  me  out.'' 

I  have  listened  to  his  account  of  how  he  had  to  strap  the 
swelling  of  those  small-boned,  sprained  wrists  that  were  so 
ill-suited  to  obey  the  driving  muscles  of  his  over-developed 
sailor  shoulders;  of  how  he  would  eat  his  daily-larger 
packet  of  lunch  ere  the  forenoon  was  half  over,  and  be  fam- 
ished and  almost  done  before  quitting-time ;  how  he  would 
fall  asleep  on  the  car  going  home,  and  when  the  conductor 
shook  him  at  his  corner  he  had  already  stiffened  so  that 
other  passengers  helped  him  to  the  ground,  where  he  almost 
fell;  and  how,  struggling  in  a  dual  nightmare  agony  of 
hunger  and  drowsiness,  he  would  drop  asleep  **  wolfing" 
bread  and  butter  while  his  mother  put  the  hot  dinner  on 
the  table,  rouse  to  partake  of  it,  and  almost  immediately 
fall  into  slumber  so  profound  that  Flora  and  John  carried 


146      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

him  to  his  room,  night  after  night,  undressed  him  and  put 
him  to  bed. 

*  *  He  would  have  told  me  sooner,  the  fireman  said,  except 
that  he  thought  I  would  soon  get  enough  of  it  and  clear 
out.  I  was  just  about  killing  myself,  I  admitted;  and  he 
pointed  out  that  I  was  keeping  two  men  out  of  a  job  any- 
way, and  cheapening  the  price  of  labor.  This  sounded  rea- 
sonable ;  but  I  was  proud  of  my  ancestors  who  had  fought 
in  all  the  wars  of  the  U.  S.  A.,  and  I  wasn't  going  to  give  up 
the  job  till  I  showed  I  could  hold  it  down  without  breaking. 
So  one  day,  when  I  had  concluded  my  purpose  was  accom- 
plished, I  spread  myself  getting  in  the  last  of  the  night  coal 
(you  see  I'd  already  got  in  the  day-coal!) — and  resigned. 
And  I  did  some  thinking,  too,  after  I  had  slept  for  twenty- 
four  hours  without  waking.''  h /^J:ic*<> 


CHAPTER  XI 

TRAMPING **THE  ROAD*' 

The  Sailor  on  Foot  and  Rod— 1894 
19th  Year. 

MANY  become  tramps,  not  through  a  reasoned  mental 
attitude,  but  because  their  bodies  rebel  against  the 
maiming  from  overwork  that  precludes  natural  gladness 
of  being.  Not  so  with  Jack  London.  When  hard  toil  was  a 
game,  winning  its  ow^n  delights,  as  he  found  it  on  the  water, 
all  was  fair  enough.  But  long-continued  and  under-paid 
grind  that  left  neither  time  nor  strength  for  recreation, 
not  even  for  reading,  held  no  reward  that  he  could  see, 
no  matter  how  earnestly  he  had  gone  in  f or  ** settling  down." 
The  cooperation  of  logic  and  adventurousness  worked  a 
revolt  in  thought,  which  w^ent  hand  in  hand  with  revolt  in 
action.  He  was  intelligently  resentful  toward  what  he  felt 
was  merciless  exploitation  of  his  manifest  and  enviable 
muscle.  As  far  back  as  the  cannery  episode,  despite  the 
pretty  picture  he  had  been  struck  unpleasantly  by  the  lux- 
ury of  the  carriage  in  which  a  daughter  of  one  of  the  can- 
nery-owners rolled  about  the  city.  It  had  almost  seemed 
that  his  own  muscle  had  something  to  do  with  the  pulling 
of  her  elegant  equipage. 

The  revulsion  was  now  more  portentous  than  ever  before, 
coming  as  it  did  near  the  end  of  that  state  of  flux  which 
precedes  full  growth,  when  youth's  beliefs  are  likely  to 
crystallize  for  bad  or  good,  and  what  he  did  or  did  not  do 
exerted  an  increasingly  grave  bearing  upon  his  ultimate 
manhood.  For  the  time  being  he  cared  little  if  he  never 

147 


148      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

** settled  down/*  It  was  an  irritating  phrase,  now  he  came 
to  think  of  it.  Settling  down  did  not  look  good  to  him. 
** Learning  a  trade**  could  go  hang.  He  would  break  loose, 
at  least  until  rested  in  body  and  spirit,  and  that  w^ould  be 
a  long  way  off.  After  all,  he  owed  a  little  something  to 
himself.  So  even  duty  went  by  the  board  for  once.  The 
result  of  his  orgy  of  work,  brief  though  it  had  been,  was 
to  sicken  him  of  toil.  The  memory  of  the  overdose  of  hard 
graft  he  had  let  himself  in  for  was  actually  nauseating. 
When  he  presently  ran  across,  and  approved,  Milton's 
* '  Better  to  reign  in  hell  than  serve  in  heaven,  *  *  more  firmly 
than  ever  was  he  persuaded,  as  in  the  case  of  Washington 
Irving  and  others,  that  great  minds  ran  in  the  same  chan- 
nels. 

Probably  this  was  the  most  critical  juncture  in  his  life. 
Only  that  magnificent  balance  preserved  him  from  ruin. 
He  had  had  sense  enough  to  stop  before  any  vital  physical 
deformity  had  been  wrought.  Even  at  that,  when  he  shook 
those  unharmed  shoulders  defiantly  once  more,  his  very 
liberty  was  tainted  with  disgust  at  his  inadequate  wrists, 
bandaged  with  tight  straps  that  for  a  year  he  was  never 
without. 

He  strolled  along  the  waterfront  and  considered  going 
to  sea.  He  was  not  tired  of  the  water.  Never  did  he  tire 
of  going  down  to  the  sea  in  ships;  **the  savor  of  the  salt** 
could  not  stale.  And  here  he  might  from  sheer  bleakness 
of  soul  have  slid  along  the  weakest  line  of  resistance  that 
stretched  before  his  uncaring  vision.  As  it  was,  out  of  a 
complex  of  temporarily  dulled  desires  there  glimmered 
the  undying  one  that  had  influenced  him  to  decline  another 
sealing  expedition.  He  had  only  one  life :  there  were  more 
varied  experiences  than  he  could  ever  get  around  to  in 
that  one  life ;  therefore  no  hour  was  too  soon  to  get  about 
the  business  of  pursuit.  Anyhow,  as  he  said  of  himself,  **I 
was  so  made  that  I  couldn't  work  all  my  life  on  one  same 
shift.** 


TRAMPING— ** THE  ROAD''  149 

In  his  final  decision  there  was  no  intention  other  than 
for  adventure  and  surcease  from  deathly  routine,  no  notion 
of  gathering  data  for  sociological  conclusions.  In  all  the 
vivid  plannings  of  his  adult  years,  adventure  was  the  prime 
factor.  The  fact  of  his  office  being  located  under  his  hat 
was  a  secondary,  if  important,  consideration.  Any  port 
would  incidentally  provide  grist  for  his  lucrative  literature- 
mill;  but  the  port,  in  relation  to  personal  enjojTnent — the 
port  was  the  thing.  That  his  present  unmitigated  lark  of 
loafing  across  the  continent  made  him  into  a  socialist  phil- 
osopher was  but  an  inevitable  sequence  in  a  passionately 
adventuring  intellect.  As  he  put  it :  *  *  Sociology  was  merely 
incidental.  It  came  afterward,  in  the  same  manner  that  a 
wet  skin  follows  a  ducking.*' 

What  Jack's  next  move  might  have  been  if  the  no- 
torious ** Kelly's  Army"  had  not  just  then  been  forming 
in  his  home  town,  one  can  only  speculate.  It  was  shortly 
before  Easter,  in  the  year  of  1894.  ** Industrial  Army"  he 
heard  it  called,  and  this  unvarnished  phraseology  would  not 
have  enticed  one  in  his  irritated  mood  toward  industrial 
connotations;  but  certain  sneering  remarks  that  accom- 
panied the  words  in  connection  with  the  unique  organiza- 
tion had  fixed  in  him  the  picture  of  a  tatterdemalion  crew 
of  bums  and  hoboes  and  other  wearied  rebels  like  himself. 
He  would  join  the  thing  and  have  whatever  fun  there  was 
to  be  got  out  of  it,  and  Coxey's  Army  farther  east.  He 
would  *'just  as  leave"  wind  up  at  Washington,  D.  C,  as 
any  other  city;  besides,  once  that  far  on  the  way,  he  stood  a 
chance  to  see  other  big  Eastern  centers. 

When  he  went  to  bid  Eliza  farewell,  it  took  her  but  a 
moment  to  find  out  tliat  he  had  only  a  few  cents  in  his 
pocket.  Concealing  under  a  bright  demeanor  any  dis- 
approval she  may  have  harbored  for  this  new  wild-goose 
chase,  briskly  she  stepped  to  the  bureau,  and  lifted  her 
snowy  pile  of  best  handkerchiefs  from  the  top  drawer,  be- 
neath which  reposed  a  ten-dollar  gold  piece. 


150      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

**Run  out  and  get  this  changed/'  she  said,  **and  1*11  give 
you  half.  I'm  afraid,  if  you  have  it  all,  some  of  the  bunch 
of  do-nothings  will  get  it  away  from  you.*'  But  when  he 
came  back  with  the  change,  conscience  smote  her  that  he 
should  depart  with  only  five  dollars,  and  she  pressed  the 
entire  sum  upon  him.  And  I  have  not  a  doubt  that  when 
upon  Easter  Sunday  she  put  on  the  last  Easter's  retrimmed 
straw,  it  made  her  twice  as  happy  as  would  the  coveted 
new  one  she  had  set  her  heart  on  previous  to  her  brother's 
leave-taking. 

On  a  Friday  morning — to  be  accurate,  April  6,  1894 — 
Oakland's  city  fathers  were  to  forward  the  **Army"  by 
free-rail  conveyance  to  the  unappreciative  capital,  Sacra- 
mento ;  but  when  Jack  arrived  at  the  stated  hour  of  seven, 
to  make  one  with  the  **push,"  he  found  they  had  been 
packed  incontinently  off  two  hours  earlier.  The  only  thing 
to  do  was  to  spend  part  of  his  precious  ten  dollars  in  follow- 
ing by  fast  passenger-train. 

According  to  his  penciled  diary,  he  and  a  companion  he 
calls  Frank  arrived  in  Sacramento  at  eight  P.  M.,  and 
supped  at  the  Mississippi  Kitchen.  On  the  trip  from  Oak- 
land, whirring  by  the  old  scenes  of  wild  times  he  had  known 
on  land  and  boat,  his  somber  mantle  of  discouragement  had 
fallen  from  him  as  it  had  fallen  when  he  boarded  the 
Sophie  Sutherlcmd  on  that  morning  of  dawning  world-ad- 
venture. Again  he  felt  **the  prod  and  stir  of  life,"  not 
to  go  back  into  the  debilitating  commercial  treadmill — 
heaven  forbid;  but  to  conquer  life  in  the  open  once  more, 
to  ^^royster  and  frolic"  over  the  face  of  the  earth. 

Sacramento  had  been  too  quick  for  him;  she  had  not 
delayed  in  passing  the  hungry  hundreds  on  to  an  unrecep- 
tive  Nevada.  Jack  and  Frank  drifted  to  the  arks  and  fish- 
ing-boats on  Sacramento's  river-front,  where  they  came 
upon  a  scanty  remnant  of  indigent  young  riffraff  left  be- 
hind for  lack  of  rolling-stock. 

**The  water  was  fine,"  Jack  remembered,  **and  we  spent 


TRAMPING— ^^ THE  ROAD*'  151 

most  of  our  time  in  swimming."  The  men  ** talked  differ- 
ently from  the  fellows  I  had  been  used  to  herding  with, 
.  .  .  and  with  every  word  they  uttered  the  lure  of  the  road 
laid  hold  of  me  more  imperiously.** 

Every  moment,  with  alert  ear  and  eye,  this  latest  re- 
cruit was  absorbing  each  scrap  of  information  that  would 
instruct  him  in  the  idiom  of  the  road.  No,  not  the  idiom, 
but  the  language;  for  a  language  it  surely  is,  living,  pic- 
turesque and  foreign.  And  this  he  had  to  do  while  learn- 
ing the  fine  art  of  dodging  horrid  accident  to  body  and  limb 
on  stolen  rides  by  way  of  the  whirling,  clanking  machinery 
underneath  ** limited**  railway  coaches. 

The  wanderlust  had  returned  to  flame  as  fresh  as  on 
that  day  he  sat  in  the  Idler's  cabin  with  Scotty  and  the  al- 
leged harpooner;  as  lawlessly  as  the  evening  he  took  the 
Queen  with  him  aboard  his  own  Razzle  Dazzle,  broke  out 
anchor,  and  hoisted  sail  for  the  oyster  flats.  Although  the 
learning  amassed  when  he  had  been  one  with  hoodlum  and 
pirate  and  common  sailor  stood  him  in  good  stead  in  the 
present  emergency,  it  was  only  to  a  quickly  reached  and 
limited  degree.  The  ** road-kids,**  by  misfortune  of  birth 
or  later  mischance,  seemed  a  lower  sort  of  human  animal, 
unemployed  by  choice  or  physical  inability,  on  their  backs 
and  in  their  pockets  only  such  clothing  and  money  as  they 
could  beg  or  pilfer. 

These  reckless  ones  regarded  life  from  a  contrary  angle 
to  the  independent,  carelessly  free-handed  spenders  he  had 
known,  who  made  a  generous,  if  sometimes  haphazard,  live- 
lihood upon  the  waters.  Revolutionary  that  he  was.  Jack 
slammed  the  brakes  upon  previous  norms,  took  a  square 
look  at  himself  and  the  eccentric  crowd,  then  eased  into 
their  rate  of  going.  The  road-kids  did  not  like  his  hat. 
Neither  did  he.  So  they  showed  him,  just  off  K  Street  that 
night,  how  to  remedy  matters. 

**But  you  did  not  join  that  raid  years  before  when  the 


152      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Oakland  gang  destroyed  the  poor  Chinaman's  laundry,"  I 
demurred  to  his  confession  of  the  hat. 

*'The  laundry/'  he  declared,  **was  not  that  Chinaman's 
property;  he  had  to  pay  his  customers  for  their  lost  rai- 
ment. The  Chinaman  from  whom  I  lifted  the  hat  owned 
the  hat,  and  he  was  not  a  poor  *  Chink, '  for  the  hat  was  a 
beauty,  and  he  was  otherwise  well  dressed.  You  will  ad- 
mit there  is  a  difference,  no  ?  Yes  ? ' '  And  to  me,  I  having 
meekly  admitted  the  difference,  he  melted. 

**It  was  not  nice;  it  was  wrong  and  wilful.  Yet  I  did 
not  do  it  in  sheer  viciousness.  It  was  part  of  the  new  game 
that  I  must  learn  in  a  hurry.  I'd  like  this  very  minute  to 
pay  that  frantic,  jabbering  Chinaman  the  five  dollars  he 
must  have  spent  for  that  beautiful  Stetson."  He  giggled 
at  the  comical  fracas  that  had  ensued.  *  *  What  ?  Wearing  a 
Chinaman's  hat?  Oh,  it  was  never  my  habit  to  let  squeam- 
ishness  stand  in  the  way  when  expediency  was  sufficiently 
pressing.  And  I've  worn  more  suspicious  articles  than 
Chinaman's  hats!  A  tramp  cannot  be  an  exquisite,  my 
dear.  I  washed  my  face  and  took  a  bath  of  some  sort  when- 
ever there  was  opportunity,  which  wasn't  every  day,  be- 
cause chances  for  swimming  were  scarce.  Don't  forget,  I'm 
pretty  much  of  a  savage  when  amongst  savages.  Yes,  I've 
slept  with  them  and  eaten  with  them  and  begged  with  them 
— and  loused  with  them,  which  was  the  awfullest.  And 
you,  thank  God!"  he  broke  in  with  beaming  eyes, — **you, 
tender  woman  in  your  pretty  gown,  you  don't  blanch  in  my 
face  at  the  raw  facts.  What  a  lot  most  women  miss  by 
shuddering  from  playing  some  part  of  their  men's  adven- 
ture-game or  even  from  trying  to  understand  it.  Wait  a 
minute — where  did  I  say  it?"  He  reached  for  his  shelf  of 
first  editions.  **Here  it  is;  listen,  *It  is  not  given  to 
woman  to  live  in  sweet-scented  narrow  rooms  and  at  the 
same  time  be  a  little  sister  to  all  the  world.'  You,  Mate 
Woman, ' '  he  concluded,  *  *  I  don 't  ever  want  you  to  know  real 
hardship  at  first  hand,  and  you  have  never  known  it  yet; 


TRAMPING— ** THE  ROAD*'  153 

but  I  do  want  you  to  know  and  face  facts  as  they  exist. 
Shrink  your  closest  from  the  thing  itself,  and  no  blame  to 
you ;  but  not  from  the  fact  that  the  thing  exists. ' ' 

Still,  he  himself  was  never  physically  inured  to  the  hard- 
ships youth  put  upon  him.  Irritation  of  burning  cinders, 
grit,  exposure,  strains  on  wrists,  jarrings  of  unexpected 
long  jumps  on  slender  ankles — all  such  hardships  showed  a 
rare  endowment  of  beautiful  elasticity.  What  I  mean  to 
make  clear  is  that  wherever  he  excelled  in  this  and  that 
arduous  game,  the  price  he  paid  was  greater  than  that  of 
the  average  man. 

On  the  river-front  that  April  day  he  was  very  busy  under 
an  amiably  nonchalant  exterior,  acquirmg  the  qualifications 
of  a  proper  **blowed-in-the-glass**  hobo.  Since  he  had 
elected  the  road,  nothing  less  than  tramp-royal  would  he 
aim  to  be,  and  by  the  shortest  cut  possible. 

What  he  did  not  take  to  himself  of  the  tramps*  oblique 
psychology  would  make  very  small  additions  to  the  litera- 
ture of  America's  mighty  army  of  Weary  Willies  as  the 
country  knew  it  before  the  Great  War. 

So  well  did  he  listen  and  apply  that  under  his  own 
**monaker,"  Sailor  Jack,  presented  by  his  mates,  he,  the 
absolute  tyro,  was  the  only  one  of  the  crowd  except  Frank, 
who  acted  upon  his  example,  to  make  a  clean  get-away  on 
the  late  Overland  Limited  train  of  the  Central  Pacific.  The 
** shacks*'  (brakemcn)  accounted  for  all  the  rest,  and  one 
luckless  road-kid  lost  both  legs  in  the  scuffle.  Of  course, 
Jack  registered  automatic  brain-notes  upon  the  incompe- 
tence of  the  poor  dubs  at  their  own  calling. 

Sailor  Jack  had  been  warned  beforehand  to  stay  on  the 
mail-car's  deck — this  being  its  roof, — to  which  he  had 
clawed  like  the  seaman  he  was,  until  a  certain  junction  had 
been  passed  where  the  constabh\s  were  especially  unpopular 
with  the  ** stiffs."  Afterward  he  would  descend  to  a  less 
unsheltered  nook  on  the  platform  of  a  blind-baggage.  But 
this  particular  stiff  made  security  from  shacks  doubly  sure 


154      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

by  holding  down  his  precarious  up-ended  bed  clear  over  the 
*'hill/^  as  the  Sierra  Nevada  summits  were  styled  by  the 
**profesh,''  all  through  those  smoke-stifling  miles  of  snow- 
sheds.  These  somehow  reminded  him  of  the  beamed  ceiling 
of  the  Sophie  Sutherland  when  he  had  bestridden  Eed 
John's  heaving  shoulders.  He  let  himself  down,  almost 
congealed  with  cold,  gritty,  and  scarred  with  hot  cinders, 
only  when  Truckee  was  reached.  Having  beaten  the  rail- 
road *'over  the  hill,''  he  had  won  his  spurs  as  a  proper 
road-kid,  and  he  never  owned  up  to  the  ** bunch"  when 
they  overtook  him  at  Reno,  watching  some  Piute  Indians 
gambling,  that  he  had  spent  the  night  on  the  **deck."  He 
arrived  at  Reno  in  a  *  *  side-door  Pullman, ' '  which  is  a  box- 
car, and  was  thrown  off  a  passenger-coach  he  tried  to  ride 
out. 

*  *  It  was  no  time  at  all, ' '  he  told  me,  * '  before  I  was  riding 
the  rods  on  a  *  ticket.'  Oh,  no,  not  a  pasteboard  one;  but  a 
little  bit  of  a  piece  of  wood,  with  a  groove  across  the  mid- 
dle to  hold  it  on  the  rod."  One  day  he  came  across  the 
old  *  ticket"  that  had  been  part  of  his  slender  equipment, 
and  at  my  request  labeled  it.  How  different  from  most 
lavendered  mementoes  a  widow  may  cherish !  I  step  to  his 
huge  fire-proof  safe  and  take  it  out — a  weather-grayed 
section  of  four-inch  board  less  than  an  inch  thick,  irregu- 
larly six  inches  long,  with  the  shallow  crosswise  groove 
hacked  out  by  his  jack-knife  long  ago.  And  how  eloquent 
is  the  high  polish  on  the  originally  unplaned  surface !  The 
tag  reads,  in  his  own  hand : 

My  "Ticket"  used  by  me,  in  1894,  when  tramping. 
The  notch  rested  on  the  rod  inside  the  truck  of 
the  four-wheel  passenger  coaches. 

Jack  London,  Aug.  12,  19M. 

His  agility  in  ducking  under  rapidly  moving  cars  and 
invading  the  internal  mechanism  of  four-wheel  trucks  al- 
ways remained  a  matter  of  pride  to  him,  calling  as  it  did 


TRAMPING— ** THE  ROAD''  155 

for  the  smoothest  coordination  of  nerve  and  muscle.  This 
meant  the  grasping  of  a  gminel  and  swinging  his  feet  under 
to  the  brake-beam,  thence  crawling  over  the  top  of  the 
truck  to  let  his  body  down  inside  to  a  seat  on  the  cross-rod, 
made  somewhat  easier  by  sitting  on  the  ** ticket" — all  this 
in  darkness  and  deafening  noise  of  grinding,  revolving 
wheels.  How  he,  or  any  tramp,  could  dare  even  drowse  in 
what  one  may  be  excused  for  calling  an  extreme  predica- 
ment, is  an  enigma.  Yet  I  have  Jack's  word  that  he  was 
able  so  to  drowse,  although  many  a  time  he  *' burned"  his 
boots  or  trousers-legs,  and  even  his  flesh,  on  a  whizzing 
steel  periphery. 

I  have  heard  him  swear  with  exasperation  at  the  in- 
correct descriptions  of  this  nimble  feat — an  exasperation 
which  reached  its  just  climax  when  his  own  description,  in 
'*The  Road,"  was  wrongly  illustrated  by  photograph. 

Together  with  his  big  sincerity,  sometimes  of  the  blunt- 
est, in  Jack  London  there  dwelt  a  prominent  trait  of  the 
play-actor,  and  this  served  him  well  in  beating  his  way 
across  the  States.  Unwilling  cooks  and  housewives,  loath 
to  part  ^^th  ** hand-out"  or  ** set-down,"  burly  policemen, 
temporary  employers,  with  all  classes  he  practiced  his  wits 
to  see  how  far  this  play-acting  gift  would  carry  him  into 
their  hearts  for  the  attainment  of  his  ends. 

Owing  to  his  natural  penchant  for  independence,  how- 
ever, one  sharp  disinclination  he  had  to  overcome  was  this 
very  begging,  whether  on  the  street  for  a  ** light-piece"  or 
from  door  to  door  for  the  ** hand-out"  or  ** set-down."  His 
first  lesson  in  the  gentle  art  was  undergone  even  before  he 
saw  the  last  of  Eliza's  ten  dollars,  and  it  was  almost  beyond 
him  to  bend  to  the  humble  posture.  But  very  shortly  he 
adjusted  his  focus,  and  thereafter  encouraged  that  latent 
histrionic  talent,  much  to  his  own  amusement  Time  and 
again  he  nearly  landed  into  trouble  when  a  glib  use  of  in- 
vention led  him  too  far  into  piteous  fiction  that  unfolded 
the  circumstances  which  had  reduced  his  estate.    Or  else  his 


156      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

originality  was  too  much  for  the  gravity  of  some  appre- 
ciative, if  less  talented,  companion  whom  Jack  was  also 
bent  upon  victualing.  Having  cast  himself  for  this  pur- 
poseful mummery,  he  hesitated  not  to  make  capital  of  all 
the  seraphic  facial  advantages  he  was  heir  to.  Still,  he 
never  ceased  to  feel  a  half-serious  guilt  regarding  certain 
kind-souled  women  who,  as  reward  for  the  best  their  larders 
afforded,  fed  upon  the  almost  unbelievable  misadventures 
that  had  brought  this  guileless  child,  with  the  innocent 
mouth,  to  the  dire  strait  of  begging  food.  However,  he  was 
able  to  offset  this  uneasiness  by  considering  that  there  had 
been  no  palpable  harm. 

*'If  those  ladies  had  been  less  trustful  .  .  .  they  could 
have  tangled  me  up  beautifully  in  my  chronology.  Well, 
well,  and  what  of  it?  It  was  fair  exchange.  For  their 
many  cups  of  coffee  and  eggs  and  bites  of  toast  I  gave  full 
value.  Right  royally  I  gave  them  entertainment.  My  com- 
ing to  sit  at  their  table  was  their  adventure,  and  adventure 
is  beyond  price,  anyway. '^ 

Many  editors  and  publishers  have  wondered  how  they 
came  to  sign  certain  contracts  which,  to  his  own  enrich- 
ment, Jack  London  had  defaced  with  initialed  amendments 
on  their  margins.  During  one  of  our  visits  in  New  York 
I  said  that  I  would  give  anything  to  hear  him  talk  business 
with  these  men  when  he  was  discussing  new  contracts  or 
renewing  expiring  ones.    But  he  would  never  consent. 

**I  will  confess  to  you  that  I  do  a  good  deal  of  play- 
acting at  such  times,''  he  said,  salving  my  disappointment. 
**It's  a  game  or  a  play.  We're  all  acting.  The  best  actor 
wins  most.  If  I  were  under  your  scrutiny,  it  would  spoil 
my  play-acting,  and  thereby  lose  money  for  us  both,  you 
and  me.  You  know  me  too  well. ' '  And  once,  referring  to 
the  subject,  he  said:  ^* Somehow,  I  don't  know  exactly  why, 
but  I  don't  seem  to  want  you  to  see  me  in  this  role.  Maybe 
I'm  not  especially  proud  of  it." 

Many  were  his  chances  to  learn  what  it  really  meant 


TRAMPING— '* THE  ROAD"  157 

to  go  hungry,  but  in  his  case  even  clawing  emptiness  of 
stomach  did  not  discourage.  It  was  part  of  the  big  play  in 
which  he  was  more  or  less  a  puppet ;  and,  too,  his  was  the 
consciousness  of  stored  efiBciency  so  lacking  in  the  bulk  of 
his  associates,  which  kept  him  atop  the  heap  of  the  more 
dispirited  and  the  hopeless  ones.  While  it  still  made  him 
curiously  uneasy  to  contemplate  steady  work  or  routine  of 
any  sort,  he  was  highly  enjoj'ing  this  great  picnic  of  ir- 
responsibility. Occasionally,  too,  he  was  in  funds  of  a  few 
dollars  that  dribbled  along  his  lengthening  trail  from  the 
hand  of  Sister  Eliza;  while  several  times  his  mother,  ter- 
rified lest  vagrancy  land  him  in  jail,  spared  him  small 
sums. 

No  loveliness  of  mountain  or  desert  or  prairie-land, 
morning,  noonday  or  night,  escaped  his  ranging  eyes.  No 
morning  too  cold,  no  aching  muscles  too  painful  after  a 
night  on  the  unprotected  blind-baggage,  no  headache  too 
violent  from  sleeping  over  a  round-house  boiler,  to  deprive 
him  of  the  beauty  of  the  new  day  that  was  the  herald  of 
unguessed  variety. 

*^ Sweet  plains  of  Nebraska'*  they  were  to  him,  and  it 
was  not  until  he  had  made  his  way  across  them  as  far  as 
Council  Bluffs  that  he  came  up  with  the  elusive,  more  or 
less  orderly  mob  under  command  of  General  Kelly.  That 
undisappointing  figure  on  **a  magnificent  black  charger*' 
fired  Jack's  imagination  with  the  human  romance  of  the 
exploit  of  this  man  who  had  marshaled  an  augmenting  force 
of  the  dissatisfied  clear  from  the  Pacific  coast.  Nor  had 
they  walked,  but  proceeded  upon  captured  trains  to  the 
double-intentioned  cheerings  of  citizens  of  a  West  only  too 
anxious  to  see  the  shape  of  their  backs.  Jack's,  by  the  way, 
was  adorned  by  a  huge  blackened  rent  caused  by  fire  from  a 
cinder  that  had  caught  his  overcoat  one  night  of  ride-steal- 
ing. 

The  Eastern  railroads  took  a  sterner  view,  and  the 
Army  hung  up  at  Council  Bluffs.    Jack  dropped  into  the 


158      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

last  rank  of  the  rear-guard  as  the  procession,  stepping  to 
martial  music,  swung  out  on  the  several  miles  of  road  to 
the  town  of  Weston.  There  its  advent  tied  up  two  impor- 
tant railway  lines  that  declined  on  principle  to  operate  any 
trains  whatsoever  rather  than  oblige  the  invaders.  A  state 
of  mild  anarchy  prevailed,  for  Council  Bluffs,  to  obviate 
a  return  of  the  divisions,  prepared  to  commandeer  a  train 
and  run  it  to  Weston  for  General  Kelly  *s  use.  In  the  end 
the  Army  arrived  at  Des  Moines  on  foot,  and  never  rode 
again,  except  when  it  lifted  its  feet  on  river  boats.  Jack's 
dislike  for  ** hiking**  increased  rapidly,  for  the  soles  of 
his  shoes  wore  into  holes  until,  I  find  in  his  diary,  he  was 
walking  on  ** eight  blisters  and  more  coming.*'  No  shoes 
were  to  be  had  from  the  commissary,  and  finally  his  feet 
were  in  so  ^* horrible  a  condition**  that  he  dropped  out  and 
waited  for  a  chance  to  ride  with  some  farmer.  The  process 
of  reducing  the  Army  to  the  pass  of  tramping  by  foot  cost 
the  railroad  companies  *' slathers**  of  money;  but  they  es- 
tablished what  they  knew  was  an  important  precedent. 
In  the  end  the  Army  arrived  in  Des  Moines,  and  on  Mon- 
day, April  30, 1  read  in  Jack's  faded  penciling,  he  ** walked 
15  miles  into  Des  Moines,  arriving  in  time  for  supper.** 
That  diary,  incidentally,  is  absorbing  reading,  and  his  boy- 
ishly conventional  comments  on  the  good  people  who  came 
to  camp  are  delicious,  though  it  is  too  long  to  quote  entire. 

Jack  forever  nursed  a  soft  spot  in  his  heart  for  the 
lowans,  who,  though  not  wholly  with  disinterest,  wel- 
comed, banqueted,  and  bade  God-speed  to  the  *^two  thou- 
sands stiffs**  that  composed  General  Kelly *s  following. 
Jack  voted  it  the  time  of  his  young  life. 

*  *  It  was  a  circus  day  when  we  came  to  town,  and  every 
day  was  circus  day,  for  there  were  many  towns.  Sure; 
they  enjoyed  it  as  much  as  we.  We  played  their  local  nines 
with  our  picked  baseball  team;  and  we  gave  them  better 
vaudeville  than  they*d  often  had,  for  there  was  good  talent 
left  in  some  of  the  decayed  artists  in  the  Army.**    Years 


TRAMPING— ** THE  ROAD''  159 

afterward,  from  our  drawing-room  on  the  Limited,  pulling 
out  of  Des  Moines,  Jack  pointed  out  to  me  the  old  stove- 
works  where  he  with  the  Army  had  camped  and  invited 
the  city  either  to  furnish  six  thousand  meals  a  day  or 
to  make  the  railroads  come  across  with  unremunerated  ac- 
commodation. They  continuing  to  decline,  the  riddle 
was  solved  by  General  Weaver's  brilliant  idea  of  building, 
at  the  city's  expense,  enough  ten-foot  flatboats  to  float  the 
whole  two  thousand  * '  soldiers ' '  down  the  Des  Moines  River 
to  Keokuk,  on  the  Mississippi,  and  good  riddance  at  the 
price. 

Sailor  Jack  selected  nine  of  the  likeliest  fellows  from 
Company  L,  of  which  he  was  a  member,  known  as  the 
** Nevada  Push,"  and  contrived  to  get  his  boat  out  first  of 
the  string.  Thence  on,  the  ten  graceless  scamps  proceeded 
to  raise  Cain  for  everybody  along  three  hundred  miles  of 
the  shallow  stream,  helping  themselves  to  the  cream  of  the 
provisions  collected  by  farmers  in  advance  of  the  main 
Army's  descent.  In  the  diary  I  note  a  recurrent  phrase, 
** living  fine."  Jack  was  not  impressed  with  the  dignity  of 
the  Army's  management,  looking  upon  the  whole  scheme  as 
bound  directly  toward  failure,  which  it  eventually  reached. 

Meanwhile,  having  been  outwitted  by  General  Kelly  in 
the  continuance  of  their  high-handed  methods  of  preceding 
the  main  body,  Jack  and  his  contingent  returned  and  dis- 
banded one  division,  reorganizing  it  pretty  much  to  suit 
themselves;  after  which  they  resumed  and  enlarged  upon 
the  scope  of  their  cussedness.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  Gen- 
eral Kelly  and  his  sorely  tried  officers,  for  the  sake  of  their 
own  remembered  youth,  reaped  a  little  fun  out  of  the  in- 
corrigible pranks  of  these  prodigals,  whose  ringleader  was 
the  irrepressible  and  resourceful  John  Drake,  an  alias  under 
which  Jack  received  some  of  his  mail.  As  for  the  lat- 
ter's  own  sober  retrospect,  he  wrote: 

**I  want  to  say  to  General  Kelly  and  Colonel  Speed 
that  here's  my  hand.    You  were  heroes,  both  of  you,  and 


160      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

you  were  men.    And  I'm  sorry  for  at  least  ten  per  cent  of 
the  trouble  that  was  given  you." 

From  Quincy,  Illinois,  to  Hannibal,  Missouri,  Jack  had 
opportunity  to  become  acquainted  with  twenty-odd  miles 
of  the  Mississippi  of  Tom  Sawder,  and  enjoyed  it  as  much 
as  was  possible  from  the  questionable  vantage  of  an 
enormous  raft  formed  by  lashing  together  all  the  flat- 
boats.  Somewhere  along  the  way  there  caught  up  with 
him  a  letter  from  his  mother,  addressed  to  John  Drake, 
Quincy,  Illinois,  and  variously  forwarded,  as  the  scrawled 
envelop  attests,  to  St.  Louis,  Cairo  and  Louisville. 

Oakland,  Tuesday,  May  22,  1894. 
*'Dear  Son — 
**I  sent  you  a  few  lines  this  afternoon  as  soon  as  I  received 
your  postal  of  the  16th  and  mailed  it  immediately  that  you  should 
know  immediately  that  there  were  some  8  or  ten  letters  at  Chi- 
cago waiting  for  you  each  one  of  which  contained  stamps,  paper 
and  envelopes,  two  of  which  contains  money  in  greenbacks,  one 
2  dollars  and  the  other  $3.00,  which  you  must  stand  very  much 
in  need  of.  John  just  as  soon  as  we  know  whether  you  have 
got  what  we  have  already  sent,  we  will  try  and  send  you  some 
more.  John  take  good  care  of  yourself,  and  do  not  under  any 
circumstances  fight,  if  it  should  come  to  that.  Kemember  you 
are  all  I  have  and  both  papa  and  I  are  growing  old  and  you  are 
all  we  have  to  look  to  in  our  old  age.  .  .  .  When  we  did  not 
get  a  letter  for  three  weeks  I  worried  so  that  I  could  neither  eat 
or  sleep,  but  Papa  would  always  say  *  never  mind  Jack,  he  knows 
how  to  take  care  of  himself,  and  he  will  make  his  mark  yet. '  John, 
Papa  builds  great  expectations  of  your  future  success.  .  .  .  John 
under  no  circumstances  place  yourself  in  a  position  to  be  im- 
prisoned, you  have  gone  to  see  the  country  and  not  to  spend  your 
time  behind  the  bars.  Be  careful  of  fever  and  ague  that  is  the 
bane  of  the  East.  Keep  your  liver  and  kidneys  all  right  and  you 
need  not  fear  it.  If  you  succeed  in  getting  your  Chicago  mail,  be 
careful  not  to  fall  into  the  water  with  what  money  we  have  sent 
you,  for  as  it  is  in  greenbacks  it  might  be  spoiled  like  your  writing 
paper.    Now  my  dear  son  take  good  care  of  yourself  and  remem- 


TRAMPING— "THE  ROAD"  161 

ber  our  thoughts  and  best  wishes  for  your  success,  happiness  and 
safe  return  are  always  with  you.  With  lots  of  love,  Papa,  Mama 
and  Sister." 


On  Thursday,  May  24,  arriving  at  Hannibal,  Jack  re- 
marks : 

**We  went  supperiess  to  bed.  Am  going  to  pull  out  in 
the  morning.  I  can^t  stand  starvation.''  Truth  to  tell,  he 
and  several  others  had  gleaned  all  they  wanted  of  this  par- 
ticular class  of  adventure.  So  they  hit  out  in  a  borrowed 
skiff,  thence  by  hand-car  and  blind-baggage,  with  many 
vicissitudes,  for  Jacksonville.  Jack  was  the  only  one 
of  the  party  who  was  successful  in  staying  aboard  a 
**K.  C.  Passenger"  to  Mason  City.  On  the  twenty-ninth, 
at  seven  in  the  morning,  he  slipped  circumspectly  off  a 
cattle-train  in  Chicago.  First,  at  the  general  delivery 
window  of  the  post-ofiBce  he  was  handed  the  letters  referred 
to  by  his  mother,  and  the  five  dollars  in  greenbacks  which 
he  found  therein  were  partly  spent  *' amongst  the  Jews 
of  South  Clark  Street,''  where,  ** after  a  great  deal  of 
wrangling,"  he  fitted  himself  out  with  ** shoes,  overcoat,  hat, 
pants  and  shirt."  Thus  equipped,  **with  a  shave  and  a 
good  dinner,"  he  started  out  to  **see  the  sights.  Went  to 
the  theater  in  the  evening,  and  then  to  bed,"  the  first  bed, 
he  records,  that  he  had  lain  in  since  leaving  home  nearly  two 
months  before.  The  next  day  he  passed  at  the  White  City 
of  the  World's  Fair,  and  **in  the  evening  went  to  the  Salva- 
tion Army  and  then  to  another  fifteen  cent  bed." 

**Your  mother's  people"  had  always  been  a  familiar 
phrase  to  Jack's  ears,  enunciated  by  Flora  London;  also 
**my  sister  Susie,"  or  **your  Aunt  Mary.''  So  he  had  been 
specially  exhorted  to  make  a  side-trip  to  **St.  Joe,"  Mich- 
igan, that  Aunt  Mary  Everhard  and  her  sons  might  have  a 
look  at  Flora's  shoot  of  (he  family  oak.  Mrs.  London  must 
have  lived  in  some  trepidation  as  to  the  appearance  he 
would  present  after  tattering  weeks  on  the  road.    Evidently 


162      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Jack^s  shopping  in  South  Clark  Street  had  only  slightly 
improved  his  appearance,  for  I  have  it  from  one  of  Aunt 
Mary's  sons,  Mr.  P.  H.  *' Harry''  Everhard,  that  his 
cousin  Jack  **  landed  in  St.  Joe  in  somewhat  ragged  con- 
dition, but  in  good  health  and  spirits,  having  enjoyed  his 
experiences.  .  .  .  Mother,"  he  goes  on,  **was  greatly 
pleased  at  his  coming.  Took  him  down  town  and  rigged 
him  out  in  a  suit  of  store  clothes,  and  gave  little  parties 
for  him,  inviting  those  of  his  age  or  a  little  older." 

Somehow  the  spectacle  of  this  world-wise,  weather-sea- 
soned sapling  sunning  himself  in  the  mild  social  atmosphere 
of  Mrs.  Everhard 's  carefully  selected  companions  of  his 
years  or  even  **a  little  older,"  is  delightfully  comical. 
Chances  are,  however,  that  her  not  ungrateful  nephew's  de- 
portment toward  her  and  her  friends  was  above  reproach, 
for  his  instinctive  manner,  from  earliest  childhood,  had 
been  one  of  responsive  gentleness.  While  he  was  hail- 
fellow-well-met  in  all  sympathy  of  understanding  when  the 
going  was  rough,  refined  surroundings,  with  affection  in 
the  balance,  always  saw  him  sympathetic,  even  antici- 
patory of  well  meaning  and  courteousness.  Hence,  far 
from  being  shocked  by  what  she  may  have  learned  or 
guessed  of  his  bold  past,  in  Aunt  Mary's  eye  he  was,  ac- 
cording to  her  son,  *^a  'hero,'  and  she  just  worshiped  him." 

Undoubtedly  owing  to  the  quality  of  her  love  for  Jack, 
which  was  responsible  for  certain  unintentional  injustices 
that  she  wreaked  upon  her  own  affronted  offspring,  he  ' '  did 
not  make  any  hit  at  all  with  my  brother  or  myself, ' '  Harry 
Everhard  recalls.  He  adds  that  this  want  of  appreciation 
by  himself  and  Ernest  was  repaid  in  kind  and  with  interest 
by  their  guest.  Jack  was  enjoying  his  bespoiling  for  all 
there  was  in  it  as  a  brand-new  sensation,  save  for  his  life- 
long indulgence  from  Eliza.  It  is  easily  possible,  too,  that 
he  had  let  loose  upon  these  well- raised  cousins  a  few  salient 
sketches  of  his  tour,  and  that  their  mother  would  not  listen 
to  not  nice  reports  of  surreptitious  introductions  into  vari- 


TRAMPING— **  THE  ROAD'»  163 

ous  sorts  of  ** blind-pigs**  in  prohibition  Iowa,  accessible 
to  any  wide-awake  male  of  any  tender  age;  nor  unthink- 
ably  loathsome  camp-fire  meetings  of  *  *  alki-stiffs  *  *  (those 
dregs  of  tramphood  who  imbibe  druggists*  alcohol  undi- 
luted, ** stuff  that  would  take  the  bark  off  your  throat.**) 
And  Jack,  even  allowing  for  the  latent  artistry  in  him, 
probably  did  not  greatly  exaggerate  his  doings  with  the 
outcasts  he  had,  in  passing,  made  good  with. 

One  incident  alone  told  me  by  Harry  Everhard  will  ab- 
solve the  wrathful  brothers  from  the  onus  of  inhospitality. 

**  There  was  a  good-sized  lawn  or  yard  of  possibly  an 
acre  of  ground  with  big  elm  trees,  well  covered  with  timothy 
and  clover.  With  the  exception  of  the  grass  close  to  the 
house  it  was  allowed  to  grow  high  enough  to  make  hay. 
.  .  .  My  brother  on  the  day  covered  by  this  incident  had 
the  hay  all  cut  and  in  small  stacks  and  called  to  Jack  to 
help  him  load  it  on  the  wagon. 

**It  was  a  pretty  hot  day  and  with  a  rain  in  sight  that 
would  have  spoiled  the  hay.  Jack  jumped  to  the  work  and 
was  pitching  hay  like  an  old  hand  when  mother  got  sight  of 
him  and  called,  *  Ernest,  don*t  you  know  better  than  to  ex- 
pose Jack  to  that  hot  sun  f  *  And  she  forthwith  made  Jack 
go  in  the  shade  and  protect  himself.  Now  he  had  been  sleep- 
ing in  box-cars  and  had  crossed  the  desert  where  the  sun 
roasted  one  as  if  in  an  oven,  but  according  to  Mother  *8 
view  of  it  our  summer  sun  of  St.  Joe  was  too  strong  for 
his  literary  habits.  Anyhow,  I  had  to  finish  out  helping  to 
get  in  the  hay  and  Jack  got  a  shady  place  under  the  trees.'* 

The  beautiful  name  of  Ernest  Everhard  always  dwelt  in 
Jack*8  memory,  and  he  used  it  for  one  of  his  own  favorite 
characters — hero  of  **The  Iron  Heel.**  It  is  not  to  be  mar- 
veled at,  however,  that  his  cousin,  inoffensively  pursuing 
a  serener  pathway  in  life,  was  not  markedly  pleased  with 
this  bestowment  of  his  name  upon  even  the  noblest  con- 
ceivable of  labor  agitators  and  revolutionists,  no  matter 
how  much  a  pet  of  his  creator. 


164      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Little  wonder  that  Jack  lingered  several  weeks  in  the 
easeful  environment  of  the  roomy,  vine-trailed  brick  home ; 
and  it  would  seem  that  he  had  not  entirely  abandoned 
thought  of  writing,  which  made  decided  impression  upon 
his  fond  aunt.  Mr.  Everhard  remembers  him  **  sorting  up 
notes  he  had  taken  during  his  trip,'*  and  that  he  **had  a 
sort  of  ledger  and  journal  system  of  keeping  his  data.  He 
did  not  call  these  books  by  that  name,  but  they  had  the 
same  relation  to  keeping  account  of  his  thoughts  as  a  book- 
keeper uses  in  keeping  account  of  business  transactions.'* 
This  was  an  outcropping  of  a  future  relentless  system  with 
his  myriad  notes,  and  further  pointed  an  ingrained  brain- 
saving  executiveness  that  goes  side  by  side  with  govern- 
ment. 

Two  strong  motives  appear  to  have  been  struggling 
for  possession  of  the  genius  that  was  in  Jack.  One,  of  art- 
expression,  was  controlled  by  a  conventionality  he  had  not 
yet  been  impelled  to  pluck  from  out  his  consciousness,  as 
shown  by  his  diary,  as  well  as  a  number  of  amateurish 
stories  he  wrote  of  knights  and  ladies  and  such  hackneyed 
themes,  submitted  the  following  months  to  Aunt  Mary  for 
her  criticism.  The  other  motive,  quite  apart,  was  based 
upon  his  expansive  lore  of  the  under-world  of  down-and- 
outs.  It  was,  still  unrealized,  his  desire  to  coalesce  ideal 
and  reality  into  tangible  art. 


CHAPTER  Xn 

TRAMPING 

From  Bt  Joseph,  Mich.,  to  Waflhington,  D.  C,  New  York,  Boston,  Canada, 
and  Home— 1894 

ANY  day  of  all  the  days  is  a  day  apart,  with  a  record  of 
swift-moving  pictures  all  its  own/*  Jack  has  said. 
Still  charmed  with  the  absence  of  monotony  in  a  peripatetic 
existence  **for  such  as  cannot  use  one  bed  too  long/'  he, 
being  one  of  these,  pulled  out  upon  the  brake-beams  again 
some  time  in  July.  He  was  now  wearer  of  the  proud  nom- 
de-rail  of  ** Frisco  Kid,'*  and  would  **go  observin*  matters'* 
first  in  Washington,  D.  C,  thence  up  the  Atlantic  railroad 
lines  to  other  cities. 

I  have  before  me  an  eloquently  battered  note-book  of 
cheapest  imitation  red  leather.  It  contains  names  and  ad- 
dresses of  friends  at  home,  including  Louis  Shattuck  and  a 
Mr.  Darnell ;  and  there  is  a  string  of  girls — Lizzie  Connolly, 
who  figures  as  a  character  in  ** Martin  Eden'*;  Katie,  Nellie, 
Dollie,  and  Bernice ;  and  a  few  eastern  names,  among  them 
Eugene  J.  McCarthy,  69  Barton  Street,  Boston.  One  item 
reads:  **Mrs.  Logan's  house — her  house  used  to  be  the 
old  stone  hospital  during  the  war."  Captain  Shepard  and 
Ehza,  both  for  some  time  past  engaged  in  the  business  of 
prosecuting  pension  claims,  had  been  guests  of  General 
Logan's  widow  during  the  Grand  Encampment  of  the 
G.  A.  R.  in  Washington  two  years  before  Jack  blew  into 
the  city,  and  Eliza  wished  Jack  to  meet  her  friends.  Her 
brother's  annotations  reveal  the  intention  of  seeing  every- 
thing possible  relating  to  the  war  in  which  John  London 
had  fought  Abraham  Lincoln's  fight  to  preserve  the  Union. 

106 


166      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Follows  an  itinerary  of  sight-seeing,  such  as  **  Alex- 
ander, Va.,  by  steamer,  fare  15c,''  and  short  historical  ref- 
erences to  Arlington,  Mount  Vernon,  and  other  suburbs. 
And  of  course  this  was  his  first  chance  to  see  the  Atlantic 
ocean  and  dream  of  further  travel.  The  first  deciperable 
data  in  the  scrappy  little  journal  is  Thursday,  August  9, 
1894,  on  which  he  made  a  tour  of  the  United  States  govern- 
ment buildings,  the  name  of  each  crossed  off  as  done  with. 

A  couple  of  tiny  pages  are  devoted  to  prose  on  the 
subject  of  *' Beauty,''  which,  though  without  grace  of  quo- 
tation marks,  he  credits  to  Frank  D.  Sherman.  Evidently 
Jack  had  been  dipping  into  wells  of  theological  speculation, 
for  several  sheets  are  covered  by  a  dissertation  on  Deism 
and  Theism  based  on  the  query:  ** Which  came  into  the 
world  first,  the  chicken  or  the  eggV^  One  may  judge  from 
his  remarks  that  biologically  he  was  far  from  satisfied  with 
the  Bible  story  of  Adam  and  Eve  and  the  succeeding  gen- 
eration or  two. 

There  are  copies  of  quite  commonplace  sentimental 
songs  of  the  day,  with  their  refrains;  and  his  current 
notion  of  humor  may  be  guessed  from  this  : 

*  *  Johnny !  Johnny !  * '  said  the  minister,  as  he  met  an  urchin  one 
Sunday  afternoon  carrying  a  string  of  fish,  "do  these  belong  to 
you?*' 

**Ye-es,  sir;  you  see  that's  what  they  got  for  chasing  worms 
on  Sunday." 

Fragments  of  dialogue  that  struck  him  as  worth  pre- 
serving, perhaps  for  use  in  the  yarns  submitted  to  Aunt 
Mary,  are  interspersed  with  copies  of  poems,  good  and 
bad,  conundrums  lacking  answers,  and  streaks  of  tramp 
vernacular.  And  midmost  of  this  living  stuff  one  meets  a 
quoted  verse  that  speak 's  the  boy's  awareness  of  life's  un- 
rest: 


I 


TRAMPING  167 

**  'Twere  best  at  once  to  sink  to  peace 
Like  birds  the  charming  serpent  draws, 
To  drop  head  foremost  in  the  jaws 
Of  vacant  darkness,  and  to  cease.** 

Some  years  ago,  sorting  over  keepsakes  he  had  stored 
in  the  Oakland  residence  where  Jack  London  housed  his 
mother  and  his  Mammy  Jennie,  he  came  across  that  little 
worn  memorandum-book.  **Look,  Mate — here's  one  of  the 
diaries  I  kept  in  my  tramp  days,''  he  cried,  and  fell  to  run- 
ning over  the  penciled  notations.  Presently  he  looked  up 
with  a  moist  luster  over  the  profound  gray  of  those  deep- 
fringed  eyes,  and  the  expression  of  untried  chastity  upon 
his  mouth  which  made  him  into  a  beautiful  boy-child  hesi- 
tant to  divulge  his  deeper  emotions.  *^It  brings  up  my 
groping  ideals  of  that  time,"  very  softly  he  went  on,  **and 
I  want  you  to  mark  especially  how  I  recurred  to  my  old 
ambition  for  fatherhood  and  stability  in  life,  in  spite  of  my 
vagabonding  tastes.  Listen  to  this."  And  what  he  read 
quite  solemnly  to  me,  I  now  give  from  the  same  source, 
reverently  word  for  word: 

**In  Washington,  D.  C,  Thursday,  August  9,  1894,  in  the 
afternoon,  suddenly  there  came  over  me  a  great  longing  for 
paternity.  A  longing  for  children;  not  a  sensuous  longing  for 
the  accompanying  pleasure  of  begetting  them,  but  a  pure  spiritual 
longing  for  something  in  this  world  to  look  up  to  me;  to  depend 
on  me;  trust  me,  and  be  akin  to  me,  as  I  must  have  been  to  my 
father  and  mother.  Now  I  must  confess  that  this  is  rather  foolish 
of  me,  a  lad  of  eighteen,  to  think  of.  It  was  brought  on  by  con- 
templating the  hopeless,  friendless  condition  of  a  tramp  I  had 
been  talking  with  in  particular,  and  of  the  whole  of  mankind  in 
general.  I  always  said  that  I  would  not  marry  till  26  or  27, 
and  I  still  think  that  holds  good.  But  I  will  look  around  me  in 
the  meantime  and  try  and  profit  by  the  experience,  obtained  by 
others  through  the  lottery  of  marriage.** 

Evidences  of  his  awakening  interest  in  economics  are 
to  be  found  in  scattered  quotations,  as  well  as  through 


168      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

observations  of  his  own.  Having  attached  himself  to  a 
job  that  he  might  make  a  better  appearance  whilst  seeing 
the  metropolis  and  his  sister's  friends,  it  is  inconceivable 
that  he  did  not  spend  some  of  his  spare  hours  at  the  libra- 
ries. He  was  plainly  studying  for  a  vocabulary,  as  well  as 
facile  punctuation,  attested,  as  one  reads  on,  by  a  strict  fol- 
lowing of  the  latter  in  quoting  authors. 

At  some  period  of  his  stay  in  Washington  he  seems  to 
have  put  up  at  the  **Hillman  House,  at  226  North  Capitol 
Sf  Hard  upon  some  comments  on  immortality  and  the 
merits  and  demerits  of  a  man's  taking  his  own  life,  by  Jas. 
E.  Barker,  a  number  of  narrow  pages  are  filled  by  Ham- 
let's Soliloquy,  followed  by  a  couplet  from  Longfellow's 
** Golden  Legend"  that  might  have  been  the  suggestion  for 
Jack  London's  disposal  of  the  hero  in  '* Martin  Eden": 

**A  single  step  and  all  is  o'er. 
A  plunge,  a  bubble,  and  no  more." 

The  job  above  referred  to  might  be  classified  as  janitor- 
ship  in  a  livery-stable,  where  he  also  made  his  sleeping 
quarters.  In  line  of  relaxation  and  easement  of  his 
gambling  proclivities,  he  was  not  averse  to  sit  in  at  various 
highly  exciting  and  illicit  crap-games  by  gas-light  with 
negro  horse-boys  and  their  friends.  A  concerted  police 
raid  upon  a  session  one  evening,  when  as  luck  would  have 
it,  he  was  only  a  * 'broke"  onlooker,  was  the  cause  of  Jack's 
resigning  his  position.  This  he  did  by  way  of  a  window, 
first  dodging  on  all  fours  between  the  irate  legs  of  an  officer 
with  that  catlike  quickness  of  his.  That  he  could  put  up  a 
better  sprint  than  the  star-breasted  **bull"  who  decorated 
with  the  window-sash,  lit  out  upon  his  heels,  was  the  reason 
Jack  did  not  sleep  behind  bars. 

Indeed,  he  did  not  rest  at  all  that  night.  Added  to  the 
fact  that  the  **cops"  were  on  his  track,  he  had  seen  and 
done  all  the  things  for  which  he  had  come  to  Washington, 
and  now  seemed  the  fateful  moment  for  him  to  quit  the 


TRAMPING  169 

beautiful  city.  So  he  worked  his  discreet  flight  around 
toward  the  railroad  yards,  where  he  caught  the  first 
**  blind '^  out  on  the  Pennsylvania  Express.  At  Baltimore 
a  railroad  bull  reached  for  him  before  he  had  swung  off  the 
platform,  and  the  night's  second  Marathon  was  on  for  many 
confusing  blocks  in  a  strange  '*burg.*'  His  prided  sense  of 
direction  helped  him  back  to  the  tracks,  where  successfully 
eluding  ^'buU"  and  ** shack''  he  ensconsed  himself  damp 
and  winded  on  a  baggage  platform.  But  that  sense  of  di- 
rection suffered  a  grievous  set-back  when,  after  forty  shiv- 
ering miles,  he  discovered  himself  again  in  the  bright  sta- 
tion at  Washington.  He  had  squandered  the  whole  night  in 
a  fatuous  round-trip  to  Baltimore.  Mad  as  a  wet  hen, 
spraining  even  his  robust  Western  vocabulary,  he  rested  not 
or  breakfasted  until,  late  in  the  morning,  again  in  Balti- 
more, he  *  *  threw  his  feet  for  grub. ' ' 

Thence  up  through  Pennsylvania  he  adventured,  always 
overtaking  the  variety  upon  which  his  nature  feasted.  Lit- 
tle he  asked  of  the  world,  it  seemed  to  him — just  the  priv- 
ilege of  going  and  coming  quite  harmlessly  at  his  own  sweet 
will,  with  gift  of  an  occasional  meal,  infrequent  loan  of  cig- 
arette **makin's,"  and  a  place  under  roof  or  stars  to 
** pound  his  ear,"  meaning  to  slumber. 

One  day  when  he  was  swimming  alone  in  the  Susque- 
hanna, some  one  went  through  his  clothing.  He  bewailed 
the  loss  of  his  tobacco  more  than  the  small  change.  But 
*'I  leave  it  to  you,"  he  laughed  it  off,  **if  being  robbed  isn't 
adventure  enough  for  one  day."  Glad  that  the  thieves  had 
spared  his  clothes,  shortly  he  had  the  pleasure  of  borrowing 
what  he  could  have  sworn  were  his  own  *  *  makin  's ' '  from  a 
bunch  of  waifs  who  were  not  wide  awake  enough  to  per- 
ceive that  he  was  **on." 

There  was  that  fearful  afternoon,  he,  a  hobo,  suffered 
mental  and  emotional  torture  in  a  camp  of  American 
gipsies,  when  one  of  the  men  dispassionately  flogged  his 
children  and  their  protesting  mother.     Here  Jack,  most 


170      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

passionate  of  champions  of  the  weak  of  either  sex,  had  to 
call  upon  a  philosophy  out  of  keeping  with  his  age  to  con- 
trol all  knightly  inheritance  of  his  long  line  of  fighting 
forefathers,  that  he  might  refrain  from  interference.  It 
would  have  made  the  woman's  plight  more  desperate,  and 
undoubtedly  brought  about  his  annihilation.  Eight  or 
wrong  in  the  abstract  struggled  in  his  brain  with  man's 
civil-  and  uncivil-practices.  But  in  his  own  anguish  in  the 
woman's  anguish,  which  made  him  clench  longing  fists  till 
a  gipsy  man,  noting,  for  Jack's  own  safety  warned  *^Easy, 
pardner,  easy,"  there  came  to  his  succor  one  face  of  the 
uncommon  common-sense  that  reinforced  sensitiveness  all 
his  difficult  life.  In  her  ethic,  this  woman  gipsy  among 
gipsies  would  not  thank  a  rank  outsider  for  *' butting  in." 
Jack  had  marveled  before  this  upon  the  notorious  ingrati- 
tude of  certain  females,  oftenest  of  foreign  blood,  when 
their  husbands  were  deterred,  by  outsiders,  from  fistic  man- 
ifestation of  possessiveness.  As  well  might  Jack's  deep- 
burnt  emotion  have  justified  him  in  trying  to  halt  with 
his  hands  an  execution  by  hanging  which  later  in  youth  he 
witnessed  at  San  Quentin.  These  were  not  hazards  in  the 
open,  where  the  best  man  or  beast  wins.  Outrageous,  hurt- 
ful, abysmal  wrongs,  in  his  profoundest  deeps  he  felt  them 
to  be.  But  they  were  the  law:  one,  the  law  of  the  outlaw, 
if  you  please ;  the  other,  alas,  the  strange  law  of  that  most 
free  of  all  civilized  nations,  for  which  his  father  and  his 
father's  father  and  grandfathers  had  bled. 

So  he  drew  himself  together  with  a  mighty  effort  and 
met,  cool  steel  for  steel,  the  glitter  of  the  gipsyman's  nar- 
rowed black  eye.  Pie  could  fake  an  indifferent  aspect ;  but 
his  flesh  was  clammy  and  he  was  sick  to  his  marrow — every 
crack  of  the  wicked  thong  laid  on  the  cowering  woman's 
frame  striped  his  soul  with  red  as  few  experiences  ever 
marked  it.  It  did  more ;  it  lashed  him  to  swifter  sifting  of 
the  tares  from  the  wheat  in  his  abundant  thought-harvest. 

But  Jack  was  healthy-minded  and  -bodied,  and  it  would 


TRAMPING  171 

have  been  a  morbidity  not  to  dismiss  the  occurrence  as  best 
he  could.  The  development  of  that  mind  had  not  reached 
a  point  where  he  could  even  think  he  knew  the  remedy  for 
such  demonstration  as  he  had  witnessed.    The  searing  day 

was  done ^^  .  .  one  day  of  all  my  days.     To-morrow 

would  be  another  day,  and  I  was  young,*'  he  said. 

As  he  *^ pointed  his  toes*'  northward,  unknown  to  him- 
self adventure  was  undergoing  a  transmutation  into  some- 
thing potentially  different  from  the  ideal  which  had  quick- 
ened imagination  and  footstep  to  the  varied  gifts  of  earth. 
His  unquieting  perceptiveness  was  getting  in  under  the 
skin  of  things  the  while  he  paid  a  lessening  if  still  bright 
and  discerning  attention  to  the  world  of  landscape  and 
architecture  and  industry.  From  these,  indeed,  he  wrested 
progression  and  sustenance,  alone  or  in  company  with 
specimens  of  the  floating  population  of  incompetents  that 
coasted  this  same  smiling  prospect. 

Men  were  so  wonderful,  he  could  not  fail  to  be  impressed, 
when  he  looked  about  his  father's  great  state  and  the 
Quaker  City,  in  a  similar  way  that  he  had  been  impressed 
by  any  large  town  since  his  careless  days  in  Yokohama. 
When  men  could  be  so  wonderful,  why  were  many  of  them 
such  hopeless  derelicts!  This  early  he  was  exhibiting  a 
penchant  for  inviting  secrets  from  the  most  furtive  and 
cryptic  human  sources.  In  his  life's  periodical  **prowl- 
ings,"  done  out  of  driven  curiosity  to  see  how  society  was 
managed  or  mismanaged,  many  a  woman  of  the  street  or 
brothel  who  earned  her  price  with  a  surprised  willingness, 
by  merely  treating  the  friendly  searcher  to  a  correct  study 
of  causes  she  had  hidden  with  a  reticence  that  had  been  her 
one  pride. 

As  he  held  up  and  turned  inside-out  before  his  mind 
the  unlovely  confidences  to  which  this  sympathetic  faculty 
made  him  confessor,  Jack  was  blest  if  he  could  see  where 
he  himself  had  anything  on  most  men  in  the  matter  of  op- 
portunity.    Some,  indeed,  had  been  maimed — they  did  not 


172      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

count  in  this  strain  of  reasoning.  And  yet,  and  yet,  come 
to  think  of  it,  they  did  count,  at  least  a  large  per  cent. 
From  that  night  in  Sacramento  when  he,  the  novice,  had 
left  behind  him  some  two-score  professional  hoboes,  one  of 
whom ,  had  been  cut  in  two,  he  had  noticed  how  man 
after  man  was  beaten  by  ineflSciency  at  his  business  of  run- 
ning away  from  useful  efficiency.  Jack's  own  survival 
could  not  be  all  blind  luck,  he  thought.  The  others  must 
be  failures  from  aforetime,  hereditary  inefficients.  He  got 
the  phrase  reading  of  afternoons  in  free  grassy  parks,  where 
he  loafed  and  warmed  up  after  a  chilly  or  wakeful  night, 
and  invited  knowledge  from  book,  or  newspaper  he  had 
** frisked'^  by  dawnlight  off  some  doorstep.  Book  or  folded 
paper  formed  his  sleeping  pillow.  And  of  course — always 
of  course,  it  seemed — there  was  the  toll  of  alcohoPs  van- 
quished. His  own  luck  apparently  resided  in  the  inheri- 
tance of  a  good  body  that  was  informed  by  a  good  brain — a 
brain  at  least  of  ability  to  withhold  him  from  becoming 
permanently  a  piece  of  the  floatsam  of  mankind  with  whom 
he  now  drifted. 

Moreover,  time  and  again  he  met  hoboes  who  were  from 
the  first  ranks  of  a  culture  he  had  only  glimpsed,  as  when 
with  the  poetess-librarian  friend  of  his  childhood,  Ina 
Coolbrith.  From  these  abodeless  ones,  who  had  lapsed 
to  a  plane  that  seemed  scarcely  related  to  the  every-day 
world  of  men,  he  learned  of  the  arts  or  professions  that  had 
been  their  callings,  and  was  stirred  afresh  to  his  own  ambi- 
tions. The  majority  of  the  decayed  gentlemen  who  slouched 
within  his  radius,  he  could  not  reason  clearly  otherwise, 
were  foreordained  wrecks.  One  had  been  a  Philadelphia 
attorney,  university  graduate  and  the  rest,  and  upon  his 
intellect  of  many  facets  Jack  sharpened  his  own  while  they 
traveled  together.  Oddly  enough,  it  was  in  this  companion- 
ship that  he  fell  into  the  only  serious  difficulty  he  encoun- 
tered in  trampdom. 

Something  that  had  disturbed  him  for  long;  something 


TRAMPING  173 

definite,  hard  and  fine,  yet  palpitating  warm  and  tender, 
was  coming  into  being  in  his  heart.  And  though  he  knew 
it  not,  it  was  Love,  the  most  selfless  of  all  loves — nor  love 
of  blood,  nor  for  woman,  but  the  brother-love  for  the 
unlovely  and  unloved  forsaken  of  men,  which  was  destined 
to  break  that  heart  of  his  in  the  end. 

But  not  yet  was  he  possessed.  It  was  a  hell  of  a  note, 
to  be  sure ;  but  what  could  a  fellow  do  f  So  he  went  on  his 
way,  **a  beggar  gay,''  rejoicing  in  glorious  well-being  and 
freedom,  in  his  stomach  **that  could  digest  scrap-iron/' 
and  in  his  own  fortune  generally.  He  took  chances  with  that 
luck,  in  a  manner  that  challenged  weary  outwitted  brake- 
men  and  even  policemen  who  had  not  forgotten  their  youth 
or  else  remembered  their  sons  who  were  chips  off  the  old 
block,  challenged  them  to  implore  him  not  to  commit  sui- 
cide. This  they  argued  he  was  bound  to  do  if  he  persisted 
in  riding  two  fast-freight  cars  at  once,  as  a  circus  rider 
divides  himself  between  two  or  more  horses  in  the  sawdust 
ring.  Many  the  officer  he  drove  to  incoherent  very  despair 
of  wrath,  until  he  would  give  up  to  Jack's  uncapturable 
agility  or  the  eloquence  or  humor  of  his  ready  slanging. 
But  his  supreme  wide-awakeness  guarded  the  young  wilful 
from  extermination,  even  upon  that  night  he  took  out  on  a 
freight  from  Philadelphia  in  fashion  so  precarious  that  for 
once  he  ''had  enough,  and  then  some." 

The  wonder-city  of  New  York  held  him  spellbound ;  but 
no  astonishment  nor  admiration  could  slow  down  the  heated 
mechanism  of  his  brain.  What  he  saw  only  caused  its  wheels 
to  move  faster.  If  he  was  impressed  by  the  spectacle  of 
the  city's  incomputable  wealth  and  power,  he  was  stirred 
even  more  deeply  by  the  reflection  that  so  mighty  a  capital 
should  permit  the  wretchedness  of  its  own  East  Side. 

What  must  conditions  be  if  New  York's  cold  of  winter 
were  as  severe  as  was  this  smothering  torridity,  which  drove 
him  to  spend  long  afternoons  in  a  green  square  that  gave 
on  Newspaper  Row  and  the  city  hall!    It  was  some  years 


174      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

before  lie  learned  for  himself  what  New  York  winter  meant 
to  the  submerged. 

He  rather  enjoyed  *  'battering  the  main  drag''  of  a  morn- 
ing for  nickels  and  pennies,  and  found  the  public  not  un- 
generous. Meantime  it  was  great  sport  seeing  all  he  could 
of  the  promenading  hon  ton  of  America.  With  the  money 
solicited,  he  lived  well,  largely  on  milk,  never  spending  a 
cent  upon  liquor  unless  obliged  in  chance  company.  In 
fact,  during  all  his  tramp  experience,  he  avoided  drink  as 
much  as  was  compatible  with  the  men  he  picked  as  the 
most  worth-while  companions.  As  usual,  the  crying  pity 
was  that  the  livest  and  keenest,  most  individual  and  adven- 
turous, were  the  drinkers.  It  was  proved  to  him  an  in- 
escapable truth;  and  he  did  not  let  them  know  the  radical 
point  where  they  and  he  differed,  which  was  in  his  personal 
antipathy  to  alcohol  as  a  beverage. 

He  had  enough  money  left  over  to  buy  books  from  itin- 
erant push-cart  men,  who  vended  imperfect  volumes  culled 
out  by  publishers.  The  serious  incident  before  mentioned, 
that  divided  his  New  York  visit  in  two  sections,  made  him 
more  avid  than  ever  for  reading  matter.  In  narrational 
sequence  this  incident  belongs  here ;  but  I  have  reason  for 
moving  it  to  the  end  of  the  chapter. 

In  that  shady  square,  little  booths  did  a  cool  trade  in 
sterilized  milk  and  buttermilk  at  a  penny  a  glass,  and  we 
have  Jack 's  word  that  he  ' '  got  away  with  from  five  to  ten 
glasses  each  afternoon''  in  the  ** dreadfully  hot  weather," 
which  goes  to  show  where  his  throat's  refreshment  lay 
rather  than  in  alcohol.  That  he  did  not  surfeit  that  throat 
for  life  I  have  ample  evidence.  Particularly  do  I  remember 
a  soft-drink  '' hole-in- the-walP '  in  Sydney,  where,  in  1909, 
strolling  home  from  theater  or  organ  festival  in  the  great 
town  hall.  Jack  would  stop  for  a  long  draft,  maybe  two  or 
three  drafts,  toward  his  unslakable  thirst  for  ice-cold  milk- 
shake or  buttermilk,  in  frank  preference  over  any  drink 
dispensed  in  the  mezzanine  of  the  Hotel  Australia  close  by. 


TRAMPING  175 

Only  once  in  New  York  did  he  suffer  from  contact  with 
the  police ;  and,  just  as  fate  would  have  it,  the  club  thwacked 
upon  his  unsuspecting  and  blameless  skull  without  rhyme  or 
reason  that  he  was  ever  able  to  fathom,  he  being  a  mere 
detached  spectator  of  a  street-corner  row.  Was  it  always 
to  be  that  way  with  him — that  he  would  **get  away*'  with 
real  things  he  set  out  to  do,  and  then  run  into  punishment 
when  he  happened  to  be  innocent  ?  He  could  only  class  the 
riddle  of  this  New  York  cop's  landing  upon  him  along  with 
that  of  the  Temescal  harridan  who  had  taken  after  him  with 
a  butcher  knife.  Tom  Sawyer's  Aunt  Polly  oiled  her  con- 
science and  saved  her  face  by  declaring  it  wasn't  a  lick 
amiss,  when  she  once  thrashed  her  nephew  undeservedly. 
But  so  tireless  was  Jack  in  digging  to  the  bottom  of  human 
enigmas,  that  even  so  trivial  elusions  as  these  two  bothered 
him. 

The  railroad  journey  to  Boston  was  as  full  of  mishaps 
as  any  short  trip  he  made  in  the  East.  For  one  thing,  he 
started  in  the  blaze  of  a  hot  Sunday  afternoon,  catching  a 
freight  at  Harlem,  after  bidding  farewell  to  the  Bowery 
and  the  friendly  City  Hall  Park.  I  have  before  me  an 
article  entitled  **  Jack  London  in  Boston,"  written  in  Oak- 
land about  1904,  and  never  published  in  book  form.  It  was 
the  Old  Colony  Railroad,  he  thinks,  and  he  was  systemat- 
ically thrown  off  section  after  section  by  zealous  shacks, 
until  finally  he  came  to  rest  inside  one  of  a  load  of  huge 
iron  pipes  on  a  flat-car,  **  gondola"  in  tramp  parlance,  where 
he  **  curled  up  and  read  the  New  York  Sunday  papers,  and, 
as  the  light  waned,  dozed  off  and  regained  the  sleep  lost 
the  previous  night  in  the  company  of  a  pessimistic  printer 
out  of  a  job."  But  the  stow-away  had  been  observed  by  a 
busy  shack  who  awaited  bis  own  convenience  to  strike  the 
ringing  iron  and  forcibly  invite  the  trespasser  to  **hit  tho 
grit."     Jack  goes  on: 

'*  As  behooved  a  tramp  of  parts,  my  mastery  of  intensive 
adjectives  and  vituperative  English  was  such  as  invariably 


176      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

to  move  men  in  my  direction.  This  was  what  I  desired, 
and  this  the  shack  proceeded  to  do  by  crawling  in  after 
me.  On  the  outside  he  controlled  both  exits  (a  pipe  having 
two  ends),  but  once  inside  he  surrendered  this  tactical 
advantage.  So  I  withdrew  by  the  opposite  end,  while  I 
bandied  words  with  the  man,  criticized  his  general  make-up, 
and  dissertated  upon  the  vascular  action  of  the  heart  and 
the  physiological  cataclysms  caused  by  intemperate  anger. 
I  also  commented  upon  his  ancestry  and  blackened  his 
genealogical  tree. 

*  *  I  found  the  town  in  which  I  had  alighted,  on  my  own 
feet,  which  is  a  nicer  way  to  alight,  all  things  considered, 
to  be  Attleboro,  a  place  where  the  inhabitants  solved  the 
scheme  of  life  by  manufacturing  jewelry.  As  a  traveler 
and  a  student  of  economics  and  sociology  [he  had  become 
both  by  now],  it  was  perhaps  my  duty  to  visit  those  estab- 
lishments, but  I  preferred  going  around  to  the  back  doors 
of  the  more  imposing  residences.  After  breakfasting  with 
a  pretty  and  charming  matron,  to  whom  I  had  never  been 
introduced  and  with  whom  I  failed  to  leave  my  card,  I  re- 
turned to  the  depot.  It  was  raining,  and  I  sought  shelter 
on  the  covered  platform  and  rolled  a  cigarette.  This  action, 
being  essentially  Californian,  at  once  aroused  attention, 
and  forthwith  I  was  surrounded  by  a  group  of  curious 
idlers.  This  was  in  1894,  so  I  suppose  they  have  in  the 
interim  grown  sufficiently  degenerate  to  roll  their  own  cig- 
arettes. Nevertheless,  I  often  wonder  if  any  of  them  rec- 
ollect the  lad  with  the  gray  suit  and  cloth  cap,  smooth-faced 
and  badly  sunburned,  who  taught  them  how  to  do  the  trick. 

**I  must  be  treated  leniently  if  it  chanced  that  I  saw 
but  the  surface  of  Boston.  Eemember,  I  was  without  let- 
ters of  credit  or  introduction,  while  my  only  entree  was 
the  police  station.  Entertaining  peculiar  tenets  regarding 
cleanliness, ' '  he  describes  the  reputation  of  Boston  jails  of 
the  period,  **it  is  not  to  be  wondered  that  I  avoided  this 
place  and  sought  a  park  bench  instead.     I  wandered  hit 


TRAMPING  177 

or  miss  till  I  came  to  the  Common.''  He  comments  upon 
the  raw  September  wind  that  blows  in  The  Hub  around  2 
a.  m.,  and  says  that  he  shivered  and  shook,  collar  pulled  up 
the  cap  down,  vainly  trying  to  sleep,  till  a  policeman  tapped 
him.  ** Always  placate  the  policeman,"  he  advises  the  pen- 
niless wanderluster.  **He  is  at  once  the  dispenser  and 
obfuscator  of  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  He 
shapes  the  destinies  of  lesser  creatures,  and  free  air  or 
dungeon  lurk  in  his  gruff  *Move  on,'  or  *Come  on.'  "  Jack 
drew  upon  his  histrionic  abilities,  and  simulated  mumbling 
in  his  sleep.  **What?"  the  officer  peremptorily  demanded, 
and  Jack  answered,  *'0h,  never  mind.  I  wasn't  awake  yet, 
and  I  was  dreaming  about  Ueno  Park."  He  asked, 
*' Where's  that?"  and  Jack  replied,  *' Japan."  Then  he 
tells  how  for  two  hours  he  led  that  policeman 's  interest  up 
hill  and  down  dale,  in  Yokohama  and  Tokio,  or  Fujiyama, 
through  tea  houses  and  temples  the  narrator  had  never  seen, 
bazaar  and  marketplace,  till  his  listener  forgot  the  munici- 
pality he  served  and  the  malefactors  who  feared  him.  **  At 
the  end  of  that  time  he  discovered  that  my  teeth  were  chat- 
tering, said  he  was  sorry  he  hadn't  any  whiskey  about  him, 
gave  me  a  silver  quarter  instead,  and  departed — he  and  his 
club." 

Having  feasted  upon  the  juicy  steak  and  **Java"  the 
silver  quarter  made  possible,  the  young  rascal  spent  the 
rest  of  the  night  in  the  winding  streets,  trying  to  get  back 
to  the  Common,  which  eluded  him  for  two  days.  Meantime, 
he  found  himself  on  the  bridge  to  Charlestown,  and  fell  in 
with  one  of  his  fraternity,  looking  for  a  residence  section 
that  would  furnish  breakfast. 

**  *  You 're  no  gay  cat,'  he  remarked,  after  a  compre- 
hensive glance. 

**I  signified  in  the  appropriate  terras  that  such  was  not 
my  rating,  and  we  unified  our  pace. 

**  *New  to  the  town,  eht'  he  asked.    *How'd  you  find  the 


178      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

floppings?  Pretty  crimpy,  eh?  Well,  I  know  the  old  jerk 
like  a  book,  and  lUl  put  you  wise. '  ** 

Yet  this  tramp  was  an  erstwhile  gentleman,  Jack  soon 
found  out,  **with  more  knowledge  and  culture  under  his 
rags  than  falls  to  the  average  man  who  sits  in  the  high 
places.'*  Two  days  they  spent  together,  and,  ** discovering 
an  affinity  of  tastes  and  studies,  discussed  the  possibilities 
of  a  reconciliation  of  Kant  and  Spencer,  and  talked  Karl 
Marx  and  the  German  economists,  until,  in  a  sort  of  bashful 
way,  he  announced  the  possession  of  antiquarian  propensi- 
ties. Thereat  I  was  haled  across  the  bridge  to  the  North 
End,  where  he  resurrected  all  manner  of  architectural  an- 
tiquities and  fairly  bubbled  with  the  histories  of  the  old 
buildings.  Needless  to  speak  of  my  delight  in  all  this,  for 
I  was  fresh  from  the  *new  and  naked  lands'  of  the  great 
West.  But  I  lost  him  one  day,  as  men  will  lose  comrades 
on  the  Road,  and  next  picked  up  with  a  Dissolute  Plumber's 
Apprentice  of  Celtic  descent  and  cursed  with  the  Curse  of 
Eeuben.  He  had  read  Arthur  McEwen's  *San  Francisco 
News  Letter, '  and  my  heart  warmed  to  him.  He  was  pos- 
sessed of  the  modem  spirit,  exulted  in  modernity  in  fact, 
and  bent  his  efforts  toward  showing  me  the  latest  achieve- 
ments and  newest  improvements.  I  remember  he  took  me 
to  the  public  gymnasiums.  And  he  it  was  who  led  my  erring 
feet  back  to  the  Common." 

But  winter  was  coming  on,  and  Jack's  eye  was  fixed  on 
Montreal  and  Ottawa.  One  night  Boston  turned  bitter 
cold,  so  he  *'beat  it"  for  Lawrence,  where  he  forsook  his 
tenets  **and  slept  in  the  police  station"  for  warmth  and 
shelter. 

Tramping  for  recreation  in  summer  weather  was  all 
very  well,  but  once  he  was  in  autumnal  Canada,  neither 
gorgeous  scenery  nor  new  cities  could  restrain  the  thinly 
clad  homing  vagabond  from  making  the  best  westward 
speed  consonant  with  prudence.  At  Ottawa  he  succeeded  in 
partly  outfitting  with  an  eccentric  assortment  of  winter 


TRAMPING  179 

garments,  but  the  difficult  process  and  unsatisfactory  yield 
filled  him  with  disgust  and  haste  to  be  gone  from  so  unchar- 
itable a  **burg/*  It  was,  he  declared,  second  city  to  Wash- 
ington, D.  C,  where  he  had  for  a  fortnight  vainly  begged  a 
pair  of  shoes.  The  day  in  Ottawa  he  swears  he  walked 
forty  miles,  the  reward  of  his  **work*'  being  **shy''  of  a 
shirt;  while  the  pair  of  trousers  acquired  was  tight  to  ab- 
surdity and  showed  **all  the  signs  of  an  early  disintegra- 
tion.'* It  was  equally  hard  for  a  *^bo**  to  extort  food; 
but  finally  this  one  obtained  a  surprisingly  large  parcel. 
When  hungrily  opened  in  a  vacant  lot,  it  turned  out  to  be 
inexplicably  composed  of  more  kinds  of  cake  than  he  had 
ever  thought  possible  of  man's — or  woman's — ingenuity. 
Cake  being  the  pet  aversion  of  the  blowed-in-the-glass  stiff, 
he  owns  to  fairly  shedding  tears  over  that  **  multitudinous 
pastry. ' '  Not  yet  having  cut  his  eventually  large  and  cav- 
ernous sugar-tooth,  he  declined  in  choicest  idiom  to  partake 
of  the  saccharine  muchness.  However,  at  the  very  next 
house,  his  appealing  orbs  bought  him  an  entirely  edible 
setdown  from  a  beautiful  French  woman. 

Across  from  Canada  he  stole  passage,  the  determined 
train  crews  granting  little  margin  of  repose.  It  amused 
him,  those  thousands  of  miles  of  the  ten  thousand  he  com- 
puted that  he  covered  that  year,  to  attempt  overtaking  one 
hobo  whose  **monaker"  of  **Skysail  Jack,"  carved  with 
its  latest-passing  dates  along  the  route,  aroused  sleeping 
sea  memories.  Himself  now  long  since  a  ** comet"  and 
** tramp-royal"  in  his  own  right,  Jack  managed  one  night  to 
pass  the  other  and  keep  ahead  all  across  Manitoba,  carving 
or  painting  his  old  monaker  of  ** Sailor  Jack"  for  the  other's 
benefit.  Then  **Skysail"  went  by  also  at  night,  and  led 
across  Alberta,  always  a  day  in  advance.  Again  our  Jack, 
in  company  with  a  member  of  the  old  Boo  Gang  of  Oakland 
who  had  fallen  upon  evil  times,  nearly  caught  the  fleeing 
**Skysail"  somewhere  along  the  Fraser  River,  in  British 
Columbia;  but  when  he  reached  Vancouver  the  jaunty, 


180      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

elusive  sailorman  had  taken  ship  across  the  Western  ocean, 
and  never  did  the  two  meet. 

** Truly,  Skysail  Jack/'  his  brother-tramp  Jack  London 
rendered  honor,  **you  were  a  tramp-royal,  and  your  mate 
was  'the  wind  that  tramps  the  world.'  '' 

A  week  after  Jack  had  crawled  out  from  under  a  passen- 
ger coach  in  Vancouver,  British  Columbia,  he,  too,  took 
passage  on  his  homeland  coast  waters,  stoking  his  way 
southward  on  the  Umatilla  to  San  Francisco. 

And  now  for  the  account  of  the  interruption  in  his  New 
York  sojourn.  I  place  it  here  in  order  better  to  illustrate 
Jack  London's  outlook  upon  his  return  to  California,  in 
relation  to  immediate  issues  as  regarded  their  telling 
weight  upon  his  whole  future. 

This  happening  was  but  the  climax  to  inductions  he  had 
already  made  as  corollaries  of  his  entire  history  to  date. 
It  set  immovably  certain  malleable  stuff  of  his  being,  im- 
pelling him  to  synthesize,  out  of  an  extraordinary  practical 
knowledge  for  one  still  so  young,  a  simple,  forthright  phil- 
osophy of  economics.  At  least,  it  appealed  to  him  as  the 
most  applicable  of  any  he  had  found  to  the  anarchic  social 
scheme  that  had  arisen  and  persisted  through  Capitalism, 
and  which  he  could  contemplate  only  as  man's  shame  to 
man  under  the  free  light  of  heaven. 

Jack  and  the  aforementioned  fallen  member  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania Bar  had  left  Gotham  together  for  a  side- jaunt  to 
Niagara  Falls.  And  no  one  was  ever  more  rapt  than  Jack 
London  over  the  incomparable  cascade.  ''Once  my  eyes 
were  filled  with  that  wonder-vision  of  down-rushing  water, 
I  was  lost,"  he  says.  Afternoon  and  sunset,  he  could  not 
tear  himself  away.  "Night  came  on,  a  beautiful  night  of 
moonlight, ' '  and  still  he  lingered  upon  that  sounding  glory 
of  waters.  Near  midnight,  dinnerless  except  for  the  feast 
of  beauty,  he  pulled  himself  together  and  looked  about  for 
a  place  to  sleep.  The  night  being  warm,  without  covering 
he  slept  in  the  grass  of  a  field.    Waking  at  five,  too  early  to 


TRAMPING  181 

** batter*'  for  breakfast,  still  mazed  with  the  splendor  of 
what  he  had  seen  overnight,  he  thought  to  return  to  the 
falls  for  a  couple  of  hours.  In  the  silent  town  of  Niagara 
Falls  he  saw  walking  toward  him  three  men,  apparently 
hoboes.  Two  of  them  were  so,  and  one  of  the  two  at  close 
range  he  knew  for  his  lawyer  friend,  who  had  separated 
from  him  at  the  falls  in  the  evening,  in  the  (to  him)  larger 
interest  of  **grub.'' 

Alas  for  the  close  range  that  brought  Jack  within  recog- 
nizing distance  of  the  rueful  ex-attorney.  It  was  also  within 
nabbing  reach  of  the  central  figure,  an  industrious  **buir' 
who,  because  Jack  was  unable  to  name  a  hotel  in  a  town  un- 
familiar to  him,  promptly  took  him  into  custody,  despite  his 
glib  lie  that  he  had  just  arrived.  Into  the  city  jail  the  trio 
were  marshaled,  and  searched  and  registered.  Jack's  case 
was  the  most  dubious,  for  the  name  he  gave.  Jack  Drake, 
did  not  tally  with  some  letters  in  his  pockets  that  happened 
to  be  addressed  in  his  true  name.  He  was  never  able  to  re- 
call which  was  recorded  on  the  blotter. 

So  far  so  good,  he  thought — the  town  was  strict  in  the 
matter  of  vagrants,  and  he  had  been  hauled  in  through  his 
own  carelessness.  He  felt  a  bit  sheepish  to  recollect  his 
mother's  warnings.  But  in  court,  where  he  made  one  of 
sixteen  prisoners,  there  were  no  official  personages  save 
a  judge  and  a  pair  of  bailiffs — no  counsel,  no  witnesses, 
NO  CHANCE.  Simplicity  of  procedure  was  all  very  well; 
but  this  clockwork  execution  of  justice  outdistanced  his  ut- 
most dreams  of  efficacy.  The  judge  called  a  name.  A  hobo 
stood  up.  A  bailiff  droned,  ** Vagrancy,  your  honor.'* 
** Thirty  days,**  enunciated  the  court,  and  the  hobo  sat  down 
while  another  rose  to  his  name. 

And  Jack,  even  he,  no  milk-and-water  stripling  innocent 
of  the  careless  injustice  of  the  world  at  large,  could  not  be- 
lieve his  ears  that  were  still  ringing  with  the  thunderous 
organ  music  of  Niagara  River.  He  thought  of  his  Ameri- 
can school  history;  of  Sir  William  London's  sacrifices 


182      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

in  the  cause  of  freedom ;  of  all  his  male  progenitors  down 
the  fighting  line  for  democracy.  He  reviewed  what  he 
could  remember  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  as 
he  had  studied  it  for  recitation ;  and  then  he  dropped  back 
with  a  thud  to  the  cold,  irrefragable  fact  that  his  turn  was 
approaching  in  this  chamber  of  relentless  practises.  .  .  . 
Bosh,  he  brought  himself  up  presently;  these  hoboes  were 
dubs,  and  deserved  all  they'd  get  of  the  city  jail.  Hell! 
he'd  show  them  a  few.  His  ideals  recrudesced  warm  and 
bright.  One  of  the  liberties  those  ancestors  of  his  had 
scrapped  for  was  the  right  of  trial  by  jury.  A  demand  for 
this  could  not  be  denied  in  any  court  of  law  in  the  Republic 
of  America.  Could  it  not?  Why,  his  own  *' trial"  was 
ended  and  the  next  hobo 's  begun  before  Jack  could  realize 
that  the  judge's  peremptory  **Shut  up!"  had  cut  short  the 
blossom  of  his  first  sentence  that  had  burst  simultaneously 
with  the  court's  utterance. 

He  was  dazed.  ^^Here  was  I,  under  sentence,  after  a 
farce  of  a  trial  wherein  I  was  denied  not  only  my  right  of 
trial  by  jury,  but  my  right  to  plead  guilty  or  not  guilty. ' ' — 
Habeas  corpus!  there,  he  knew  about  that.  So  he  asked  for 
a  lawyer.  They  laughed  at  him  in  the  jail  corridor.  Well, 
they  had  him — that  judge  was  the  quickest  man  he  had 
ever  tried  to  talk  against.  But  wait  till  he  got  out  of  jail. 
He  'd  be  good  as  gold  while  inside — it  paid ;  and  he  was  a 
diplomat,  even  if  he  did  sometimes  nap.  But  let  him  once 
get  out,  and  there 'd  be  the  biggest  noise  and  odor  of  a 
scandal  that  ever  was  let  loose  in  the  uninformed  press  of 
the  U.  S.  A. 

Jail!  It  turned  out  to  be  not  mere  jail  but  Penitentiary 
stripes  for  all  the  sixteen,  the  only  offense  of  the  most  of 
whom  had  been  homelessness.  Jack,  erstwhile  patriotic 
son  of  a  patriotic  veteran,  was  handcuffed  small  white 
wrist  to  big  black  paw  of  a  huge,  happy-go-lucky  negro, 
equally  guiltless  of  felony,  and  placed  in  the  very  vanguard 


TRAMPING  183 

of  the  beaten  procession  that  marched  to  the  train  for 
Buffalo. 

Please,  I  beg,  picture  it,  just  once  and  honestly,  any 
one  of  you  who  fought  to  impede  Jack  London,  man  and 
artist,  every  hard-won,  invincible  inch  of  his  way  until  your 
tardy  homage  only  bent  at  last  to  tired  eyes  and  lips  closed 
in  death.  Just  once  and  honestly,  I  beg,  put  yourself  in 
the  fine  skin  of  that  burning  young  patriot  being  unmade 
because  men  were  needed  for  the  rock-pile.  Then,  just  once 
and  honestly,  do  you  marvel  that  patriotism  took  on  new 
lineaments  in  his  ideal!  For  the  rest  of  his  life,  until 
Mexico  and  Germania  threatened  his  country.  Jack  Lon- 
don's only  tender  connotation  of  the  word  patriotism  as 
applied  to  capitalist  civilization  was  the  fact  that  his  father 
and  mine  were  single-minded  veterans  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln's victorious  forces. 

Talk  about  sudden  conversions  at  the  Mercy  Seat !  He 
had  pretended  them,  even  striven  to  experience  them,  more 
than  once  at  revivals,  but  had  emerged  spiritually  un- 
touched. But  here  in  New  York  State  there  was  no  mercy. 
And  the  ruling  class  of  America,  finally,  upon  that  day 
of  ultimate  outrage  to  his  logic  and  his  sensibilities, 
through  its  own  uncaring  stupidity  forfeited  that  which 
might  have  become  an  ornament  to  itself,  what  of  Jack 
London's  temperamental  leaning  toward  the  excellence  of 
strength.  It  was  of  such  a  being  as  this  exuberant,  protest- 
ing boy,  that  one  who  has  been  acclaimed  Dean  of  Ameri- 
can Letters,  many  years  afterward,  even  in  the  face  of 
favors  received,  declared:  **  Jack  London  is  a  self-confessed 
felon,  and  ought  to  be  behind  the  bars  to-day." 

That  he  was  not  made  into  a  dangerous  criminal,  as 
were  many  of  his  chance  mates,  was  not  due  to  the  masters. 
His  brain  and  eye  missed  no  iota  of  cruel  wrong  of  the  penal 
institution  in  itself  and  in  its  administration.  His  com- 
mon sense  that  made  him  from  moment  to  moment  follow 
the  lead  of  the  wiser  convicts  to  the  playing  of  politics 


184      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

that  in  short  order  created  him  a  trusty— these  faculties 
enabled  him  to  convert  the  month  of  durance  into  a  power- 
ful ally  of  mental  growth.  With  customary  abandon  he 
gave  himself  to  the  game,  and  went  observing  instant  by 
instant. 

Here,  to  be  sure,  he  might  have  been  deflected  into 
a  consideration  of  the  wisdom  of  eliminating  the  unfit, 
which  would  have  led  him  to  the  pursuance  whole-souled  of 
oligarchy's  high  awards.  It  was  the  hot  heart  of  him  that 
interposed  before  the  cool  weighing  of  his  reason,  and  he 
would  make  no  terms  with  the  enemy  of  the  underdog.  But 
true  to  his  quality,  that  abiding  saneness  just  as  uncom- 
promisingly determined  that  he  scale  the  social  shambles 
he  saw  butchering  the  careers  of  unprophetic  or  indolent 
comrades.  Although  he  honored  the  martyrs  of  old,  their 
method  could  never  be  for  him.  He  would  himself  first 
climb  out  of  the  pit,  that  he  might  live  to  reach  a  hand  to  the 
fellow  who  could  not  rise  by  himself. 

One  may  thank  that  princely  ego  of  Jack  London's  which 
triumphed  to  serve,  that  there  was  any  boyhood  left  in 
him  when  he  had  doffed  the  stripes  and  emerged  shaven 
headed  from  the  great  gray  house  where  he  had  been  con- 
signed by  the  majesty  of  Niagara  Falls  police  court.  And 
he  had  learned  how  best  to  serve  both  himself  and  those  still 
incarcerated,  which  was  by  making  himself,  upon  his  release, 
very  small  in  the  matter  of  immediate  protest.  Loud 
mouthed  ones  discharged  during  his  own  occupancy  of  a 
cell,  had  shortly  returned  very  silent  and  very  sore.  So  he 
walked  exceeding  soft ;  exceeding  quietly  he  stole  under  the 
first  New  York  and  Pennsylvania  train  bound  southeast. 
More  carefully  than  all  else  did  he  avoid  coming  within 
tagging  reach  of  any  cop  in  Buffalo,  for  amongst  other 
teachers  in  the  **pen''  were  the  men  who  had  served  their 
thirty  days  for  vagrancy  and  run  forthwith  again  into  the 
winnowing  arms  of  the  same  or  other  officers.    Some  had 


-^ 


TRAMPING  185 

been  committed  a  second  and  third  time,  according  to  their 
degree  of  stupidity. 

Remembering  the  monstrous  cruelties  of  the  peniten- 
tiary in  the  course  of  administering  criminal  *^ justice,'' 
Jack  not  unnaturally  concluded  all  State  prisons  were  alike. 
It  became  almost  second-nature  for  him  to  take  to  nimble 
heels  whenever  a  policeman  hove  in  sight.  In  the  **pen''  he 
had  soon  ceased  from  cursing  his  failure  to  jump  out  that 
morning  in  Niagara  Falls,  because  of  the  tremendous  eye- 
opener  the  prison  was  to  him  upon  the  nether-scenes  of 
society.  Nothing  could  better  exhibit  the  rottenness  of  the 
social  structure  than  this  mad  manhandling  of  human  po- 
tentialities, in  need  rather  of  wise  physicians  for  mental 
as  well  as  physical  deficiencies.  Jack,  being  essentially 
healthy,  shook  himself  free  as  of  yore  from  the  unnormality 
of  the  thing,  and  went  on  his  way  rejoicing  in  escape.  But 
this  time  it  was  with  a  deeper  difference  than  ever  before. 
Read  in  **The  Road*'  his  two  sections  entitled  ** Pinched'* 
and  **The  Pen,"  for  a  hint  of  what  he  calls  the  ** unprint- 
able" details  of  what  with  his  own  eyes  he  saw  in  the  Erie 
County  Penitentiary  in  1894.  **They  were  unthinkable  to 
me  until  I  saw  them,"  he  avows,  **and  I  was  no  spring 
chicken  in  the  ways  of  the  world  and  the  awful  abysses  of 
human  degradation." 

When  Jack  this  time  passed  homeward  through  the 
Golden  Gate  of  the  West,  it  was  eyes  front  to  the  exi- 
gencies of  his  future;  and  there  was  a  new  look  in  those 
eyes — ^wide,  grave,  imperious.  He  had  figured  it  out,  once 
and  for  all.  He  had  been  wont  to  glorify  his  beautiful 
youth's  muscle  and  **silk."  Where  had  it  got  him?  What 
had  it  bought  him!  Where  would  it  land  him!  Tell  him 
that  I  Each  time  he  had  tried  it  out,  he,  fit  among  the  fit, 
had  been  exploited  for  a  paltry  wage — or  none,  when  it 
came  to  a  penitentiary  rock-pile.  Being  obsessed  with  love 
of  life  that  should  go  with  such  a  physique,  he  confessed 


186      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

terror  as  to  what  would  happen  when  he  grew  older  and  had 
lost  his  silk,  whenas  he  should  be  **  unable  to  work  shoulder 
to  shoulder  with  the  strong.*'  The  vaunted  dignity  of 
manual  labor,  as  he  had  heard  it  expounded  by  teacher  and 
preacher  and  politician,  suffered  a  total  eclipse.  He  had 
informed  himself  as  to  the  doings  in  the  cellar-pit  of  society. 
These  had  shown  him  that  the  men  without  trades  were 
helpless,  and  the  ones  with  trades  were  obliged  to  belong  to 
unions  in  order  to  work  at  those  trades.  Unions  were  forced 
to  maintain  constant  war  with  employers'  unions,  which 
came  back  at  them  in  turn.  Therefore,  no  trade  for  him — 
and  no  criminality  either.  He  would  work  up  out  of  the  pit, 
but  not  with  his  muscle.  In  short,  brains  paid,  properly 
used,  and  not  brawn.  His  economic  interpretations  sanc- 
tioned the  decision,  for  himself,  that  brain,  and  brain  only, 
would  he  sell. 

Here  he  might  have  switched  to  the  track  taken  by 
the  hero  he  created  in  *  *  Martin  Eden, ' '  and  become  technio 
ally  an  aristocrat,  with  little  care  for  those  he  was  easily 
superior  enough  to  leave  in  the  shambles.  But  no ;  he  would 
use  his  potent  intelligence  to  double  purpose.  His  choice, 
and  the  use  he  put  it  to,  are  the  most  eloquent  illustrations 
of  his  nobility  and  integrity. 


CHAPTER  Xin 

HIGH   SCHOOL 
19th  Tear 

WHEN  Jack  London,  too  late  to  enter  at  the  begin- 
ning, jumped  midway  into  his  first  High  School 
term,  he  was  ** driving  many  horses,"  to  use  a  favorite  ex- 
pression. One  was  Book  Education,  another  Socialism,  a 
third  the  requisite  Job,  the  fourth  Social  Usage,  and  so  on, 
with  all  their  intricate  harness. 

With  very  unorthodox  views  on  labor  and  capital,  he  was 
still  orthodox  enough  to  believe  that  the  success  he  craved 
must  rest  upon  classical  learning.  Even  before  the  Lily 
Maid  brought  her  refining  influence  to  bear  upon  his  train- 
ing, he  was  soaring  along  in  his  High  School  classes 
toward  Berkeley's  academic  eucalyptus  groves.  It  will  not 
do  for  any  woman,  or  man,  either,  to  rise  after  Jack  Lon- 
don's death  and  say,  **It  was  I  who  educated  Jack  London, 
or  started  him  to  educate  himself  toward  college ;  I  put  the 
idea  into  his  head.  I  taught  him  the  English  that  made  him 
famous.  In  short,  I  made  Jack  London.*'  There  has  been 
a  tendency  on  the  part  of  a  few  self-advertising  souls  to 
hint  such  claims ;  but  any  one  truly  acquainted  with  any  part 
of  Jack's  make-up  must  in  all  honesty  realize  that,  no  mat- 
ter what  the  helping  hand,  he  **made  himself,"  upon  rigid 
lines  that  he  had  established  for  himself,  until  of  his  large- 
ness he  spread  the  lines  to  embrace  all  attainable  life  and 
erudition.  He  was  by  far  too  unique  to  be  influenced  vitally 
or  permanently  by  any  single  restraining  or  even  propelling 
touch. 

Eelentlessly,  as  the  illuminating  months  went  by,  head 

187 


188      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

high  he  repudiated  convention  after  convention  of  belief 
as  it  proved  non-essential  to  his  advancement ;  still,  he  held 
to  the  belief  that  * 'education ' '  was  indispensable.  Fel- 
lows who  did  things,  big  things,  must  finish  their  school- 
ing first ;  he  heard  it  on  every  side.  Schooling  it  should  be, 
from  its  first  word  to  his  last  degree  at  the  University.  He 
had  not  meditated  the  apt  query  as  to  why  some  of  man- 
kind's brightest  adornments  had  neglected  to  march  up  the 
grades  in  the  way  properly  constituted  individuals  are  sup- 
posed to  march ;  nor  had  he  then  spurned  what  he  came  to 
scorn  as  **the  bourgeois  valuation  put  upon  the  university 
pigskin. ' '  This  I  take  from  a  letter  written  to  a  schoolgirl 
two  years  before  his  death.  But  in  the  year  1894,  to  be 
called  **a  college  man''  was  his  ambition  as  guaranty  of 
unquestionable  excellence.  So  far  there  had  not  dawned 
upon  him  the  priceless  worth  of  his  first-hand  experience 
to  a  writing  career;  or,  if  this  treasure  did  suggest  itself 
as  part  of  the  equipment,  it  was  in  secondary  measure.  At 
least,  it  must  pass  through  the  alembic  of  rule-of-thumb 
culture. 

Upon  Jack's  return  to  Oakland  from  The  Eoad,  his  good 
luck  it  was  to  find  John  London  improved  in  health  and 
holding  down  his  situation  as  special  officer  on  the  police 
force,  with  pay  sufficient  for  the  little  household.  This  left 
the  boy,  all  on  fire  to  study,  at  liberty  to  concentrate. 

He  set  about  forming  work-habits  that  clung  all  his  life. 
In  the  pretty  white  cottage  on  Twenty-second  Avenue,  be- 
tween Sixteenth  and  Seventeenth  Streets,  his  mother  fixed 
up  a  roomy  bed-chamber  for  his  *  *  den. ' '  In  the  matter  of  a 
bed,  he  asserted  himself  in  favor  of  a  large  and  comfortable 
one — **  Because  I  shall  spend  much  of  my  time  in  it,  keeping 
warm  while  I  study,"  he  planned.  Since  good  beds  were  a 
weakness  of  his  mother,  the  wish  was  gratified  without  pro- 
test. **I  always  have  good  beds  in  my  house  if  I  haven't 
anything  else,"  was  her  boast. 

Opposite  the  big  bed,  squarely  against  the  window-sill, 


HIGH  SCHOOL  189 

Jack  set  a  plain  table  large  enough  for  study  books  and 
writing  materials,  to  buy  which  Eliza  had  advanced  him 
money;  and  by  the  bed  a  small  stand  to  carry  a  reading- 
lamp,  one  of  the  ** student'*  variety,  with  books,  scribble- 
pads,  and  pencils.  In  one  comer  a  dresser,  of  the  style 
with  a  long  mirror,  two  large  drawers,  and  several  small 
ones  rising  on  the  right  of  the  glass,  took  care  of  his  meager 
wardrobe  and  shaving  outfit. 

The  furnishing  was  completed  by  a  chair  at  the  table 
which  at  night  supplemented  the  small  bedside  lamp-stand 
to  hold  a  dish  of  fruit  and  his  cigarettes  and  matches.  And 
woe  to  any  who  should  from  a  motive  of  whatsoever  virtu- 
ous orderliness  misplace  an  item  of  his  paraphernalia. 
After  his  mother  had  been  possessed  of  one  of  her  **  clean- 
ing streaks''  in  his  absence  (who  of  us  has  not  agonized 
from  this  uncomprehending  and  indefensible  madness  in 
one's  elders!),  Jack  would  rage  through  the  cottage,  storm- 
ing that  he  could  n't  find  a  damned  thing.  Flora,  in  self-de- 
fense, learned  to  intimate  mildly  that  **  Eliza  was  over,  and 
thought  she  'd  tidy  up  a  bit,"  because,  forsooth,  he  never 
dared  storm  at  Eliza.  As  he  admitted :  **I  knew  better  than 
to  yell  at  Eliza,  for  she  'd  talk  back  at  me  twice  as  hard." 

Here  in  the  den,  air  blue  with  smoke  of  cigarettes,  he 
made  his  smashing  offensive  on  the  books,  and  prepared 
himself  for  ** exams,"  picking  up  where  he  had  left  off 
when  he  had  been  graduated  years  before  from  Grammar. 
When  exhausted  from  bending  unheeded  hours  over  the 
table,  he  retreated  to  the  wide  bed  where,  propped  on  huge 
pillows,  he  continued  to  *Mig"  until  dawn.  Night  after 
night,  a  well  meaning  neighbor,  Mrs.  Aldridge,  seeing  the 
light,  worked  herself  into  a  state  of  pity  for  Jack's  mother, 
poor  worried  soul  that  she  must  be,  sitting  up  all  hours 
waiting  for  a  wastrel  son  to  return.  Finally  she  and  her 
daughter  walked  over  one  evening  to  make  Mrs.  London's 
acquaintance  and,  if  agreeable,  to  sit  up  with  her,  only  to 


190      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

be  informed  by  Flora  that  the  lamp  illumined  the  pages  of 
her  student  son. 

But  he  must  have  some  sort  of  exercise,  and  the  loan  of  a 
bicycle  by  another  neighbor  gave  him  something  to  cope 
with  bodily.  It  was  one  of  those  fearful  and  wonderful 
pioneer  objects  comprised  of  a  wheel  of  expansive  diameter 
with  another  and  tiny  one  behind — the  old  ** ordinary' *  of 
painful  memory.  Before  an  early  breakfast,  that  he  might 
practise  unseen  of  delighted  passers.  Jack  proceeded  to 
master  the  thing  with  vigor  and  dispatch.  *^At  first," 
Eliza  relates,  ^'^he  was  most  of  the  time  sprawled  about  the 
ground;  and  he'd  come  over  to  my  house  for  breakfast — 
bruised,  dripping  wet  and  red  in  the  face,  his  curls  all 
tousled,  fighting  mad,  and  explaining  carefully  what  slow 
work  it  was  getting  the  best  of  the  *  infernal  machine!' 
Then  he'd  burst  out  laughing  at  the  idea  of  how  he  must 
look  when  he  tangled  up  and  went  down  in  a  heap  with  it." 

When  he  started  going  daily  to  the  *  *  Oakland  High ' '  on 
Twelfth  between  Jefferson  and  Clay  Streets,  Eliza  pre- 
sented him  with  a  latest  model  of  the  low  *  *  safety  wheel. ' ' 
Speeding  to  and  fro,  bent  above  the  handle-bars,  he  some- 
times looked  aside  wistfully  to  the  estuary  that  several 
blocks  down  paralleled  the  Avenue,  wishing  he  had  leisure 
for  a  sailboat.  But  the  days  and  nights  were  all  too  short 
for  the  multitudinous  activities  he  had  engaged  in.  There 
were  shadows  beneath  his  eyes  from  lack  of  sleep  and  pallor 
under  the  vagabond  brown.  In  addition  to  class  work,  he 
wanted  to  contribute  stories  to  the  High  School  paper.  The 
^gis.  One  of  these,  done  in  the  medium  of  colloquial  road- 
kid  diction,  appeared  in  a  February  1895  issue,  entitled 
** Frisco  Kid's  Story,"  and  its  fresh  tone  and  touch  of 
sincere  pathos  created  a  breeze  in  school  circles.  '  *  The  yarns 
I  wrote  at  that  time  drew  little  upon  my  imagination,  but 
were  more  relations  of  real  incidents  than  anything  else," 
he  described  them. 

With  an  instinct  for  live  diction,  the  dead,  formalized 


HIGH  SCHOOL  191 

instruction  worked  a  bepuzzlement  in  him.  Miss  MoUie 
Connors,  instructor  in  languages,  gives  the  following  ex- 
ample : 

**One  morning,*'  she  relates,  **I  noticed  Jack  sitting  at 
his  desk  with  a  gloomy,  heart-breaking  look  on  his  face.  In 
front  of  him  lay  a  manuscript  that  had  been  so  marked  with 
a  criticizing  pencil  that  it  was  diflScult  to  read  the  original. 
*It's  no  use.  Miss  Mollie,'  he  said  in  reply  to  my  inquiry  as 
to  what  ailed  him.  'I'm  going  to  quit.  I  came  here  to  study 
English  because  I  thought  I  could  write ;  but  I  can't — look  at 
this  I '  I  managed  to  read  the  article,  corrected  by  a  teacher 
to  whom  pure  English  meant  so  much  more  than  talent: 

*  Never  mind.  Jack,'  I  said.    *I'm  going  to  tell  you  a  secret: 

*  The  only  trouble  is  that  you  can  write,  and  she  can 't.  You 
keep  right  on.'  " 

He  had  deliberated  earnestly  upon  a  pursuit  for  which 
he  should  qualify,  and  it  seemed  that  he  must  definitely 
abandon  music,  and  poetry,  and  other  alluring  ways  of  what 
he  had  thought  of  as  **the  wide  joyfields  of  art."  The 
more  he  pondered,  the  more  convinced  he  became  that  fic- 
tion writing  would  pay  the  best,  bringing  to  him  the  means 
of  good  living  for  himself  and  others.  In  writing  he  would 
still  be  creating  art,  which  seemed  necessary  to  a  full  reali- 
zation of  himself.  It  would  not  take  him  long,  he  figured,  to 
get  where  he  could  incorporate  art  and  beauty  into  form 
that  would  sell  for  several  dollars  a  column,  if  rumors  were 
dependable. 

From  one  ancestor  of  his  mother  at  least,  Jack  London 
inherited  stem  fixity  of  purpose  and  perseverance.  This 
Wellman  had  ** blown  in"  his  own  bank  and  all  others  of  his 
interests  for  the  construction  and  maintaining  of  what  was 
in  its  time  the  largest  blasting  furnace  in  the  iron  districts ; 
but,  like  some  of  Jack's  ideas,  it  was  in  advance  not  of  its 
need  but  its  recognition.  I  cannot  refrain  from  wondering 
if  he  had  not  set  up  for  his  motto  Washington  Irving's 
** Great  minds  have  purposes;  others  have  wishes." 


192      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

**Aiid  no  brother  of  mine  is  going  to  take  any  chewing 
tobacco  into  High  School  in  my  town,"  Eliza  announced  her 
disapproval  of  an  unsavory  habit  he  had  brought  home  from 
his  tramp  society.  Whereupon  Jack  submitted  the  excuse 
that  he  had  to  keep  chewing  incessantly,  when  he  was  not 
smoking  incessantly,  to  prevent  his  teeth  from  aching.  Suit- 
ing action  to  his  defense,  he  opened  his  square  jaws  and 
exhibited  an  array  of  cavities,  in  every  tooth  that  the 
Kelly's  Army  dentist  had  spared  from  his  forceps. 

**You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself — ^you  needn't 
have  had  a  mouth  like  that  if  you'd  taken  half -decent  care 
of  it, ' '  Eliza  scolded  full  righteously.  He  owned  she  was 
justified,  and  then  proffered  the  bargain  that  if  she  would 
get  him  some  new  upper-fronts,  and  have  the  cavities  filled, 
he  would  abandon  the  abhorred  *  ^  chewing. ' '  Which  he  did, 
except  on  one  or  two  surreptitious  occasions  when,  sailing 
and  fishing  up-river  for  a  rest,  alone  or  with  some  unre- 
generate  compatriot,  he  renewed  acquaintance  with  **plug 
cut." 

**Well,"  he  remarked  when  the  plate  had  been  adjusted, 
**here  I  am  with  my  first  store  teeth  and  my  first  tooth- 
brush I  ever  bought — I  got  them  both  at  the  same  time,  at 
nineteen  years  of  age." 

"Well,  it's  nothing  to  be  proud  of,"  his  sister  flashed 
back  with  rising  color.  **It's  your  own  fault,  because  you 
knew  better.  I  didn't  bring  you  up  that  way!  And  I 
wouldn't  brag  about  it  before  anybody.  It's  no  credit  to 
you. ' ' 

For  quite  beyond  her  it  was  that  he,  always  shouting  for 
bath  and  towels,  *^nice  woolly  ones,  you  know,"  or  brush  and 
comb  and  razor,  and  who  used  a  whisk-broom  assiduously 
on  his  shabbiest  suit,  should  have  slipped  up  in  this  matter 
of  caring  for  his  teeth.  He  had  no  excuse  save  **0h,  I 
was  always  busy,  or  reading,  or  interested  in  something, 
and  forgot  it!" 

Jack's  first  mishap  while  he  and  the  new  plate  were  be- 


JACK    LONDON 


HIGH  SCHOOL  193 

coming  accustomed,  was  upon  a  day  when  he  rode  the  spic 
and  span  ^'safety''  to  call  upon  a  girl  schoolmate.  Coast- 
ing down  hill,  a  violent  sneeze  ejected  the  teeth,  and  in  his 
lightning  effort  to  catch  them  midfall,  they  and  he  and  the 
wheel  went  down  together.  Although  his  sensitiveness  was 
acute,  he  would  hide  it  at  such  times  under  a  bold  brus- 
querie.  Once,  I  remember^  at  the  Piedmont  Swimming 
Baths  in  Oakland,  he  lost  his  plate  in  the  tank,  and  failing 
to  recover  it  by  crawling  along  the  bottom  in  eight  feet  of 
water,  he  finally  gave  up  secret  methods  and  offered  a  dol- 
lar to  the  boy  who  would  find  it  for  him.  Great  hilarity 
ensued,  in  which  he  as  noisily  shared,  and  there  followed  a 
mighty  splashing  and  engulfment  of  small  divers.  And 
when  one  strangling  brat  had  emerged  successful,  the  owner 
concealed  his  blushes  under  water  while  he  slipped  the  teeth 
into  place.  *  *  Be  a  good  sport,  no  matter  how  it  hurts, '  *  was 
the  word. 

Already  Jack  was  conspicuous  in  propaganda  work  for 
the  old  Socialist  Labor  Party.  Yes,  he  had  some  time  back 
discovered  the  name  for  what  he  had  become :  Socialist — 
though  he  had  been  made  aware  from  his  fearless  start 
that  the  word  was  a  grief  in  the  ears  of  **nice"  persons 
regardful  of  bourgeois  peace  and  order.  But,  born  rebel 
against  anything  less  than  a  square  deal,  and  personally 
ambitious  into  the  bargain,  he  subscribed  in  effect  to  the 
maxim  that  **  Satisfaction  with  existing  things  is  damna- 
tion." Eager  though  he  was  to  benefit  mankind,  early 
in  the  game,  to  the  questions  **You  hope  to  cure  social  ills 
with  socialism!  Do  you  think  it  will  be  long  in  coming!'' 
Jack  replied:  **I  don't  know;  the  student  quits  prophesy- 
ing early  in  the  action." 

Now  this  particular  steed  in  his  speeding  team,  Social- 
ism, did  not  seem  to  step  precisely  with  sedate  ethics  in  the 
High  School;  but  he  had  much  information  to  plunder,  and 
would  not  worry.    Blithely  would  he  remove  obstacles  as 


194      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

they  arose,  and  it  should  be  easy  enough.  He  would  reduce 
all  difficulties  to  their  simplest  forms — which  indeed  often 
abolishes  difficulty — and  proceed  to  handle  the  same  as 
simply.  In  a  fine  degree  Jack  had  that  consciousness  which 
Wells  has  said  is  discord  evoking  the  will  to  adjust  itself. 

No  Laodicean,  Jack.  His  facing  to  the  world  must  be 
direct  and  unmistakable,  though  composed  of  many  and 
mobile  features,  for  the  countenance  of  his  soul  was  not 
created  rigid  except  in  the  basic  integrities.  Kampant  in- 
dividual was  he,  in  every  fiber.  But  how  about  the  next  fel- 
low, his  brother  or  sister  individual?  Evidently,  from  his 
observation  about  the  world,  just  the  right  chance  was  not 
accorded  them  all.  He  happened  to  be  husky  and  could 
make  his  own  berth,  though  even  he  had  to  strain  unduly 
to  survive,  and  he  had  come  to  see  that  countless  ones  were 
unable  to  endure  the  race.  He  thought  of  child-labor  as  he 
had  known  it  and  as  he  saw  it  progressing  in  the  land.  And 
the  mangling  mercilessness  of  commerce — the  industrial  ac- 
cidents, the  scrap-heap  of  cripples  and  mendicants ;  for  the 
unprotected  machine,  since  he  had  worked  at  it,  had  not 
been  improved  upon.  He  did  not  have  to  take  the  say-so  of 
others:  he  had  his  own  experience  to  tally  by.  The  boy^s 
heart  beat  for  poor  blind  humanity ;  and  perhaps,  after  all, 
the  higher-ups  did  not  know  how  wrong  things  were,  just 
as  the  cannery  owner's  daughter,  lying  in  the  cushions  of 
her  rumbling  victoria  with  its  silver-clanking  high-steppers, 
could  not  possibly  have  dreamed  of  the  conditions  in  the 
converted  stable  cannery. 

So  he  founded  his  early  and  persistent  hopes  upon  the 
latent  nobilities  he  felt  were  leaven  in  the  human  of  all 
classes.  These  classes  should  be  got  together.  He  groped 
for  the  best  way  of  helping.  The  spreading  of  Socialism 
was  the  best  solution  that  presented  as  he  reared  in  protest 
against  the  injustice  of  life — and  of  nature,  too :  never  did  he 
cease  to  marvel  at  the  slight  consideration  of  nature  toward 
her  children.    There  seemed  to  be  so  much  wrong  all  down 


HIGH  SCHOOL  195 

the  line.  Justice  appealed  as  such  a  simple  thing,  if  only 
everybody  could  agree  on  ways  and  means.  Why  could  not 
every  one  perceive  what  was  right  and  what  wrong?  Surely, 
any  veriest  boob  could  see  that  it  was  not  fair  or  even  sens- 
ible for  an  unformed  child  of  school  age,  or  an  invalid  female 
of  whatsoever  age,  to  be  obliged  to  do  hard  work  for  bread 
and  meat !  It  was  worth  fighting  for,  to  try  to  bring  things 
right.  He  would  do  his  part  in  showing  them  what  he  had 
found.  But  why  should  he,  particularly  he,  who  was  so  very 
busy,  have  to  do  the  fighting?  Why  were  not  those  with 
leisure  and  money  doing  the  work  of  balancing  things?  Why 
could  not  they  see  for  themselves,  without  being  shown? 
And,  worse,  he  found  that  some  who  were  convinced,  ac- 
tually took  the  opposite  tack,  and  fought  against  the  obvious 
right.  It  was  not  as  if  the  down-and-outs  he  had  known  had 
originated  from  the  slums.  Quite  the  reverse;  in  his 
travel  he  had  learned  that  more  often  they  were  drafted 
from  the  more  sensitive  ones,  well  above  the  slum  class, 
while  many  were  far  above  it,  and  then  some.  Besides, 
there  ought  not  to  be  any  slums. 

So  it  should  be  Socialism  for  him.  *^  And  socialism,  when 
the  last  word  is  said,''  he  saw  it,  *'is  merely  a  new  economic 
and  political  system  whereby  more  men  can  get  food  to  eat. 
In  short.  Socialism  is  an  improved  food-getting  efficiency.'* 
One  must  have  food,  and  plenty  of  food,  to  attain  to  other 
kinds  of  efficiency.  From  his  first  socialistic  conceptions, 
there  was  never  anything  of  the  soft-headed  genus  of  hu- 
manitarian about  the  boy.  His  small  feet  were  rodted  in  the 
soil  of  practicality,  the  while  his  young  head  plotted  eman- 
cipation of  the  common  man  who  was  his  blood-brother 
under  the  red  banner  of  democracy.  The  anarchists  made 
him  laugh — every  man  for  himself,  and  devil  take  the  hind- 
most; anarchy  would  abolish  law,  and  mankind  could  not 
thrive  socially  without  law  and  obedience  to  the  same,  for 
the  good  of  the  many.  He  had  played  ducks  and  drakes  with 
some  pretty  good  laws  himself,  laws  he  had  known  were 


196      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

fairly  just  even  in  his  trifling  with  them.  That  had  been 
in  youth's  free  prankishness,  and  in  protest  against  laws 
that  had  already  been  broken  over  his  own  back ;  so  he  could 
not  take  his  past  evasions  too  seriously. 

Very  well,  Socialism,  as  flatly  opposed  to  Anarchism, 
stood  for  law,  more  law,  better  law,  and  law  enforced  as  it 
should  be — for  everybody,  employer  and  employed,  for  man, 
and  woman,  and  child.  His  old  diffidence  cropped  up,  and 
he  did  not  then  or  ever  like  to  speak  publicly ;  but  he  would 
enter  the  lists  in  the  holy  cause  of  propaganda  for  this  lofty 
religion  that  had  come  to  him. 

With  eloquent  tongue  preaching,  and  eye,  rejoicing  in 
the  smack  of  the  game  that  entered  into  his  every  activity, 
slanted  on  the  listening,  closing  police,  he  was  promptly  ar- 
rested for  street  speaking.  Thus  he  scored  the  first  telling 
notoriety  that  accompanied  bringing  his  politics  into  prom- 
inence. 

And  then  he,  clarion  trumpet  of  law-building  Socialism, 
was  contrariously  and  ignominiously  dubbed  by  the  capital- 
ist papers  as  Anarchist,  red-shirt,  dynamiter,  and  what  not ! 
He  could  only  foam  at  the  mouth  over  the  impotence  of 
justice  and  the  unfairness  of  destiny.  Oh,  well — it  was  all 
right;  he  had  expected  too  much  at  the  beginning.  Any- 
way, he  had  done  something  toward  waving  the  sacred 
blood-red  flag  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Man,  and  would  keep 
on  waving  if  he  died  for  it ! 

Jack's  efforts  on  curb  and  soap-box  did  not  make  for 
any  especial  popularity  with  Mr.  McChesney,  principal  of 
the  High  School,  nor  with  the  teachers ;  any  more  than  did 
certain  baffling  fallacies  he  introduced  into  algebraic  prob- 
lems for  his  own  entertainment  and  their  undoing.  His  gen- 
eral progress  was  meteoric  enough  to  command  their  re- 
spect and  forgiveness,  however.  Those  photographic 
retinas  of  his  wide  eyes,  together  with  an  alert  brain  that 
missed  nothing,  and  long-pursued  omnivorous  reading, 
made  most  of  his  studies  mere  play  and  granted  much 


HIGH  SCHOOL  197 

time  for  further  reading  which  a  half-dozen  family-cards 
helped  the  old  public  library  furnish  him.  Ue  has  told  that 
it  was  possible  for  him  to  repeat  almost  word  for  word  a 
column  once  gone  over,  say  of  a  newspaper ;  but  except  in- 
sofar as  it  served  to  facilitate  recitations  or  entertain  so- 
cially, he  soon  gave  up  developing  the  faculty.  * '  That  sort 
of  thing,  carried  to  excess,  is  a  detriment  to  larger  func- 
tioning," he  once  explained  me  his  view.  **I  made  use  of 
it  for  skimming  the  cream  from  pages,  as  you  see  me  do. 
Before  long,  I  had  fixed  the  habit  of  making  written  notes 
of  details,  in  order  to  save  my  brain  for  general  principles. 
If  one  forms  and  retains  principles,  the  details  can  be  re- 
constructed easily  enough.'*  When  Jack  London's  elder 
daughter,  Joan,  entered  High  School  precociously  early, 
remembering  his  own  youth  he  modified  a  disapproval  he 
had  harbored  as  to  cramming  young  minds  too  full  and 
fast: 

**If  her  brain  works  as  rapidly  and  effortlessly  as  did 
mine,*'  he  capitulated,  **it's  all  right  for  her  to  go  ahead 
this  way  if  she  wishes,  so  long  as  her  body  is  being  properly 
nourished  and  cared  for.  I  learned  so  quickly  that  I  had 
time  on  my  hands  at  my  school  desk,  and  if  I  did  not  have  a 
book  handy,  I  fretted  and  fumed  at  the  sinful  waste  of 
time. ' ' 

Another  interest  during  his  first  term  was  the  stimulat- 
ing one  of  argument,  not  only  with  the  instructors  but  with 
the  members  of  a  club  that  met  under  the  name  of  the  Henry 
Clay  Debating  Society.  There  he  also  became  acquainted 
with  girls  who  did  their  hair  high  and  who  wore  longer 
skirts  than  those  of  little  Haydee.  He  found  himself 
invited  into  some  of  their  pleasant  and  cultured  homes,  for 
these  young  women  did  not  make  casual  street  friends  with 
men.  While  he  oriented  himself,  he  often  thought  of  his 
wild  and  woolly  past  on  land  and  sea.  And  in  the  long  run 
of  his  days,  there  in  Oakland  and  in  more  glittering  ranks 
of  society  about  the  world,  he  founded  his  agreement  with 


198      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Kipling,  that  **The  Coloners  lady  and  Judy  O 'Grady  are 
sisters  under  their  skins/' 

Some  of  the  well-raised  maidens'  brothers  were  prone 
to  look  askance  upon  the  **Boy  Socialist"  who  was  attract- 
ing altogether  too  much  unflattering  comment  about  town. 
But  in  spite  of  prejudice,  they  and  their  sisters  could  not 
fail  to  admire  the  arresting  personality  of  the  bright,  in- 
cessant young  student,  the  beauty  of  whose  well-set-up  body 
with  its  free  sailor-shoulders  could  not  be  hidden  even  un- 
der ill-fitting,  shiny-seamed  cloth.  Still,  I  have  met  one  ele- 
gant matron  who  remembers  him  principally  by  his  **  un- 
tidy clothes." 

He  kept  them  ^^  guessing"  every  minute  by  the  poignant 
charm  of  voice  and  manner,  even  if  it  sometimes  lapsed  in 
polish,  for  it  was  hard  to  discern  where  self-confidence  gave 
place  to  a  suspected  clever  bluff  born  of  old  sensitiveness 
and  timidity ;  and  his  adroit  tongue  was  apt  to  prove  a  wily 
snare  to  their  best  laid  arguments. 

But  let  him  once  come  under  the  empery  of  serious 
thought,  and  he  was  transformed  into  a  commanding  figure. 
I  have  seen  Jack  London  enter  a  room  full  of  people,  wear- 
ing that  half-diflSdent  smile  of  lips  and  eyes  that  so  dis- 
armed them  all — just  a  human  boy,  all  human,  all  boy — 
until  some  question  set  the  keener  mechanism  of  his  brain  in 
movement.  Instantly !  the  whole  man  changed,  a  mind  ap- 
peared to  take  the  place  of  the  human  personality,  a  mind 
sure,  insolent  with  surety,  a  very  autocrat  of  minds.  He 
impressed  the  onlooker  as  removed,  set  above,  exalted  over 
common  thought  and  thing.  The  usual  engaging  ex- 
pectancy of  his  justly  featured  face  changed  into  lines  of 
stem  imperiousness,  the  very  repose  of  which  seemed  to 
mark  him  as  a  consecrated  vessel  of  some  austere  purpose. 

To  return :  He  *  *  dallied  with  little  home  clubs  wherein 
were  dicussed  poetry  and  art  and  the  nuances  of  grammar. ' ' 
The  socialist  local  kept  his  wits  on  razor  edge  with  study 
and  oration  upon  philosophy,  political  economy,  and  poll- 


HIGH  SCHOOL  199 

tics  state  and  national.  He  wrote  letters  to  the  Oakland 
Times,  The  Item,  and  other  papers,  which  were  published 
under  leaded  titles  such  as:  **Is  against  single  tax;  Jack 
London  disagrees  ^\^th  John  McLees:  claims  it  ^\dll  not 
regulate  present  difficulties.''  And  again:  ** Socialistic 
views  on  coin.  Jack  London  takes  issue  with  the  Populists. 
Where  he  thinks  them  weak.  The  small  capitalists  trying 
to  ride  on  the  backs  of  laborers.'*  When  the  People's 
Party  in  Oakland  offered  a  prize  for  the  best  essay  written 
by  a  pupil  of  the  schools,  Jack's  was  the  winner.  It  was  en- 
titled '*  Direct  Legislation  through  the  Initiative  and  the 
Keferendum,"  and  was  given  publicity  in  The  Item.  Two 
stories,  ^^Old  Baldy,"  and  **An  Old  Soldier's  Story,"  were 
printed  in  a  magazine.  Evenings  at  Home;  and  a  Socialist 
article  in  The  Amateur  Bohemian. 

As  if  he  had  not  already  assumed  enough  to  wear  down 
that  Titan  energy  which  made  possible  his  fame,  want  of 
money  urged  him  into  an  assistant  janitorship  in  the  school. 
That  position  was  an  eminently  convenient  one  though  it 
did  strain  even  his  breadth  of  beam  and  buoyancy  of  endur- 
ance, when  added  to  myriad  other  tasks  and  interests. 

** Poverty  made  me  hustle,"  he  wrote  long  afterward, 
and  included  this  among  the  items  of  what  he  called  his 
**vast  good  luck" — others  being  **good  health;  good  brain; 
good  mental  and  muscular  correlation."  So  he  turned  his 
beautiful  muscle  to  stoking  the  furnace,  and  his  blithe  walk 
to  account  upon  wooden  miles  traversed  in  the  course  of 
cleansing  floors  and  wainscot  and  furniture  of  the  educa- 
tional pile  that  was  a  stepping-block  to  college.  Still  fur- 
there  to  eke  out  his  earnings,  he  kept  an  eye  for  unmown 
lawns  and  dusty  carpets,  putting  in  chance  holidays  and 
spare  evenings  at  this  kind  of  exercise,  to  a  further  lessen- 
ing of  closely-scaled  sleeping  hours. 

The  securing  of  the  janitor  work  came  about  through  his 
sister.  Soon  after  entering  High  School,  Jack  had  noticed 
that  the  janitor,  Jacob  Winkler,  seemed  to  have  more  duties 


200      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

than  a  veteran  of  the  Sixties  could  well  accomplish.  He  had 
once  heen  the  Commander  of  Lyon  Post  Number  Eight 
of  the  G.  A.  E.,  and  Eliza  Shepard  simultaneously 
having  been  President  of  the  Woman's  Auxiliary  Eelief 
Corps,  Lyon  Post,  Department  of  California  and  Nevada, 
Jack  went  to  her.  In  his  behalf  she  manipulated  such 
strings  as  she  could,  and  despite  her  brother's  political  lean- 
ings, got  him  the  berth.  It  was  slyly  whispered  that  Wink- 
ler's advancement  to  a  ** better  and  easier  place"  in  another 
school  was  coincidentally  an  expression  of  the  School 
Board's  disapproval  at  the  appointment  of  the  handsome 
young  firebrand  in  unmodish  garments  over  the  head  of  a 
boy  previously  named.  Years  later,  after  delivering  a 
lecture  on  Socialism  at  the  old  Dietz  Opera  House  in  Oak- 
land, Jack  was  approached  by  the  selfsame  Jacob  Winkler, 
who  wrung  his  hand  with  the  assurance  of  his  warm  sym- 
pathy with  the  Cause. 

To  his  daughter  entering  High  School,  again  Jack  wrote, 
in  order  to  circumvent  possible  ill-advised  snobbery  due  to 
his  renown,  adjuring  her  never  to  forget  that  her  daddy 
once  swept  the  very  woodwork  upon  which  she  was  now 
treading. 

One  afternoon,  to  her  stepdaughter  Jessie  Shepard — 
she  with  whom  Jack  had  played  piano  duets  at  school  and 
church  concerts  in  earlier  East  Oakland  years — Eliza  de- 
clared : 

** There !  I  know  I've  just  seen  that  girl  Jack's  been  rav- 
ing about  lately,  for  she  exactly  fits  his  descriptions.  She's 
a  pretty  little  wisp  of  a  thing — ^big  blue  eyes,  hair  yellow 
as  spun  gold — you  know,  the  perfect  blonde.  Pale,  though, 
and  looks  delicate.  She  was  all  tricked  out  in  fluffy  white 
things,  with  a  wonderful  picture-hat,  and  had  an  English 
bull-pup  on  a  chain — and  she  was  laughing  at  the  way  it 
was  leading  her  ...  I  know  she 's  the  girl ! ' 

(The  occasion  of  Eliza's  introduction  to  the  young  lady, 
however,  was  somewhat  undignified,  if  gallant.    Jack  had 


HIGH  SCHOOL  201 

taken  the  Lily  rowing  npon  the  estuary.  Anchored  off  the 
Derby  Lumber  Yards,  while  she  read  aloud  he  fell  asleep 
in  the  bottom  of  the  boat.  He  awoke  to  find  the  tide  had 
ebbed  until  they  were  high  and  dry;  and  so,  removing  his 
footwear,  he  ** packed'*  his  friend  through  the  oily  ooze 
to  the  shore,  where  Eliza  met  them.) 

Eliza  had  made  no  mistake.  It  was  she,  Jack's  Lily 
Maid  of  Britain.  He  thought  of  her  as  the  Lily  Maid,  al- 
though he  had  never  read  ** Idyls  of  the  King.''  And  she 
might  have  hailed  from  Astolat  or  any  other  romantic 
hamlet  in  her  English  isle,  for  all  he  knew  or  cared.  In 
the  exquisiteness  of  her  appeal  she  was  the  Haydee  of  his 
riper  youth,  a  patrician  Haydee,  imperious  of  homage  in  her 
dainty  femininity,  and  he  was  all  a-fevered  to  compass  the 
ways  of  chivalry  that  would  command  her  smile  and  the 
touch  of  her  well-groomed  white  hands.  He  acknowledged 
no  frailty  of  chin  or  of  that  pale  profile  against  the  Kem- 
brandt  velvet  brim  she  wore.  Frailty,  in  her,  was  delicacy. 
She  seemed  set  apart  from  all  the  other  girls  in  the  Henry 
Clay  Society — so  lofty-cool  sweet,  so  superior,  so  spirituelle 
compared  with  his  rougher  masculine  clay.  It  was  her  com- 
plementing unlikeness  to  him,  in  whatsoever  the  unlikeness 
consisted,  that  made  him  lift  worshiping  eyes  to  her  fair- 
ness, white  woman  of  his  own  breed,  clay  of  his  clay,  though 
clay  sublimated. 

Her  brother  had  invited  him  to  dinner.  In  her  home 
he  found  no  snobbery,  no  slanting  glances  at  his  well-worn 
ready-made  suit  that  pulled  into  wrinkles  across  swelling 
muscle  of  shoulder  and  back — only  helpfulness  and  a  likable 
courtesy.  They  were  real  people,  he  decided,  the  sort  he 
had  dreamed  about  in  his  aspiring  ideals.  Before  he  had 
grown  intimate  enough  to  pit  his  mind  against  their  minds, 
he  betrayed  some  awkwardness,  especially  when  it  turned 
out  that  the  daughter  of  the  house  was  in  the  University. 
The  experience  began  in  pleased  wonderment,  for  little  did 
he  credit  any  sense  which  might  have  whispered  that  he  him- 


202      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

self  was  of  closer-fibered  integrity  than  she  or  her  family, 
more  subtly  fine  than  any  woman  he  had  yet  gazed  upon  or 
perhaps  should  ever  meet.  He  adored  her  culture  and 
herself  who  guided  him  so  sympathetically  to  the  books  she 
loved,  who  opened  for  him  sublime  gates  to  a  higher  world 
of  poetry  and  art.  He  was  wrapped  in  a  new  gladsomeness 
of  existence  that  kept  him  company  while  he  dusted,  swept, 
and  scrubbed  the  big  schoolhouse  or  beat  germ-laden 
breadths  of  brussels  and  monstrously  floral  carpeting  in 
obscure  back  yards. 

When  there  showed  weaknesses  or  thinnesses  of  quality 
he  had  glamored  as  almost  virtues  in  her  porcelain  deli- 
cateness,  he  still  brushed  them  lightly  aside;  they  should 
not  be  estimated  as  faults,  but  rather  components  of  a  tem- 
peramental daintiness — somewhat  in  the  way  certain  tiny 
pellets  and  potions  out  of  slender  vials  seemed  part  of  her 
fragility.  Why,  maybe  she  was  right — ^he  was  eager  to 
grant  when  they  had  clashed,  as  clash  they  did — and  he, 
from  his  mere  clayness,  coarsely  in  error.  Thus  he  felt  his 
tentative  way  into  the  labyrinths  of  culture,  from  the  nice- 
ties of  table  etiquette  to  a  mental  etiquette  he  presently 
hesitated  to  employ,  sensing  its  restrictedness. 

Meantime  the  Lily  Maid^s  drawing  room  was  his  oasis 
of  refinement  where  intellectual  converse,  or  so  it  then  ap- 
peared to  him,  with  well-bred  deportment  was  carried  on 
in  modulated  tones.  Here  he  laved  his  thirsting  soul  in  the 
best  poetry,  and  was  at  liberty  to  take  away  with  him  any 
book  he  wished.  He  fell  deeply  interested  in  the  science 
of  chess,  playing  with  the  Lily^s  brother,  though  he  noticed 
it  was  hard  to  concentrate  if  his  lady  were  near.  She  and 
he  were  as  different  as  the  poles  and  their  very  difference 
charged  the  atmosphere  with  sparks  of  living  fire.  She 
could  not  have  told  why  she  vibrated  so  thrillingly  in  the 
presence  of  this  unconventional  boy  who  was  apt,  in  any 
moment  of  mental  excitation,  to  throw  to  the  winds  the  ex- 
ample  set  him  of  gentler   conduct,   and   **talk  with   his 


HIGH  SCHOOL  203 

hands/'  rumple  wildly  his  adorable  sun- gilded  curls  and 
fling  himself  about  all  over  the  place.  And  only  too  often  he 
was  showing  a  tendency  to  flout  with  merry  tongue  and 
baffling,  teasing  eyes,  her  most  cherished  ikons  that  she  had 
chiseled  as  changeless  deities.  But  the  sheer  inexplicable- 
ness  of  his  magnetic  attraction  preserved  its  charm,  and 
she  ceased  from  troubling  to  reason  **  about  it  and  about,  *' 
but  gave  herself  true  womanly  to  her  due  of  the  palpitant 
sweetness  of  loving,  blushing  herself  warm  with  the  secret 
and  unmaidenly  desire  to  lay  her  two  hands  about  that  mus- 
cular tanned  neck  which  in  its  smooth  round  shortness  was 
like  a  tender  baby's,  notwithstanding  its  power. 

How  distant  glimmered  the  days  and  deeds  of  the  old 
water-front  and  river  life.  Occasionally  Jack  ran  into  one 
or  another  of  the  men,  and  these  could  detect  no  alteration 
in  his  breezy  comradeliness,  although  he  confessed  to  hav- 
ing **cut  out  the  booze,  you  fellows — water-wagon  for  me 
now — got  too  much  to  do ;  no,  not  even  one ! ' '  For  a  year 
and  a  half  on  end,  he  never  took  a  drink.  Drink  did  not 
enter  his  mind.  A  different  thirst  had  taken  hold,  a  purely 
mental  appetite.  With  his  studies,  janitor-duties,  and  **  in- 
nocent amusements  such  as  chess,'*  he  had  no  moment  for 
unprofitable  idiling  in  saloon  society.  Such  was  the  pas- 
sion of  his  exploration  into  the  new  world  he  had  entered, 
that  the  former  destructive  one  held  no  inducements  even  to 
trifle  on  its  margin.  In  fact,  the  only  public-house  thres- 
hold he  stepped  across  was  that  of  The  Last  Chance,  and 
this  to  solicit  a  loan  from  the  ready  friendliness  of  Johnny 
Heinold,  against  pay-day  for  janitor-work.  Not  a  single 
drink  did  he  take  to  *  *  wet  the  transaction. ' '  Heinold  was  an 
understanding  man ;  and  the  ringing  gold  eagle  Jack  bor- 
rowed on  several  occasions  was  the  only  article  that  passed 
across  the  reflecting  polish  of  the  bar  into  the  hand  of  the 
resolute  disciple  of  concentration  upon  large  issues. 

The  dreams  of  his  father  and  mother,  that  made  them 
invest  in  irresponsible  ** securities,"  knew  no  abate  as  the 


204      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

years  waxed.  The  money  went  somewhere — *'God  only 
knows  where,'*  Jack  and  Eliza  would  disclaim  all  compre- 
hension. To  the  Lily  Maid,  referring  to  High  School 
struggles,  in  1898  Jack  in  a  fit  of  despondency  wrote : 

**Do  you  know  what  I  suffered  during  that  High  School 
and  University  period  ?  The  imps  of  hell  would  have  wept 
had  they  been  with  me.  Does  any  one  know?  Can  any  one 
knowf  Oh  the  hours  I  have  eaten  out  my  heart  in  bitter- 
ness! You  say  Duty?  I  fought  it  off  for  two  long  years 
without  cessation,  and  I  am  glad.  You  knew  me  before 
those  two  years — did  they  do  me  any  good?" 

Excess  of  application  is  an  exhausting  process,  and  Jack 
nearly  broke  beneath  the  load,  added  to  the  nerve-strain  of 
inadequate  sleep  and  financial  cramp.  At  the  end  of  a  year 
he  sat  down  by  himself  and  mulled  his  progress  and  pros- 
pects. There  were  two  full  years  of  High  School  yet  to  go 
before  he  could  be  graduated  into  the  first  of  four  long 
years  at  college.  Six  years! — and  he  was  close  upon 
twenty.  It  couldn't  be  done.  He  must  devise  a  short  cut. 
An  obvious  drollery  occurred  to  him — that  fate  should  ma- 
triculate certain  hare-brained,  financially  carefree  and 
equally  uncaring  fellows  into  the  university ;  while  for  him- 
self, with  a  self-recognized  serious  future  at  stake,  the  way 
was  made  so  difficult.  But  he  wasted  no  time  in  repining, 
for  he  must  be  up  and  doing. 

He  had  heard  of  a  '*  cramming  joinf  over  in  Alameda, 
Anderson's  I  think  he  said  it  was,  that  bridged  the  spread- 
out  years  of  High  School.  Unfortunately,  it  was  an  expen- 
sive academy,  and  where  was  the  money  to  come  from  for 
the  advance  fee?  Eliza — but  could  she  spare  so  much  at 
one  time?  She  had  multifarious  uses  for  the  money  she 
earned  in  partnership  with  her  husband.  He  would  find 
out.  She  did  have  the  needed  amount,  and  was  glad  he  had 
come  to  her. 

Jack  bade  farewell  to  his  classmen  and  women  who  were 
going  into  Junior  High  School  without  him,  and  daily 


HIGH  SCHOOL  205 

pedaled  his  wheel  back  and  forth  over  the  Webster  Street 
bridge  to  Alameda,  too  introspective  to  grant  more  than  a 
reminiscent  glance  to  the  passing  show  of  the  pictureful 
estuary  he  spanned. 

He  began  in  the  senior  class  of  this  **prep''  school, 
*  *  scheduled  to  graduate  right  into  the  university  at  the  end 
of  four  months,  thus  saving  two  years.*'  In  other  words, 
he  had  a  third  of  a  year  in  which  to  do  the  final  two  years' 
work  of  High  School.  Night  and  day  he  crammed  for  five 
weeks.  And  then,  out  of  a  clear  sky,  a  curious  and  hurtful 
blow  fell.  The  reason  was  that  his  speed  had  become  a 
matter  of  dissatisfaction  in  the  classes,  and  it  would  raise  a 
scandal  for  any  preparatory  establishment  to  permit  a  stu- 
dent to  enter  college  who  had  annihilated  two  years '  learn- 
ing in  twelve  weeks.  The  master  of  the  academy  said  he 
was  sorry  to  lose  so  splendid  a  pupil,  but  the  universities 
were  growing  more  severe  in  their  accrediting  of  prep 
schools,  and  he  had  to  consider  the  reputation  of  his  own. 

The  shock  to  Jack  was  not  dissimilar  to  that  inflicted  by 
the  city  visitor  to  the  little  old  Alhambra  at  Livermore. 
But  he  was  proud  and  angry  now,  and  departed  without  a 
word.  His  face  in  such  crisis,  when  recourse  was  out  of  the 
question,  was  masked  with  a  baffling  sweetness,  a  trifle  pale, 
the  pain  sc  withdrawn  behind  quiet  unflinching  eyes  that  an 
onlooker  was  conscious  of  it  only  after  he  had  passed  from 
sight. 

Eliza's  money  was  paid  back  intact,  and  the  boy  shut 
himself  in  the  den,  where  without  laboratories  or  coaching 
of  any  sort  he  dug  and  clawed  with  renewed  ferocity  into 
chemical  formulas  and  simultaneous  quadratic  equations, 
so  as  to  be  ready  for  the  entrance  examinations  at  Berkeley. 
His  vitality  was  taxed  almost  to  bursting.  His  muscles 
twitched  as  once  before  they  had  nearly  twitched  into  St. 
Vitus'  dance.  Even  those  dependable  sailor-eyes  wavered 
and  quivered  and  saw  jumbled  spots,  but  as  always  through 
life,  he  won  out 


206     THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Twelve  weeks  at  nineteen  hours  a  day,  with  rare  mo- 
ments off,  he  maintained  the  killing  pace.  Reviewing  the 
period,  he  thought  that  he  may  have  been  a  bit  ''dotty"  to- 
ward the  last,  for  he  caught  himself  believing  he  had  un- 
earthed the  formula  for  squaring  the  circle,  though  he 
would  defer  advertising  the  fact  until  he  had  passed  the 
exams  that  were  to  put  him  inside  the  college  portals. 
When  the  day  of  handing  in  his  papers  had  come  and  gone, 
he  collapsed  with  brain-fag,  at  least  to  a  degree  where  he 
*' didn't  want  to  see  a  book  ...  or  to  think  nor  to  lay 
eyes  on  anybody  w^ho  was  liable  to  think,"  too  utterly  tired 
to  be  even  interested  in  waiting  to  learn  the  report  on  his 
examination  sheets. 

The  next  he  knew  he  was  drifting  upon  a  morning  ebb 
in  a  loaned  Whitehall  boat,  toward  the  great  free  medicine 
of  that  island  sea  beloved  of  all  his  years.  Quintessential 
seaman  that  he  was,  his  ills  fell  from  him  when  the  clean 
white  spritsail  sphered  in  the  outside  breeze.  I  have  had 
to  ask  about  that  canvas — ^whether  it  was  a  spritsail  or 
a  leg  o 'mutton.  One  friend  who  had  sailed  with  him,  tells 
me  either  canvas  is  used  in  a  Whitehall,  but  adds:  ''Jack 
always  liked  a  spritsail."  So  much  for  the  seaman  who 
may  read. 

The  first  of  the  flood  up  the  main  bay  set  him  fairly  on 
his  course  into  the  San  Pablo  waters,  where  Carquinez 
Straits  were  ripping  against  the  incoming  tide ;  and  now  the 
released  burner  of  daylight  and  candle-wick  sang  hail  and 
good-by  to  this  and  that  reminding  landmark,  left  astern  in 
his  white  flight.  The  sea  was  up  and  the  wind  was  whistling 
and  he  would  keep  right  on  across  Suisun  Bay  and  up  the 
San  Joaquin.  Nothing  could  stop  him  except  a  drop  in  the 
wind  in  league  with  turn  of  tide — ^when  he  could  anchor  or 
tie  up  to  the  river-edge  tules,  songful  with  blackbirds. 

As  Benicia  grew  larger  on  the  port  bow,  he  got  to  think- 
ing of  Young  Scratch  and  his  dreadful  death  that  in  this 
very  town  had  stretched  out  the  giant  shoulders  for  the  last 


HIGH  SCHOOL  207 

sleep.  He  wondered  were  any  of  the  old  Patrol  crowd  there 
now.  It  seemed  as  if  he  had  been  upon  another  planet  a 
weary  space  in  eternity,  and  had  heard  no  tidings  of  the 
good  comrades  of  other  aeons.  What  was  the  matter  with 
stopping  off  for  an  hour  or  two  and  hunting  them  up  ?  The 
wind  showed  no  sign  of  easing,  and  he  could  resume  the 
drive  and  surge  through  the  smoking  combers  he  wotted 
of  in  Suisun  Bay.  And  what  he  needed  was  an  old-fash- 
ioned glass  of  whiskey.  For  once  it  would  do  him  nothing 
but  good  to  invite  a  mild  jingle — you  know,  just  to  let  down 
tension  after  that  awful  overdraft  of  study  he  wanted  to 
forget.  Besides,  he  was  close  to  twenty  now,  and  not  an 
infant  blind  to  consequences. 

By  the  time  he  had  opened  the  bight  of  Turner  *8  Ship- 
yard, the  notion  of  the  drink  had  intensified  into  a  real  de- 
sire— the  first  instance  of  such  in  his  not  unbibulous  youth. 
As  his  Whitehall  rounded  the  old  Solano* s  long  wharf,  he 
grinned  at  the  recollection  of  his  suicidal  death-chant  on 
that  inebriate  midnight  in  the  not  so  long  ago,  and  *  *  surged 
along  abreast  of  the  patch  of  tules  and  the  clustering  fisher- 
men's  arks*'  where  he  had  cronied  and  reveled  deep  with 
the  bunch.  Lord !  Lord !  what  a  lot  he  had  seen  and  done 
since  then.    How  could  any  man  work  always  at  one  job! 

He  sailed  in,  made  fast,  and  poked  about  among  the 
arks.  Good  it  was  to  find  them  there,  all  the  survivors  of 
the  **old  guard,'*  and  gladdest  of  all  to  welcome  him, 
Charley  Le  Grant  himself,  who  positively  embraced  his  old 
friend,  assisted  by  a  capacious  and  motherly  wife.  And 
when  Charley  hit  across  the  railroad  tracks  for  Jorgenson's 
Saloon  of  dizzy  memory,  Jack  yelled  gaily  after,  **No  beer 
for  me  this  time,  Kid!  Whiskey's  my  tea  for  this  after- 
noon!" 

Quite  deliberately,  with  purpose  throughout,  Jack  pro- 
ceeded on  a  thoroughgoing  **jag,"  drinking  every  treat 
and  his  own  treats  in  return.  Many  old  acquaintances 
dropped  in,  among  them  Clem,  once  partner  of  Young  Nel- 


208      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

son  of  the  uureefed  Reindeer,  and  Jack  listened,  weeping, 
in  the  too-sudden  slackening  of  his  nerve-cords,  to  the  tragic 
account  of  the  violent  passing  of  his  Berserker  friend. 
There  were  sorry  tales  of  other  friends  who  had  passed  or 
even  worse.  **  Nearly  all  my  oyster-pirate  comrades  are 
long  since  hanged,  shot,  drowned,  killed  by  disease,  or  are 
spending  their  declining  years  in  prison, '  ^  he  once  pointed 
what  he  insisted  was  his  own  good  luck  in  escaping  disaster. 

While  Jack  held  high  jubilee  with  the  old  ^^push,'* 
Charley  went  out  and  worked  hard  shifting  the  Whitehall 
outfit  into  a  roomy  Columbia  Eiver  salmon  boat  that  was 
a  boat,  and  stretched  boom  and  sprit  scandalously  for  such 
a  breezy  day ;  but  Le  Grant  knew  his  friend  ^ '  could  sail  as 
long  as  he  could  see."  No  urging  succeeded  in  staying  the 
migrating  bird  over  night,  not  within  hearing  of  the  clash 
and  slash  of  the  upstanding  seas  of  that  fierce  strait-con- 
fined run-out  which  hurled  against  the  brave  west  wind  now 
filling  his  ears  with  its  shouting.  And  this  time  the  reced- 
ing tule-marsh  echoed  to  a  different  music  from  his  funeral 
song  of  years  gone,  as  now  he  voiced  unmeasured  disdain 
for  the  bitted  elements  and  all  books  and  institutions  of 
learning.  Together  with  maudlin  spoutings  on  higher 
mathematics,  economics,  philosophy  and  art,  he  rendered 
such  airs  of  his  riotous,  swashbuckling  memories  as  ^  *  Black 
Lulu,''  ^^I  Wisht  I  was  a  Little  Bird,  Little  Bird,''  and  a 
dozen  more,  including  a  rare  medley  of  sea  chanteys. 

Much  fun  he  had  in  later  years,  attempting  the  old  ditties 
for  my  benefit,  two  fingers  to  his  temple,  or  vertically  on  his 
scalp-lock — a  little  mannerism  when  cudgeling  memory  un- 
der embarrassment.  The  verse  which  came  easiest  was 
something  as  follows : 

*  *  0  treat  my  daughter  kind-i-ly, 
And  keep  her  safe  from  harm ; 
:  And  I  will  leave  you 

My  house,  my  farm,  and-all-the-little 
chickens  in  the  gar-den." 


;:^ 


^1 


CAI'TAIX    r.AKSKN    WONDERS    ABOUT   THINGS 

'I    evolved    this    face    from    the    marvellous    description    of    it. 

Here's    to    you     Jack !"     O.    C. 


HIGH  SCHOOL  209 

The  pulse  of  his  life  roared  like  a  gale  in  the  rigging. 
He  nearly  sailed  the  salmon  boat  under  in  his  renewed  en- 
thusiasm of  battling  with  wave  and  wand.  When  at  even- 
tide, sobered  with  the  beauty  of  the  lagoon-like  river  delta 
and  the  velvet  rose  and  fawn  of  the  Montezuma  Hills  across 
a  pearl-gray  flood,  he  laid  alongside  a  friendly  potato  sloop 
at  Antioch,  above  Black  Diamond,  he  was  kneedeep  in 
sloshing,  washing  brine.  And  his  was  a  glorious  sharp 
appetite  for  black  bass  fried  in  olive  oil,  meaty  stew  red- 
olent of  fresh  garlic,  and  crusty  Italian  loaf  that  taxed  his 
precious  * '  front  plate '  *  near  to  cracking.  Aboard  the  sloop, 
in  a  dry  bunk  that  w^as  pressed  upon  him,  he  and  the  boys 
**lay  and  smoked  and  yarned  of  old  days,  while  overhead 
the  wind  screamed  through  the  rigging  and  taut  halyards 
drummed  against  the  mast. 

With  his  unexcelled  resiliency  of  brain  and  body  tissue, 
a  week  of  cruising  in  the  staunch  salmon  boat  restored  him 
to  where  the  fearful  toll  he  had  exacted  of  himself  for  a 
score  of  months  was  as  if  it  had  never  been,  or  so  it  seemed. 
Who  is  to  prove  that  super-normal  effort  does  not  weaken 
the  whole  structure  of  a  growing  lad! 

That  one  revel  he  had  permitted  himself  was  the  last; 
but  the  determination  to  keep  it  so  cost  him  much  in  that 
he  must  avoid  looking  up  any  more  old  chums.  That  was  the 
perfect  hell  of  sobriety — just  the  live,  **breedy,  chesty" 
men  one  wanted  to  mingle  with  as  a  tonic  for  brain-fag 
were  the  ones  with  whom  it  was  necessary  to  practise  this 
injurious  custom.  So  he  held,  all  his  student  days,  to  an 
almost  puritanical  abstemiousness,  through  expediency 
coupled  with  want  of  desire  when  among  people  who  were 
strangers  to  alcohol. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
1896-7 

AND  kere  he  was,  in  ihe  fall  of  1896,  after  all  his  strug- 
gling, two  years  ahead  of  his  High  School  classmates, 
at  last  **a  college  man,'^  fellow  to  the  Lily  Maid's  brother, 
and  James  Hopper,  and  a  Henry  Clay  Club  friend,  Fred 
Jacobs,  with  others  he  had  known  previously,  albeit  they 
were  Juniors  and  he  but  a  verdant  ^'Freshie.''  High  time, 
too,  for  in  January  he  would  be  twenty-one,  though  to 
save  his  soul  he  could  not  figure  how  the  four  years  were  to 
be  managed  on  the  slim  and  uncertain  income  he  had  little 
leisure  to  pick  up  outside  of  study  and  lecture  and  reading 
hours.  But  he  was  a-thrill  with  having  won  to  a  paramount 
desire.    It  was  worth  all  the  striving  and  scrimping. 

James  Hopper,  '98,  and  Jack  met  one  day  on  the  Campus, 
for  the  first  time,  knowingly,  since  they  had  played  marble^ 
and  scrapped  together  in  the  Cole  Grammar.  Mr.  Hop- 
per's notes  on  the  meeting,  written  the  day  after  his 
friend's  death,  compose  one  of  the  most  sympathetic  pic- 
tures I  know  upon  the  radiant  subject;  and  from  them  I 
draw  a  few  lights : 

**He  possessed  already  then  a  certain  vague  reputation 
among  us  boys  as  one  who  had  done  man  things  and  wild 
things  and  romantic  things.  .  .  .  His  latest  exploit — 
that  of  passing  the  University  entrance  examinations  after 
three  months  vigorous  cramming  while  stoking  the  furnace 
of  the  Oakland  High  School — was  in  many  mouths.  His 
already  was  a  colorful  personality,  and  when  the  boy  who 
had  been  telling  me  about  him  said  suddenly :    '  There  he  is, 

210 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA       211 

see?  Coming  down  the  steps,'  I  moved  up  and  *  braced* 
him. 

**But — ^but — well,  I  hate  to  say  it.  Perhaps  if  I  ex- 
plain carefully  people  will  understand.  You  see,  he  was  a 
newly-entered  freshman  .  .  .  and  I  was  a  full-fledged 
junior,  and  on  the  football  team  and  editor  of  the  Occident, 
also  holding  a  well-defined  place  in  a  very  regular  organiza- 
tion— a  bit  of  a  bourgeois  prig,  in  fact.  So  that  when  I  went 
to  Jack  London,  I  did  so — God  forgive  me — thinking  con- 
sciously how  nice  and  democratic  this  was  of  me ! 

*'If  he  felt  my  condescension — and  he  must  have,  for 
under  his  sturdiness  ran  a  fine  net  of  fine  nerves — he  did 
not  show  it.  I  may  say  right  here  that  the  dominating  qual- 
ity of  Jack  London's  character  was  bigness.  *  Attend  to  the 
big  things  and  let  the  little  things  go' — if  he  ever  made  for 
himself  a  motto  it  must  have  been  that.  He  let  the  little 
things  go  that  time,  and  met  my  advance  with  an  open 
frankness  that  was  like  a  flood  of  sunshine. 

**  Sunshine — the  word  leaps  of  itself  to  the  end  of  my 
pen.  ...  He  had  a  curly  mop  of  hair  which  seemed  spun 
of  its  gold ;  his  strong  neck,  with  a  loose,  low,  soft  shirt,  was 
bronzed  with  it;  and  his  eyes  were  like  a  sunlit  sea.  His 
clothes  were  flappy  and  careless;  the  forecastle  had  left  a 
suspicion  of  a  roll  in  his  broad  slioulders;" — and  here  Mr. 
Hopper  appreciates  the  notable  beauty  of  the  man:  **he 
was  a  strange  combination  of  Scandinavian  sailor  and  Greek 
god,  made  altogetlicr  boyish  and  lovable  by  the  lack  of  two 
front  teeth,  lost  cheerfully  somewhere  in  a  fight." 

As  for  Jack's  irrepressible  enthusiasm:  **He  was  full 
of  gigantic  plans — just  as,  indeed,  I  was  to  find  him  always 
whenever  I  came  upon  him  later  in  life.  ...  He  was 
going  to  take  all  the  courses  in  English,  all  of  them,  nothing 
less.  Also,  of  course,  he  meant  to  take  most  of  the  courses 
in  the  natural  sciences,  many  in  history,  and  bite  a  respect- 
able chunk  out  of  the  philosophies. 

**And  as  he  unfolded  his  intentions  to  me,  there  in  the 


212      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

sun  in  front  of  North  Hall,  radiating  himself  at  least  as 
much  light  and  warmth  as  the  sun,  I,  all  of  twenty  years  old 
and  hence  disillusioned,  frozen  (lightly  frozen)  in  a  gentle 
pessimism,  polished  with  a  worldly  skepticism,  I  listened 
to  him  and  smiled,  and  tried  to  make  my  smile  just  a  bit 
ironical  and  withal  kindly.  You  see,  I  had  taken  some  of 
the  courses  of  which  he  was  going  to  take  all,  and  I  found 
there — well,  not  all  I  had  sought.  Three  or  four  times  I 
came  near  telling  him  that.  But  his  enthusiasm  was  so  in- 
trepid, so  young  and  touching,  so  pure  and  vibrant — that  I 
didn^t  have  the  heart.'' 

Jack  concentrated  especially  upon  the  English  branches 
and  biological  sciences,  and  took  other  things  by  the  way, 
one  of  them  French ;  but  I  retain  the  impression  from  a  ref- 
erence he  made  to  me  that  for  some  reason  he  did  not  con- 
tinue long  with  the  latter  *  *  extra. ' '  Probably,  in  the  super- 
urgency  of  his  state,  he  weeded  it  as  a  non-essential  if  grace- 
ful perquisite  toward  the  English  literature  he  felt  he  was 
to  father  into  being.  In  fact,  he  never  seems  to  have  laid 
stress  upon  the  value  of  etymological  intricacies.  Rather 
the  reverse,  it  strikes  me,  as  I  recall  uncompromising  utter- 
ances on  the  wisdom  of  eliminating  Latin  and  Greek  and 
Sanskrit  and  what  not,  made  to  his  own  offspring  and  to 
other  youth  of  both  sexes  who  flocked  in  quest  of  advice 
for  the  shortest  cut  to  a  career  of  letters.  This  is  the  more 
surprising  because  of  his  strong  predisposition  toward 
investigating  basic  components  of  whatsoever  interested 
him — from  subduing  to  saddle  or  harness  an  incorrigible 
'* outlaw,''  to  overcoming  on  the  high  sea  loftier  mathe- 
matics of  navigation  seldom  disturbed  from  musty  repose 
by  professional  masters,  or  in  possessing  himself  of  the 
colorful  why  and  wherefore  of  opals  bought  in  the  Anti- 
podes for  his  wife. 

For  all  it  had  absorbed,  his  brain  was  as  a  perpetual 
dry  sponge — impossible  of  saturation  in  its  myriad  folds. 
The  instruction  he  sat  under,  far  from  appeasing,  impelled 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA       213 

him  to  the  library,  where  he  read  volume  after  volume, 
each  leading  indefinitely  on  to  other  volumes  over  and 
above  recommended  collateral  reading.  **I  can  do  the 
work  quicker  than  they  can  teach  me/'  he  once  put  into  the 
mouth  of  an  autobiographical  character ;  and  I  have  heard 
him  seriously  hold  forth  that  the  method  and  content  of 
university  education  were  of  slight  benefit  to  him.  This 
estimate  and  library  cramming  were  the  chiefest  bestow- 
ments  of  the  university  upon  his  particular  ego.  His 
abiding  belief  was  that  he  could  have  done  as  well  without 
those  months  of  attendance.  To  be  sure,  he  did  not  always 
try  to  discourage  others  from  seeking  their  training  in  this 
way;  but  in  his  own  case  he  claimed  he  had  ** succeeded  in 
spite  of  it,  rather  than  because  of  it,'*  what  of  the  to  him 
untenable  formalizing  process  upon  **the  wheel  of  univer- 
sity subservience  to  the  ruling  class,'*  as  he  wrote  his 
daughter.  And  of  course  he  came  to  respect  P]xperience  as 
the  Teacher  of  Teachers. 

The  following  exploit  has  been  told,  as  instance  of 
Jack's  clear-headedness  and  daring:  The  college  adver- 
tised for  a  steeplejack  to  furbish  up  the  flagpole  which  stood 
midcenter  of  the  campus.  Weeks  elapsed,  and  none  volun- 
teered. Then,  one  morning,  students  on  the  way  to  early 
classes  were  amazed  to  behold  their  curly-headed  freshman 
slowly  working  his  way  earthward  from  the  lofty  golden 
ball,  meanwhile  plying  a  paintbrush  dipped  in  the  pail  on 
his  left  arm.  He  had  grown  impatient  at  the  sight  of  the 
weather-soiled  eyesore  on  his  campus,  and  with  the  breed 
of  youth  that  had  not  learned  to  *' shinny"  heights.  There 
was  a  norther  blowing,  but  his  experience  as  sailor  made 
the  work  real  play — it  felt  good  to  wrap  his  long-unac- 
customed legs  about  the  swaying  land-mast  that  had  once 
been  a  storm-swept  living  pine,  like  the  sturdy  stick  of  the 
Sophie  Sutherland,  and  to  feel  the  high  breeze  humming 
through  his  hair.    When  the  thing  was  done  to  his  taste, 


214      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

he  rolled  his  paiut-soaked  overalls  in  a  bundle,  and  unlim- 
bered  his  cramped  legs  quick-stepping  to  classrooms. 

In  the  month  of  his  twenty-first  birthday,  the  first  half 
of  the  freshman  year  at  his  back,  despite  the  growing  if 
grudged  apprehension  that  college  was  not  yielding  quite 
all  he  had  hoped  of  it,  Jack  went  about  preparation  for 
the  second  term.  And  if  it  had  not  been  that  he  was 
unable  to  spare  enough  time  from  study  to  coin  the  where- 
withal for  a  living,  he  would  doubtless  have  seen  through 
at  least  the  one  year  of  university  work  before  finally  dis- 
carding it  as  to  him  a  telic  non-essential. 

Hunched  over  the  inky,  ashy  table  in  his  den,  with  might 
and  main  he  cut  loose  and  embarked  upon  the  career  of 
fiction  he  had  chosen.  I  have  heard  him  laugh  to  recall  the 
madness  of  desire  to  arrive  at  a  style  that  would  serve  his 
ends.  *  ^  Never  was  there  such  a  creative  fever  as  mine  from 
which  the  patient  escaped  fatal  results.  ...  I  wrote  every- 
thing— ponderous  essays,  scientific  and  sociological,  short 
stories,  humorous  verse,'' — and  all  other  metrical  and  ir- 
regular poetic  matter  from  triolet  to  lugubrious  blank 
verse  and  ** elephantine  epic  in  Spenserian  stanza."  Stead- 
ily day  by  day  he  composed  at  the  rate  of  fifteen  hours  out 
of  the  twenty-four. 

During  these  weeks  of  nerve-wracking  application,  in 
his  brief  family  contacts  Jack  was  about  as  soothing  a 
house-mate  as  a  ruffled  porcupine,  and  irascible  at  the 
racket  of  his  sister  Ida's  two-year-old  boy,  whom  Flora  was 
tending  for  a  consideration  while  its  mother,  now  separated 
from  her  husband,  went  out  to  work.  But  at  last,  neat 
sheaves  of  manuscript  were  mailed  with  importance  by  the 
expectant  author  to  eastern  editors,  who  made  use  of  Jack's 
return  stamps  with  a  celerity  that  modified  his  hot  confi- 
dence to  a  not  uncheerful  hope.  Not  one  single  line  of  all 
the  output  of  devoted  days  and  nights  elicted  one  single 
line  of  approbation  from  the  stony-hearted  men  who,  tilted 
in  swivel  chairs  back  in  New  York,  Boston,  and  Philadel- 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA       215 

phia,  controlled  the  food  supply  of  literary  aspirants.  It 
was  incredible.  He  wondered  what  an  editor  really  was 
like.  He  had  never  seen  one  and  felt  a  colossal  awe  that  was 
in  inverse  ratio  to  the  regard  with  which  only  too  soon 
he  began  to  favor  the  phenomena  of  their  own  disappointed 
intellects. 

Almost  his  only  recreation  was  an  occasional  game  of 
chess  at  the  Lily  Maid^s  house.  Although  he  continued 
resolutely  to  pluck  his  deportment  and  tongue  of  rough- 
nesses in  her  presence,  he  could  not  be  **good''  all  the  time, 
and  out  of  immediate  earshot  relaxed  vigilance.  For  ex- 
ample, one  afternoon,  he  was  deep  in  a  game  with  her 
brother  in  the  garden.  Oversure,  Jack  suddenly  realized  as 
the  other  quietly  reached  for  the  next  move,  that  he  had 
tripped  in  his  calculation,  and  faced  disaster.  Tipping  back 
in  his  chair,  he  coolly  and  dispassionately  gave  unhurried 
vent  to  a  selection  of  eight  words,  choice,  succinct,  most  un- 
saintliest  of  his  unsaintly  sea-and-road  expletive. 

As  the  last  syllable  issued  close-clipped  but  deliberate 
from  betwixt  his  teeth,  a  horrible  certainty  overtook  him 
that  the  two  men  of  them  were  not  alone.  A  queer  smother- 
ing look  spread  upon  his  opponent's  face,  in  which  embar- 
rassment struggled  with  mirth.  Then  all  doubt  vanished  as 
a  stray  zephyr  from  behind  Jack  wafted  a  wisp  of  white  mull 
within  eye-tail  vision.  Let  us  drop  the  curtain  as  the  balanc- 
ing front-legs  of  his  chair  come  slowly  to  the  grass. 

What  really  hurt  most,  though,  in  this  blank  failure  of 
immediate  victory  over  grateful  magazine  staffs,  was  the 
associated  failure  to  shower  upon  his  father  the  shining 
gold  returns;  for  he  had  allowed  this  beloved  and  patient 
friend  of  all  his  singular  fortunes  to  feed  him,  which  had 
been  done  with  a  willingness  that  John  could  ill  afford,  and 
in  natural  expectation  of  the  needed  reimbursement. 

One  ray  of  light  that  always  struck  athwart  Jack's 
darkest  hours,  was  his  father's  quiet,  persistent  faith  in 


216      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

him.  ** Don't  yon  worry  abont  Jack,  mama,''  he  would  say 
to  his  wife.  **He'll  win  out,  I  tell  you — he  was  built  to  win, 
and  nothing  can  stop  him  from  winning,  nothing  at  all," 
firmly  he  met  Jack's  own  dependence  upon  his  ability  to 
pull  through  in  the  big  way. 

At  first  appalled  by  untempered  condemnation  from 
every  invaded  sanctum  on  the  Atlantic  coast,  coldly  ex- 
pressed by  prompt  rejection  slips,  the  author  then  reex- 
amined his  prolific  pages.  This  was  not  done  alone  in  ap- 
praisal  of  their  quaint  appearance  resulting  from  his 
brother-in-law's  old  *' boiler  factory"  that  typed  only  in 
capital  letters,  but  from  the  severest  critical  standpoint  of 
rhetorical  construction ;  and  finally,  and  what  should  be  of 
gravest  importance,  thought  and  subject  matter  that  would 
be  acceptable  to  panderers  of  a  misguided  public.  He  could 
not  help  laughing  at  the  first  consideration — the  unrelieved 
capitals  were  weird  enough  to  put  the  most  amiable  editor 
in  panic  fear  of  losing  his  eyes  and  reason.  As  for  the 
other  two.  Jack  suddenly  came  to  see  a  lengthening  road  of 
endeavor  to  be  traversed  ere  he  could  hope  to  command 
attention.  He  thought  of  the  easy  money  earned  from  that 
prize-story  in  the  San  Francisco  Call,  but  realized  that  he 
had  won  out  then  by  an  unvarnished  narrative  of  events 
eye-witnessed;  whereas,  in  his  present  difficulty,  he  had 
tried  to  be  erudite,  to  infuse  his  own  subjective  processes, 
without  sufficient  preparation.  He  was  fair  and  modest 
enough  to  feel  shame  that  he  had  ever  had  the  nerve  to  try 
putting  over  such  amateurish  practice-stuff  upon  men  old  in 
the  game.  He  would  not  again  be  so  hasty  in  his  judgment 
of  them. 

On  the  other  hand,  no  acknowledged  rawness  could 
shake  a  divine  trust  in  himself,  for  he  knew  his  thinking 
and  his  writing  were  not  all  worthless.  He  refused  to  be 
discouraged.  Success  was  merely  delayed  for  further  prep- 
aration, and  he  went  about  it,  reading  and  studying  might- 
ily.   But  all  too  soon  there  was  no  blinking  that  things 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA       217 

could  not  go  on  this  way.  John  London,  while  uncomplain- 
ing, was  not  well — that  war-ravaged  lung  gave  increasing 
trouble;  and  the  mother  was  oppressed  by  temperamental 
foreboding.  Jack  surrendered  to  pressure  of  necessity  and 
innate  affection,  and  capitulated  to  manual  labor,  little  as 
he  favored  it  since  he  had  harnessed  his  wagon  to  a  star. 
He  must  eventually  make  his  brain  pay,  and  pay  well. 
Others  did  it ;  he  must  and  would  do  it.  Therefore  it  was 
an  aching  distress  to  waste  precious,  fleeting  time  for  the 
small  wages  to  be  gleaned  by  bodily  strain — all  for  the  want 
of  a  few  niggardly  dollars  that  the  predatory  rich  could 
so  easily  spare  and  never  miss.  Notwithstanding,  he  asked 
no  alms  of  them.  Fair  field  and  no  favor  for  him — no  mat- 
ter how  unfair  he  esteemed  the  race  to  be. 

A  young  man  of  his  acquaintance,  an  expert  launderer 
who  needed  an  assistant,  opened  the  way  to  a  job  in  the 
country — oddly  enough,  down  on  the  * 'Peninsula,**  not  many 
miles  from  the  old  San  Mateo  County  ranch.  This  unfa- 
miliar work  was  in  the  model  steam  laundry  of  a  military 
school — Belmont  Academy;  and  for  *Mong  sizzling  weeks,'* 
all  day  and  part  of  many  a  night  of  rest  for  all  the  institu- 
tion except  these  two,  Jack  sweated  as  laundryman  for  the 
munificent  sum  of  thirty  dollars  per  month.  Just  the  same, 
it  was  a  sort  of  vicarious  pleasure  to  work  hard,  when  the 
prize  hung  high,  at  even  so  uncongenial  a  shift  as  cleansing 
other  people  *s  dirty  linen.  Indeed,  for  all  that  his  ideal  of 
university  value  had  been  partially  undermined,  it  was  of 
the  laundry  experience  that  he  wrote:  **This  was  the  only 
time  that  I  worked  because  I  loved  it,*'  in  view  of  continuing 
at  college.  When  he  should  have  earned  enough  money  to 
go  on,  he  would  have  to  shorten  time  in  making  up  what  he 
had  lost  by  enforced  absence  from  the  classes  of  11)00. 

As  summer  came  on,  the  space  in  eternity  consumed 
ironing  the  white  ducks  of  the  students  nearly  broke  him 
body  and  spirit.  So  heavy  was  the  work  that  even  the  up- 
to-date  appointments  of  the  laundry  and  the  combined 


218      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

expertness  of  the  two  boys  in  cutting  out  waste  motion 
scarce  made  possible  the  handling  of  it.  **What  I  don't 
know  about  mangling,  and  handwork,  bluing  and  ^  fancy 
starch' — which  was  what  we  called  the  faculty's  wives'  thin 
waists  and  fine  embroidered  and  lace-trimmed  linen — ^would 
make  you  weep, ' '  Jack  told  me ;  ^  *  and  so  help  me  God,  no 
circumstances  could  ever  make  me  touch  an  iron  again  if 
I  died  for  it!  The  only  ray  of  fun  we  two  sweating  fools 
got  out  of  the  whole  brutal  toil  was  a  silly  vengeance  we 
took  on  all  creatures  of  unearned  luxury.  This  was  by 
starching  stiff  the  dainty  linen  of  the  women — and  of  course 
the  comicalest  appeal  of  the  naughty  prank  was  that  we 
could  securely  depend  upon  their  hide-bound  conventional 
modesties  to  seal  their  lips  from  complaint  against  us. 
Lord,  Lord,  when  I  think  of  the  boards  we  made  of  those 
garments  .  .  . "  he  exploded  into  a  wicked  giggle. 

The  worst  of  this  work-orgy,  as  with  former  harmful 
outlay  of  strength  for  an  insufficient  living-wage,  was  that 
no  snap  was  left  in  him  to  respond  to  the  trunkful  of  books 
he  had  begged  and  borrowed,  and  which  formed  his  main 
luggage.  By  the  deferred  bedtime  he  was  so  played  out 
that  try  as  he  might  his  eyelids  would  not  stay  propped 
open.  He  would  drop  asleep  from  exhaustion,  cigarette 
on  relaxed  lips,  until  some  profound  falling  sensation,  or 
singeing  forelock  or  insistence  of  the  electric  light  burning 
through  closed  lids,  jumped  him  awake.  Then  he  bestirred 
to  fasten  again  upon  the  blurring  print,  and  repeated  the 
performance  of  falling  unconscious  a  couple  of  times — 
habit  of  long-enforced  concentration — until  finally,  with  a 
swearing  sigh,  he  laid  down  the  futile  volume,  turned  off 
the  irritating  bulb,  plumped  into  the  air  with  the  loosened 
covers  wrapped  about  him,  and  sank  into  dream-driven 
slumber  which  was  interrupted  for  the  new  day's  steaming 
task  that  began  under  artificial  lighting. 

He  gave  over  trying  to  cram  the  heavier  subjects — 
biology,  jurisprudence,  political  economy — and  substituted 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA       219 

history  as  lighter  and  more  arresting  to  a  drowning  atten- 
tiveness  he  could  not  fix.  No  use — he  would  just  read 
the  novels;  they  would  hold  him  awake  longer  and  at  the 
same  time  guide  to  what  was  expected  of  an  author  in  the 
manufacture  of  fiction.  This  method  failing,  in  blue  disgust 
he  threw  the  books  back  into  the  trunk.  I  know  the  deep- 
dented  **  picture  coniers**  of  his  mouth  that  sagged  with  a 
pathos  he  could  not  hide  from  his  own  soul  and  the  smolder 
of  hurt  and  disillusion  that  darkened  the  depths  of  his  tired 
eyes.  Why  were  things  made  so  difficult  for  a  fellow  who 
really  wanted  to  get  ahead? 

Damn  it  all!  It  was  the  same  old  fight  over  again — 
the  slippery  rock  wall  that  reared  before  a  man  who  sub- 
mitted everlastingly  to  manual  labor.  It  was  a  long  time 
since  he  had  coal-shoveled  himself  into  a  state  of  cool  irre- 
sponsibility on  the  Road.  Meanwhile  money  and  time 
had  been  spent  upon  equipping  himself  for  a  profession 
.  .  .  but  now  look  at  him! — once  more  a  stupid  human 
animal  bound  to  longer  hours  than  any  horse,  too  wearied  to 
exert  his  superior  intelligence  for  compensations  much 
above  those  of  the  horse. 

But  he  was  no  quitter.  His  time  would  come.  Better 
and  better  socialist  all  this  made  him.  And  there  should 
be  no  more  vagabondage,  he  thought,  though  the  rosy 
hands  of  adventure  waved  temptingly  toward  the  wide  free 
highway  that  he  knew  slanted  ever  downward.  He  must 
stick  it  out,  earn  enough  to  tide  over  another  period  of 
writing-practice  and  digging  which  would  fit  him  to  pro- 
duce that  which  should  make  editors  sit  up  and  take  notice. 

Then  one  day  it  occurred  to  him  that  no  alleged  per- 
fection of  labor-saving  apparatus  but  could  be  questioned 
and  improved  upon.  Here  was  tonic  for  one's  inventive 
ideas  that  might  lighten  the  back-breaking,  torrid  after- 
noons of  ironing  or  running  articles  through  the  revolving 
mangle.  I  wish  I  had  made  notes  at  the  time  he  explained 
to  me  his  device  to  relieve  some  of  the  more  arduous  laun- 


220      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

dry  tasks.  It  was  so  simple  he  laughed  to  think  he  had  not 
sooner  happened  upon  it.  When  attached  to  whatever 
mechanism  it  was  intended  to  control,  he  could  regulate  it 
by  one  foot  from  the  chair  where  he  rested  and  read,  with 
an  occasional  eye  to  the  accelerated  progress  of  work  there- 
tofore done  by  hand. 

A  tyrannical  ancestor  of  my  own,  no  shirker  himself 
and  a  rabid  dissuader  of  leisure  for  others,  whenever  a  child 
of  his  made  bid  for  praise  in  the  quick  accomplishment  of  a 
set  duty,  would  sardonically  grin :  **  Well,  that^s  fine,  now; 
and  I  guess,  since  you're  so  smart  in  saving  time,  you  can 
do  about  twice  as  much  to-morrow  in  the  time  saved." 

Which  is  by  way  of  illustrating  how  Jack  lost  his  place, 
or  at  least  declined  to  lapse  into  time-squandering  methods. 
Vaguely  I  recall  his  intimating  that  his  superior  in  the 
laundry,  though  rendering  a  grudged  appreciation  of  the  in- 
vention, got  word  of  it  to  whosoever  had  upper  charge  of 
the  department,  but  who  seldom  meddled  so  long  as  there 
was  no  complaint  about  the  work  turned  out. 

Either  Jack  was  **  fired, '*  or  else  his  logic  was  too  out- 
raged by  the  demand  that  he  forego  this  progressive  social 
contribution  to  mechanics.  At  any  rate,  incontinently  he 
left,  rode  his  neglected  *^bike"  to  San  Jose  before  wheeling 
northward  for  Oakland,  and  in  a  large  bottle  drank  con- 
fusion to  all  sightless  subservience  to  stupid  custom. 
The  bottle  furnished  a  relaxation  that  was  indulged 
in  by  choice — as  others  take  drugs  for  their  ills — ^be- 
fore he  should  bury  himself  in  another  sober  stretch  of 
hard  graft  whatever  it  be.  He  acknowledged  no  harmful- 
ness  in  this  day's  mellow  forgetting,  alone  under  a  grand 
old  oak  in  a  pasture  with  the  China-blue  valley  sky  over- 
arching, where  he  was  not  even  setting  an  example  to 
weaker  brethren.  And  of  course  he  did  not  for  a  moment 
reckon  with  any  insidious  foe  that  might  lurk  behind  this 
unusual  desire  to  recuperate  in  solitude.  He  hated  to  think 
what  that  bottle  had  cost;  but  a  man  must  **pay  for  his 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA       221 

fancies,"  and  he  had  denied  himself  fancies  of  all  sorts  for 
a  long,  long  time.  Indeed,  that  altogether  delightful,  com- 
radely jingle  in  Charley's  ark  was  the  sole  instance  when 
he  had  punished  the  booze  since  he  could  clearly  remember. 
He  scorched  up  to  Oakland,  and  dug  himself  once  more 
into  the  den,  writing  furiously. 


CHAPTER  XV 

INTO    KLONDIKE 
1897— 2l8t  Year 

IF  Jack  London's  roving  feet  had  failed  to  be  drawn  into 
the  Klondike  stampede  of  1897,  his  future  audiences 
would  have  ceased  not  from  asking  why.  But  of  course  he 
could  not  fail  of  response  to  the  lure  of  this  golden  adven- 
ture— accent  on  adventure.  With  all  the  naivete  of  pre- 
vious self -justifications  when  yielding  to  his  passion  for 
boating,  the  material  treasure-trove  in  itself  formed  but  an 
adjunct  that  made  all  at  ease  with  his  conscience. 

It  was  Klondike  or  bust.  But  how,  how,  HOW? — ^he 
beat  at  the  obstacle  poverty.  The  steamer  Umatilla,  of 
recent  memory,  carrying  the  great  jam  of  mad  gold-seekers, 
was  to  sail  in  four  days  on  the  irresistible  tide  of  the  enter- 
prise. Klondike  or  bust — oh,  he  would  somehow  get  to  go ; 
but  there  was  not  a  cent  in  sight  for  grub  and  gear,  and 
his  practical  sense  warned  of  meager  welcome  for  the  un- 
prepared in  the  bleak  Northland. 

Two  days  moved  swiftly  by,  while  he  hustled  about  Oak- 
land to  find  some  one  reckless  enough  to  grubstake  him  into 
the  Arctic.  He  even  called  upon  Joaquin  Miller; — block- 
head! why  hadn't  it  occurred  to  him  sooner!  There  was  a 
man,  a  true  sport  who  would  understand.  Would  he !  He 
had  understood  so  well  that  when  Jack  reached  the  door, 
the  Sweet  Singer  of  the  Sierras  had  already  pulled  out 
on  his  own  hook — *'The  son  of  a  gun!''  Jack  ruefully  ap- 
preciated. 

As  the  hours  lessened,  he  grew  reckless;  he  would  de- 
pend upon  strength  and  luck,  and  chance  the  thing,  outfit 

222 


INTO  KLONDIKE  223 

or  no  outfit.  Unavoidably,  he  had  thought  of  his  sister; 
but  this  was  an  expensive  undertaking,  and  she  had  done 
much  for  him  of  late  without  his  having  proved  he  could 
make  good.  For  once  he  could  not  bring  himself  further 
to  burden  her. 

Yet  it  was  from  her  household  that  help  emanated,  al- 
though from  an  unanticipated  member.  Jack  was  stricken 
dumb  when  his  brother-in-law  fell  as  sudden  and  hopeless 
— or  hopeful — victim  to  the  gold-fever  as  any  youngster  in 
his  unlicked  teens,  boldly  announcing  his  own  intention  of 
Klondike  or  bust.  He  furthermore  declared  that  if  Jack 
would  trade  the  benefit  of  his  youth  and  experience  and  see 
him  through,  he  should  be  grubstaked  in  partnership.  Jack, 
with  shrewd  judgment  bom  of  bedding  with  hardship  by 
land  and  sea,  was  markedly  unenthusiastic  in  view  of  the 
slender  and  ailing  veteran  ^s  age  and  other  disqualifications. 
Still,  he  was  up  against  a  disappointment  he  could  not 
brook ;  it  was  Klondike  or  bust,  and  he  could  ill  balk  at  such 
last-moment  opportunity.  Upon  the  instant  he  decided,  as 
was  his  habit  in  crises. 

The  elder  man's  generosity  of  a  grubstake  consisted  in 
sinking  his  own  earnings  of  the  firm  of  Shepard  &  Com- 
pany, along  with  his  wife-partner's  in  addition  to  the  hun- 
dreds she  promptly  realized  by  mortgaging  the  home,  which 
was  her  own.  Then,  having  bowed  her  sensible  head  to  the 
impregnable  fusion  of  their  juvenile  insanity — **both  as 
crazy  as  loons,  one  no  worse  than  the  other!*' — she  abetted 
with  might  and  main.  Since  they  were  minded  to  make 
idiots  of  themselves,  they  should  have  the  best  outfit  that 
could  be  purchased  with  money ;  moreover,  she  would  shop 
with  them  to  see  that  it  was  complete  in  every  detail.  And 
the  following  year  her  brother  was  able  happily  to  assure 
her  that  nothing  to  beat  it  went  over  Chilcoot  that  fall  of 
18J)7. 

Jack  shot  back  across  Lake  Merritt  bridge  on  his  wheel, 
to  start  rustling  the  books  he  would  not  sail  without, 


224      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Eliza  and  her  husband  to  meet  him  in  town  a  little  later. 
On  the  way,  Captain  Shepard's  senile  excitement  precipi- 
tated a  heart-attack  that  brought  on  a  deadly  faint.  The 
conductor  of  the  street  car  helped  Eliza  lay  him  on  a  lawn, 
and  some  passer-by  ran  for  a  doctor,  who  ordered  the  pa- 
tient to  bed  for  two  weeks.  But  next  morning  he  was  up 
and  away  to  San  Francisco,  with  his  wife  and  Jack  on  either 
side  supporting  him  through  a  shopping  tour  that  revived 
all  their  spirits. 

Such  a  buying  jamboree  Jack  had  never  enjoyed. 
Eliza's  hundreds  flowed  like  water:  fur-lined  coats,  fur  caps, 
heavy  high  boots,  thick  mittens ;  and  red-flannel  shirts  and 
underdrawers  of  the  warmest  quality — so  warm  that  Jack 
had  to  shed  his  outer  garments  packing  over  Chilcoot  Pass, 
and  blossom  against  the  snow  a  scarlet  admiration  to  In- 
dian and  squaw.  The  brace  of  gold-seekers  agreed  upon 
the  advisability  of  raw  materials  for  the  construction  of 
dog-sleds — runners,  thongs,  and  tools.  The  average  outfit 
of  the  Klondiker  also  must  include  a  year's  supply  of  grub, 
mining  implements,  tents,  blankets,  ** Klondike  stoves," 
everything  requisite  to  maintain  life,  build  boats  and  cabins. 
Jack's  dunnage  alone  weighed  nearly  2,000  pounds. 

I  have  no  way  of  knowing  how  the  Lily  Maid  regarded 
this  latest  goose-chase  of  her  strange  swain  who  refused  to 
forfeit  the  independence  of  his  soul  for  sweet  love  or  pity 
or  any  other  meek  consideration.  There  is  no  record  of 
protest;  but  if  her  mother's  letter  to  Jack  is  any  criterion 
of  the  girl's  opinion,  it  shows  the  reverse  of  a  high  estimate 
of  his  wisdom.  I  cannot  refrain  from  quoting  the  cheerful 
document — and  she  called  him  John: 

''July  22nd,  1897. 
"Dear  John: 

"We  have  just  received  your  letter  with  the  awful  news  that 
you  are  about  to  start  for  Alaska.  Oh,  dear  John,  do  be  persuaded 
to  give  up  the  idea  for  we  feel  certain  that  you  are  going  to  meet 
your  death  and  we  shall  never  see  you  again.    What  your  object 


^   o 

-  S 


—  a 

—  o 

.,  fl 

—  o 

■J.  »J 


INTO  KLONDIKE  225 

can  be  in  going  we  cannot  even  think,  but  we  feel  as  though  we 
should  never  see  you  again.  John,  do  give  up  the  thought  for  you 
will  never  come  back  again,  never.  Your  Father  and  Mother 
must  be  nearly  crazed  over  it.  Now,  even  at  the  eleventh  hour, 
dear  John,  do  change  your  mind  and  stay.  With  lots  of  love  to 
all  and  hoping  to  hear  better  news,  I  remain,  your  sincere  friend.  *  * 

The  day  following  the  buying  orgy,  July  25,  1897,  two 
hours  late  because  of  the  heavy  traffic,  the  Umatilla  carried 
the  ill-assorted  pair  away  through  the  Golden  Gate  and  set 
her  northwesterly  course.  Aside  from  a  feeble  and  vapor- 
ing *'sidekicker,**  there  was  but  one  drawback  to  Jack^s 
perfection  of  bliss — his  father's  condition,  which  was  very 
poorly.  He  had  lain  for  weeks  in  what  proved  his  death- 
bed several  months  later.  With  unshed  tears  in  the  patient 
gray  eyes,  he  had  even  begged  Jack  to  take  him  along;  he 
could  go  into  Alaska  on  a  sled  as  well  as  not — **  Why,  if  you 
could  only  get  me  up  there  in  the  snows,  Jack,  I  *d  get  strong 
right  off.  *  *  And  Jack  with  a  sob  in  his  voice  cried  to  Eliza : 
*'God!— if  I  could  only  take  him!'' 

They  never  saw  each  other  again,  those  two  good  pals. 
By  the  first  mail  in  after  the  spring  thaw  of  '98,  word  came 
to  Jack  of  John  London's  death  on  October  15,  and  how  to 
the  last  he  had  hoped  that  he  might  be  spared  to  see  Jack 
come  home  triumphant  from  the  gold-fields.  Faith  in  his 
boy  still  burned  with  unwavering  flame.  **He'll  come  out 
all  right,  you  watch  his  smoke,"  he  would  beam  with  quiet 
surety  upon  doubters ;  **and  come  out  big,  mark  my  words." 
After  Jack  had  gone  North,  his  father  foretold  not  once  but 
many  times,  **Jack  is  going  to  make  a  success  out  of  the 
Klondike — whether  he  digs  it  out  of  the  grassroots  or  not," 

Only  in  the  last  fortnight  did  his  mind  blur  to  a  halluc- 
ination. Before  that  he  bravely  held  to  it  that  he  would 
soon  be  up  and  about.  But  later  on  he  would  beg  Eliza 
to  sit  the  first-night  spell  with  him,  since  he  could  depend 
upon  her  unsleeping  help  in  that  nightly  tug-of-war  with 


226      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

the  man  at  the  other  end  of  the  stick.  If  he  could 
fall  to  sleep  by  one  o  *clock,  before  she  went  home,  the  dan- 
ger would  be  over — the  man  could  not  get  him,  and  he  oould 
live  through  till  morning;  anyway,  till  Jack  came  home. 

Captain  Shepard,  after  one  good  stare  at  Chilcoot  Pass, 
had  turned  his  back  on  all  such  rigors,  leaving  his  stuff 
for  Jack  to  dispose  of.  Much  improved  from  the  vacation, 
he  arrived  in  Oakland  shortly  before  the  death  of  his  wife 's 
father,  and  resumed  his  part  in  the  pension-claim  work, 
which  during  his  absence  Eliza  had  borne.  And  now,  out 
of  her  own  earnings,  she  paid  the  bills  of  her  father  *s 
funeral. 

At  Port  Townsend,  the  Umatilla's  hordes  had  been 
transferred  to  the  steamer  City  of  Topeka,  which  arrived  at 
Juneau  on  August  2.  Forty-two  miles  farther  northwest, 
they  reached  the  end  of  their  crowded  voyage  and  stretched 
themselves  on  the  beach  at  the  Indian  village  of  Dyea,  a 
mere  cluster  of  huts  above  the  reach  of  high  tide  on  the 
Chilkoot  Inlet  of  I^-ynn  Canal.  The  party — now  swelled 
to  five,  for  Jack  and  Captain  Shepard  had  formed  a  partner- 
ship with  Fred  Thompson,  ^*  Jim'*  Goodman,  and  one  Mer- 
ritt  Sloper — found  the  beach  a  shouting  bedlam  of  gold- 
rushers  amid  an  apparently  inextricable  dump  of  ten  thou- 
sand tons  of  luggage.  Many  of  the  arrivals  were  like  luna- 
tics, fully  as  responsible  as  newly  headless  fowl  in  this 
scramble  into  an  unpitying  frozen  land.  (It  was  in  this 
same  Lynn  Canal,  in  1918,  that  the  steamer  Princess  Sophia 
foundered,  with  the  loss  of  all  on  board — miners  and  their 
families  coming  south  for  the  winter.) 

Although  a-tingle  with  his  own  excitement,  a  large 
share  of  which  was  from  the  stirring  spectacle  on  the  beach, 
Jack's  level  head  had  counseled  speedy  withdrawal  of  him- 
self and  his  elderly  charge  from  the  mass  of  humans  that 
appeared  to  be  falling  over  one  another.  With  open  eye 
and  ear  to  every  hint  from  the  knowing  ones,  he  applied  his 
faculties  to  getting  hold  of  the  outfit  and  pushing  onward 


INTO  KLONDIKE  227 

toward  the  Chilkoot  trail.  The  more  he  listened,  the  better 
he  realized  that  there  was  no  moment  to  lose  if  they  were 
not  to  be  left  behind  all  winter  in  the  impending  freeze-up. 
Only  the  most  alert  and  fittest  could  obviate  such  unthink- 
able misfortune.  How  his  sister's  husband  could  make  it 
through  was  the  question.  Not  unnaturally  the  young  man 
was  in  terror  of  losing  his  own  chance  through  the  other's 
insufficiency. 

But  that  night  they  slept  on  the  Flats  five  miles  above 
Dyea,  at  the  head  of  canoe  navigation  where  the  Dyea 
River  narrows  to  a  torrent  bursting  from  a  snowy  can- 
yon, fed  by  far  glaciers.  For  once  Jack  was  willing  to  own 
that  he  was  dead  tired.  Captain  Shepard,  of  course,  was  of 
negligible  worth  as  a  draft  partner,  and  Jack,  soft  from 
the  inactivity  of  long  days  on  shipboard,  ached  in  every 
muscle  and  in  his  scarified  shoulders,  from  towing  their 
thousands  of  pounds  of  belongings  up-stream. 

Every  one  had  been  confident,  from  reports,  that  the 
loading  up-trail  would  be  done  by  Indians  for  sums  within 
reason.  Imagine  the  chagrin,  consternation  to  many,  when 
the  Indians,  awake  to  their  own  idea  of  a  gold-rush, 
imperturbably  demanded  thirty  cents  a  pound  shoulder- 
portage  for  the  twenty-eight  miles  between  Dyea  Beach, 
across  the  Pass  to  Lake  Linderman.  Six  hundred  dollars  a 
ton!  Beaten  at  the  outset,  vast  numbers  of  the  cruelly 
chilled  enthusiasts  watched  the  few  physically  equipped, 
born  to  victory,  attack  the  first  stage  to  Happy  Camp. 
Sheep  Camp,  some  miles  upward,  was  the  next  stop;  thence 
on,  scaling  the  whole  of  Chilkoot  *s  tragic  trail,  along  whose 
margin  the  weaker  ones  fell  and  expired.  One  sour-dough 
assures  me  Chilkoot  is  *'the  worst  trail  this  side  of  hell.'* 

It  was  one  of  the  happiest  moments  of  Jack 's  life  when 
Captain  Shepard  of  free  choice  abandoned  the  venture,  and 
the  two  parted  in  good  feeling.  Now  he  was  quit  of  en- 
cumbrance, other  than  the  deadweight  of  luggage.  He  has 
told  me  how  he  experimented  with  adding  to  and  shift- 


228      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

ing  his  pack,  readjusting  straps,  and  padding  the  raw 
sections  of  his  strong  but  tender-skinned  back  and  shoulders 
until  he  outpacked  in  honest  pounds  any  white  man  who 
made  it  through  to  Lake  Linderman,  and  surpassed  many 
an  Indian.  Indeed,  such  feat  was  a  boon  to  the  men  who 
could  afford  Indian  assistance  to  the  summit,  as  could  Fred 
Thompson;  for  Jack's  example  put  the  sly  aborigines  on 
their  mettle  not  to  be  outdone  by  this  puffing,  steaming, 
white  human  engine  in  scarlet  flannels.  I  give  his  own 
version : 

*'This  last  pack  into  Linderman  was  three  miles.  I 
back-tripped  it  four  times  a  day,  and  on  each  forward  trip 
carried  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds.  This  means  that 
over  the  worst  trails  I  daily  traveled  twenty-four  miles, 
twelve  of  which  were  under  a  burden  of  one  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds.  *  * 

The  men  had  to  ford  swift  and  icy  rivers,  and  a  swamp 
that  some  sardonic  wit  had  yclept  Pleasant  Valley,  where 
the  weight  of  a  pack  would  drive  one  to  the  knees  in  freez- 
ing ooze  and  muck.  The  earlier  stretches  of  the  trail 
ascended  a  long  mountain  slope  largely  covered  with  tun- 
dra, which  did  not  afford  solid  footing.  This  was  super- 
seded by  sharp  and  broken  shale.  Reaching  *'The  Scales,'* 
at  the  actual  foot  of  the  steepest  aspect  of  a  mountain  wall 
which  looked  to  topple  over  backward.  Jack  found  himself 
preparing  for  the  most  grinding  test  of  endurance.  For 
sheer  as  was  the  terrific  rise,  it  was  yet  not  sheer  enough  to 
prevent  huge  boulders  from  finding  lodgment  in  the  path, 
which  formed  serious  obstacles.  *  *  A  man 's  job ' '  it  was,  and 
Jack  London  could  do  no  other  than  make  good  as  a  real 
man  among  real  men. 

Of  all  the  anecdotes  of  this  bitter  climb  that  he  told 
in  my  hearing,  only  one  stands  out — the  incident  of  a  man 
bearing  a  great  load,  who,  in  sitting  down  upon  a  fallen  tree 
to  catch  breath,  had  been  overweighted  and  fallen  back- 
ward, head  and  shoulders  deep  in  the  snow  so  that  he  could 


INTO  KLONDIKE  229 

make  no  outcry.  Jack,  plodding  painfully  upward,  hap- 
pened to  glance  aside  to  where  his  keen  eyes  saw  a  pair  of 
feet  above  the  log.  In  curiosity  he  turned  and  backed  up  to 
the  log  where  carefully,  slowly,  lest  he  be  outbalanced,  he 
rested  his  pack  and  freed  arms  and  chest  of  the  straps. 
Then  he  plucked  the  victim,  red  and  spluttering  with  grati- 
tude, out  of  his  unprogressive  posture  which,  though  com- 
ical, was  of  extreme  danger;  for  it  was  by  merest  chance 
that  any  heavily-laden  miner,  bent  only  upon  topping  Chil- 
koot's  rise,  should  have  spied  his  snow-crusted  boot-soles. 

At  the  summit,  the  young  men  faced  a  fierce  driving 
rain,  then  negotiated  a  glacier  that  descended  to  Crater 
Lake ;  after  which  a  chain  of  small  lakes  compelled  detours 
over  rugged  hills,  or  the  hiring  of  boats,  of  which  they 
availed  themselves.  The  last  lake,  however,  before  reach- 
ing Linderman,  was  shallow  alongshore  and  could  be  waded, 
soft  deep  mud  on  the  bottom  adding  to  the  difficulties  of 
travel.  Little  marvel  that  Jack  London  ever  afterward 
eschewed  protracted  walking,  (I  think  it  was  Frederick 
Palmer,  writing  of  the  hardships  of  soldiers  on  the  Flan- 
ders front,  who  said  that  one  who  had  crossed  Chilkoot  in 
the  fall  of  1897  would  have  a  fairly  comprehensive  idea  of 
what  the  Tommies  were  up  against.) 

Eight  or  nine  miles  up-river  from  Lake  Linderman, 
where  the  timber  was  good,  the  boys  whipsawed  their  own 
lumber  and  in  company  with  another  party  constructed  two 
boats,  Yukon  Belle  and  Belle  of  the  Yukon,  In  this  capacity 
Jack  and  Sloper  were  in  their  element,  for  the  latter  knew 
ship-carpentering  and  building  from  keel  to  main-truck.  It 
became  the  pride  of  the  owners  that  never  were  their  well- 
stored  cargoes  of  supplies  removed,  though  they  shot  every 
rapid  on  the  perilous  route.  Jack,  ready  shoulder-to 
shoulder  in  any  sort  of  emergency,  was  yet  especially  in- 
valuable when  aqueous  portions  of  the  way  were  encount- 
ered.   He  loved  to  tell  the  story  of  how  he  navigated  the 


230      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

infamous  Box  Canyon  and  White  Horse  Rapids,  that  sank 
and  drowned  crew  after  crew  of  doomed  men. 

By  unabating  zeal  the  boys  kept  just  ahead  of  the  for- 
bidding freeze-up  that  set  a  bar  of  iron  to  the  progress  of 
the  less  forehanded.  Lakes  froze  on  their  flying  heels,  so 
slim  was  the  margin.  Jack  learned  what  it  meant  to  pit 
one's  raging  impotence  against  the  imperturbability  of 
nature.  Never  a  waking  moment  did  they  lose,  and  allowed 
no  more  time  for  sleep  than  was  absolutely  required.  At 
the  head  of  Lake  Bennett,  news  from  before  was  of  famine, 
and  that  the  Northwest  Mounted  Police  stationed  at  the  foot 
of  Lake  Marsh,  where  the  gold-hunters  entered  Canadian 
territory,  refused  to  let  past  any  man  not  fortified  with 
seven  hundred  pounds  of  grub.  The  rest  were  sent  down 
river  and  interned  at  Dawson. 

Their  sternest  battle  was  across  Lake  Le  Barge,  the 
freeze-up  of  which  threatened  in  the  gale.  Three  days  they 
had  been  thrown  back  by  cresting  seas  that  fell  aboard  in 
tinkling  ice.  On  the  fourth  Jack  said:  ** To-day  weVe  got 
to  make  it — or  we  camp  here  all  winter  with  the  others.'' 
They  almost  died  at  the  oars,  but  *'died  to  live  again"  and 
fight  on.  All  night,  like  driven  automatons  they  pulled,  and 
at  daybreak  entered  the  river,  with  behind  them  a  fast- 
frozen  lake.  And  their  pilot,  from  what  I  know  of  him,  I 
can  swear  did  not  realize  half  his  weariness,  so  elated  must 
he  have  been  to  be  thus  forward — one  of  the  very  few  who 
had  made  it  through. 

Undaunted,  without  wasting  precious  minutes  in  dis- 
cussion, the  trio  pushed  on  as  one  man.  The  blizzard  luckily 
moved  into  the  south,  and  they  ran  before  it  under  a  huge 
sail  Jack  had  devised.  With  the  heavy  ballast  of  outfit,  he 
dared  to  crack  on  sail  Nelson-fashion  when  moments  so 
counted.  Luck  was  with  him  when  they  came  to  Caribou 
Crossing,  for  a  shift  of  wind  at  the  right  time  sent  them 
humming  down  the  connecting  link  between  Lakes  Tag- 
gish  and  Marsh.    Nothing  could  stop  them,  and  Jack,  his 


INTO  KLONDIKE  231 

experienced  mittened  hands  nearly  frozen  to  the  tiller 
he  had  rigged,  held  on  in  high  fettle  across  the  menacing 
Windy  Arm,  where  in  a  stormy  twilight  he  saw  two  other 
boat-loads  of  men  turn  over  and  miserably  perish.  It  was 
sickening  to  be  unable  to  lend  a  hand ;  but  the  very  law  of 
life  in  this  inimical  cold-crystal  sphere  of  the  Northland  was 
to  keep  one  *s  head  in  just  such  temptation.  And  three  other 
souls  beside  his  own  depended  entirely  upon  his  sailor  com- 
petence. 

Sixty  Mile  River,  really  a  head  reach  of  the  Yukon,  flows 
out  of  Lake  Marsh,  its  greatest  breadth  a  quarter  of  a  mile. 
Deep  and  swdft,  it  suddenly  narrows  with  a  cur\"e  into  Box 
Canyon,  only  eighty  feet  in  width,  rocky  walls  towering  on 
either  side.  The  suddenly  confined  volume  of  water  gathers 
terrific  speed,  marked  by  great  boilings  and  stiffly  upthmst 
waves,  and  its  action  against  the  canyon  walls  causes  the 
water  to  rise  in  a  sort  of  hog-back  in  the  center. 

It  was  owing  to  a  blinding  headache,  for  liquor  had  been 
cut  out  of  his  calculations  except  for  medicinal  use,  that 
Jack  had  accepted  a  drink  of  whiskey  before  undertaking 
to  shoot  the  bad  water.  Tying  their  boat,  Yukon  Belle, 
in  the  eddy  above  the  Box,  the  four  partners  walked  ahead 
to  investigate,  meanwhile  consulting  a  book  written  by 
Miner  W.  Bruce,  Alaskan  pioneer.  They  discovered  that 
hundreds  were  portaging  outfits  on  their  backs.  '* Nothing 
doing,**  Jack  scorned.  If  he  took  the  chance  and  ran 
through  by  water,  in  two  minutes  they  would  save  two  days 
of  severest  toil.  According  to  their  custom,  a  vote  was 
called,  which  was  unanimous  for  the  two-minute  route. 
Jack,  as  captain,  placed  Merritt  Sloper  in  the  bow  with  a 
paddle.  Fred  Thompson  and  Jim  Goodman,  confessed 
landlubbers,  sat  side  by  side  amidship  at  the  oars.  The 
boat,  twenty-seven  feet  in  length,  carrying  over  5000 
pounds  in  addition  to  its  human  freight,  did  not  possess  the 
buoyancy  desirable  for  such  an  undertaking. 

Jack's  head  whirled  from  the  unwonted  alcohol  upon 


r 

232      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

an  empty  stomach,  and  he  caught  himself  wondering  if  that 
head  would  serve  in  his  need,  where  again  lives  hung 
npon  the  perfect  coordination  of  his  faculties.  But  the 
instant  the  bow  swung  do.wnstream  into  the  jaws  of  the 
Box,  and  his  lashed  steering-oar  bore  against  the  cork- 
screwing anarchy  of  waters,  something  went  cool  and  calm 
through  him,  and  he  rose  to  the  work.  Afraid  that  the 
rowers  might  ** catch  a  crab"  or  otherwise  fumble  dis- 
astrously, he  ordered  in  the  oars.  * '  Then  we  met  it  on  the 
fly,*'  and  he  went  on  to  picture  how  he  caught  a  passing 
glimpse  of  spectators  fringing  the  brink  of  the  cliffs  above, 
and  another  glimpse  of  serrated  walls  dashing  by  like 
twin  express  trains.  Then  his  undivided  energy  was 
centered  upon  keeping  atop  the  racing  hogback.  The  deep- 
laden  boat,  instead  of  mounting  the  waves,  went  dead  into 
them.  Despite  the  peril,  Jack  could  not  help  giggling  at 
poor  Sloper,  who,  just  as  he  let  drive  for  a  tremendous 
stroke,  would  quite  miss  the  water  as  the  stern  fell  in  a 
trough,  jerking  the  bow  skyward.  '^But  Sloper  never  lost 
his  grit,''  he  praised. 

In  a  transverse  current  Jack  threw  himself  against  the 
sweep  till  it  cracked,  and  Sloper 's  paddle  snapped  short  off. 
They  nearly  filled,  yet  went  flying  downstream  breakneck, 
less  than  two  yards  from  the  rocky  wall.  Another  instant, 
and  they  took  a  header  through  a  smoking  comber  and 
shot  into  the  whirlpool  of  the  great  circular  court  that 
widens  midway  of  the  Box,  thence  spilling  over  into  the 
second  half  of  the  race. 

Jack  and  his  crew  then  walked  back  and  brought 
through  the  outfit  of  a  man  and  his  wife,  a  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Eet.  That  done,  they  baled  out  the  Yukon  Belle  and  essayed 
two  miles  of  ordinary  rapids  to  the  head  of  the  White 
Horse,  passing  several  of  the  Box  Canyon  wi'ecks  in  which 
lives  had  been  lost.  Save  for  a  few  who  had  been  drowned, 
no  one  had  tried  to  run  the  White  Horse  in  late  years ;  but 
our  quartette  looked  it  over,  and  then,  with  an  audience  of 


INTO  KLONDIKE  233 

a  thousand  souls,  went  down.  Jack  nearly  lost  his  boat 
when  he  tried  to  buck  the  whirlpool,  not  knowing  he  had 
come  within  its  coils;  and  again  Sloper  had  his  paddle 
snap  off.  When  they  had  reached  the  friendly  eddy  below 
the  Rapids,  they  returned  as  before,  and  piloted  down  the 
Rets'  boat. 

Not  until  October  9,  when  the  Stewart  River  was 
reached,  did  the  invincibles  halt.  I  have  obtained  the  date 
through  the  courtesy  of  Mr.  Fred  Thompson,  of  Santa 
Rosa,  who  has  lent  his  Diary.  On  Upper  Island,  one  of 
two  islets  off  the  eastern  bank  of  the  Yukon,  half-way 
between  the  Stewart  and  Henderson  Creek,  and  eighty 
miles  above  Dawson,  they  set  up  housekeeping  in  one  of  a 
group  of  log  cabins  that  had  been  abandoned  by  the  Bering 
Sea  fur  traders.  The  fact  of  empty  quarters  is  indicative 
of  Jack  and  his  crowd  being  among  the  first  over  Chilkoot. 
Lower  Island  was  inhabited  mostly  by  Swedes,  and  Jack 
jocularly  referred  to  it  as  **the  slums. '* 

I  think  it  must  have  been  within  the  restricted  four 
walls  of  this  little  fortress  against  the  Arctic  cold,  that 
there  was  bom  in  Jack  London  that  vision  of  hospitality 
which  animated  him  all  his  unpenurious  days.  It  could 
not  consist  of  wastefulness  as  regarded  food,  but  of  warmth 
and  shelter,  and,  inestimable  comfort  to  a  certain  few  who 
gathered  about  the  red-hot  stove,  converse  of  long  nights 
that  was  the  sole  entertainment  of  the  frozen-in  gold  pros- 
pectors from  all  points  of  the  compass. 

Studying  Mr.  Thompson's  journal,  I  find  that  on  the 
12th  Jack  and  several  others  went  up  Henderson  Creek, 
and  staked  their  claims.  Four  days  later,  the  party  was  on 
its  way  to  Dawson  City  in  the  Yukon  Belle,  to  record  claims 
and  freshen  up  with  news  of  the  country.  Camped  near  the 
cabin  of  Louis  W.  Bond,  of  Santa  Clara  County,  California, 
they  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  dog  Buck,  subsequent 
noble  hero  of  ''The  Call  of  the  Wild."    They  did  not  leave 


234      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Dawson  until  December  3,  on  the  7th  arriving  back  on 
Upper  Island. 

Dawson  City — Metropolis  of  the  World  to  the  World  *s 
Adventurers! — its  snow-packed  thoroughfare  crunching 
under  the  muclucs  of  the  motliest  crowd  that  ever  con- 
gregated from  the  remotest  arcs  of  the  planet,  and  splen- 
didly policed  by  the  heroic  **  yellow-legs, '^  as  the  Mounted 
Constabulary  was  called  from  the  hue  of  its  leggins.  And 
what  Jack  London's  ductile  mind  took  unto  itself  of  the 
gorgeous  romance  enacted  under  the  Union  Jack  that  dom- 
inated the  log-built  capital  of  the  Northwest  Territory,  is 
free  to  all  who  will  read  between  the  boards  of  one  or 
another  of  a  dozen-odd  books  he  devoted  to  its  diverse 
picturings. 

A  prize  has  come  to  me  for  the  asking,  in  the  recollec- 
tions of  one  sympathetic  mind  that  measured  blades 
with  Jack  London's  in  the  log-cabin  on  Upper  Island — 
Mr.  W.  B.  Hargrave,  of  Colfax,  Washington — **Berf 
Hargrave,  or  **Kid,''  as  the  younger  with  winsome  irrever- 
ence bridged  a  disparity  of  years.  Mr.  Hargrave  has  also 
furnished  me  a  chart  illustrating  the  geographical  situation 
of  the  camp,  upon  which  he  has  jotted:  **You  must 
imagine  high  hills  sloping  back  from  the  river  banks, 
buttressed  by  an  occasional  ridge  that  had  been  cleft  by 
the  stream,  leaving  precipitous  walls.  Forests  of  spruce, 
of  dense  growth  in  the  ravines  and  along  the  streams. 
The  islands  flat  and  also  covered  with  spruce  timber.  A 
mantle  of  snow  of  the  average  depth  of  four  feet  in  the 
lower  latitudes.  *'  From  his  letters  to  me  since  the  death 
of  his  friend,  not  only  have  we  a  valuable  presentment  of 
both  the  physical  but  the  mental  Jack  London  of  that 
season: 

**It  was  in  October  of  1897  that  I  first  met  him  ...  No 
other  man  has  left  so  indelible  an  impression  upon  my 
memory  as  Jack  London.  He  was  but  a  boy  then,  in  years 
.  .  .  But  he  possessed  the  mental  equipment  of  a  mature 


INTO  KLONDIKE  235 

man,  and  I  have  never  thought  of  him  as  a  boy  except  in 
the  heart  of  him  .  .  .  the  clean,  joyous,  tender,  unembit- 
tered  heart  of  youth.  His  personality  would  challenge  at- 
tention anj^vhere.  Not  only  in  his  beauty — for  he  was  a 
handsome  lad — but  there  was  about  him  that  indefinable 
something  that  distinguishes  genius  from  mediocrity. 
Though  a  youth,  he  displayed  none  of  the  insolent  egotism 
of  youth ;  he  was  an  idealist  who  went  after  the  attainable; 
a  dreamer  who  was  a  man  among  strong  men ;  a  man  who 
faced  life  with  superb  assurance  and  who  could  face  death 
serenely  imperturbable.  These  were  my  first  impressions; 
which  months  of  companionship  only  confirmed. 

**He  was  one  of  the  few  adventurers,  of  the  thousands 
whom  the  lure  of  gold  enticed  to  the  frozen  fastnesses  of 
the  Klondike,  whose  hardihood  and  pluck  scaled  the  summit 
of  Chilkoot  Pass  that  year.  His  cabin  was  on  the  bank 
of  the  Yukon,  near  the  month  of  the  Stewart  River.  I 
remember  well  the  first  time  I  entered  it.  London  was 
seated  on  the  edge  of  a  bunk,  rolling  a  cigarette.  He 
smoked  incessantly  and  it  would  have  taken  no  Sherlock 
Holmes  to  tell  what  the  stains  on  his  fingers  meant.  One 
of  his  partners,  Goodman,  was  preparing  a  meal,  and  the 
other,  Sloper,  was  doing  some  carpentry  work.  From  the 
few  words  which  I  overheard  as  I  entered,  I  surmised  that 
Jack  had  challenged  some  of  Goodman's  orthodox  views, 
and  that  the  latter  was  doggedly  defending  himself  in  an 
unequal  contest  of  wits.  Many  times  afterward  I  myself 
felt  the  rapier  thrust  of  London's,  and  knew  how  to  sympa- 
thize with  Goodman. 

**Jack  interrupted  the  conversation  to  welcome  me, 
and  his  hospitality  was  so  cordial,  his  smile  so  genial,  his 
goodfellowship  so  real,  that  it  instantly  dispelled  all  re- 
serve. I  was  invited  to  participate  in  the  discussion,  which 
I  did,  much  to  my  subsequent  discomfiture. 

**That  day — the  day  on  which  our  friendship  began — 
has  become  consecrated  in  my  memory.    I  find  it  difficult 


236      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

to  write  about  Jack  without  laying  myself  open  to  the 
charge  of  adulation.  During  the  course  of  my  life  ...  I 
have  met  men  who  were  worth  while ;  but  Jack  was  the  one 
man  with  whom  I  have  come  in  personal  contact  who  pos- 
sessed the  qualities  of  heart  and  mind  that  made  him  one 
of  the  world's  overshadowing  geniuses. 

**He  was  intrinsically  kind  and  irrationally/  generous. 
.  .  .  With  an  innate  refinement,  a  gentleness  that  had  sur- 
vived the  roughest  of  associations.  Sometimes  he  would 
become  silent  and  reflective,  but  he  was  never  morose  or 
sullen.  His  silence  was  an  attentive  silence.  I  have  known 
him  to  end  a  discussion  by  merely  assuming  the  attitude  of 
a  courteous  listener,  and  when  his  indiscreet  opponent  had 
tangled  himself  in  the  web  of  his  own  illogic,  and  had  per- 
haps fallen  back  upon  invective  to  bolster  his  position, 
Jack  would  calmly  roll  another  cigarette,  and  throwing  his 
head  back,  give  vent  to  infectious  laughter — infectious  be- 
cause it  was  never  bitter  or  derisive.  ...  He  was  always 
good-natured;  he  was  more — he  was  charmingly  cheerful. 
If  in  those  days  he  was  beset  by  melancholia,  he  concealed 
it  from  his  companions. 

**  There  were  not  many  of  us  that  winter  in  the  little 
mining  camp  on  the  Yukon ;  but  the  isolated  group  of  cabins 
housed  some  lovable  and  adventurous  souls.  I  will  tell 
you  about  them,  because  it  was  about  them  that  Jack  Lon- 
don wrote,  and  because  there  is  hardly  one  of  them  whom 
he  has  not  immortalized  in  his  writings. 

*' There  was  Louis  Savard,  a  French-Canadian.  So  re- 
ticent was  he  that  it  was  almost  impossible  to  get  him  to 
utter  more  than  a  monosyllabic  answer  to  a  categorical 
question.  He  had  a  pronounced  French-Canadian  accent, 
the  drollness  of  which  so  delighted  London  that  he  never 
ceased  in  his  attempts  to  draw  Louis  into  conversation.  It 
was  Louis  who  owned  *Nig/  a  dog  that  showed  a  striking 
Newfoundland  strain,  and  I  have  thought  it  was  Nig's 
antics  that  gave  Jack  his  inspiration  to  write  *The  Call  of 


INTO  KLONDIKE  237 

the  Wild/  Louis  once  took  the  dog  on  a  *hike*  up  Sixty 
Mile,  and  when  Nig  saw  his  master  preparing  for  the  re- 
turn journey  he  deserted  and  came  back  to  camp  alone, 
leaving  to  the  indignant  Louis  the  task  of  hauling  a  loaded 
sledge  some  thirty  or  forty  miles.  Savard  was  so  incensed 
that  he  threatened  to  kill  the  dog,  and  it  was  only  Jack 
London's  eloquent  appeal  that  saved  Nig  from  a  dishonored 
end.  One  of  Savard 's  partners  was  Elam  Hamish.  [Elam 
Harnish's  nickname  was  **  Burning  Daylight, '^  and  he 
formed  the  basis  of  the  hero  of  Jack's  novel  by  that  name.] 
.  .  .  And  there  was  Carthy  (his  name  was  Courthe,  I 
believe!).  .  .  .  London  mentions  him,  I  think,  by  name  in 
one  story.  .  .  .  Peacock  was  another,  a  Texan.  He  was 
one  of  the  few  among  us  who  realized  the  golden  dream  of 
the  Argonauts.  .  .  .  Then  there  were  John  Thorsen, 
Prewitt,  and  Keogh,  a  giant  Irishman.  .  .  .  And  a  profes- 
sional gambler.  Hank  Putnam  by  name.  .  .  .  And  Judge 
Sullivan — he  was  one  of  my  partners,  as  was  Doctor  Har- 
vey. I  must  not  forget  Stevens,  because  he,  perhaps,  has 
been  used  in  Jack's  Klondike  stories  more  than  any  of 
the  others." 

**  Inasmuch  as  Louis  Savard 's  cabin  was  the  largest  and 
most  comfortable  it  became  the  popular  meeting  place  for 
the  denizens  of  the  camp.  Louis  had  constructed  a  large 
fireplace,  and  my  recollections  of  London  are  intertwined 
with  the  many  hours  we  spent  together  in  front  of  its  cheer- 
ful light.  Many  a  long  night  he  and  I,  outlasting  the  vigil 
of  the  others,  sat  before  the  blazing  spruce  logs,  and  talked 
the  hours  away.  A  brave  figure  of  a  man  he  was,  lounging 
by  the  crude  fireplace,  its  light  playing  on  his  handsome 
features — a  face  that  one  would  look  at  twice  even  in  the 
crowded  city  street.  In  appearance  older  than  his  years; 
a  body  lithe  and  strong;  neck  bared  at  the  throat;  a  tangled 
cluster  of  brown  hair  that  fell  low  over  his  brow  and  which 
he  was  wont  to  brush  back  impatiently  when  engaged  in  ani- 
mated conversation;  a  sensitive  mouth,  but  lips,  neverthe- 


238      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

less,  that  could  set  in  serious  and  masterful  lines ;  a  radiant 
smile,  marred  by  two  missing  teeth  (lost,  he  told  me,  in  a 
fight  on  shipboard) ;  eyes  that  often  carried  an  introspec- 
tive expression;  the  face  of  an  artist  and  a  dreamer,  but 
with  strong  lines  denoting  will  power  and  boundless  energy. 
An  outdoor  man — in  short,  a  real  man,  a  man's  man. 

**He  had  a  mental  craving  for  the  truth.  He  applied 
one  test  to  religion,  to  economics,  to  everything.  *What  is 
the  truth  r  *What  is  justT  It  was  with  these  questions 
that  he  confronted  the  baffling  enigma  of  life.  He  could 
think  great  thoughts.  One  could  not  meet  him  without  feel- 
ing the  impact  of  a  superior  intellect.  Once  in  a  cabin  I 
saw  a  man  who  had  presided  for  many  years  as  the  magis- 
trate of  a  high  court,  and  a  surgeon  who  had  achieved  more 
than  a  local  reputation — each  Jack's  senior  by  many  years 
— sitting  in  his  presence  like  children  facing  their  school- 
master, while  he  expounded  some  of  Herbert  Spencer's  com- 
plex theories.  And  I  remember  that  Jack  once  engaged 
Dr.  Harvey  in  a  discussion  on  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 
The  Doctor  was  an  educated  and  brilliant  man,  unorthodox, 
but  absolutely  convinced  of  the  certainty  of  a  future  life. 
Jack,  with  eager  and  incisive  questioning,  was  demanding 
from  him  a  positively  scientific  corrobation  of  his  belief. 
The  Doctor  had  a  logical  mind,  and  his  inability  to  comply 
with  Jack's  request  vexed  him  much,  although  he  gave  far 
better  reasons  than  can  the  average  man.  On  September 
23rd  of  this  year  [1916],  in  answer  to  a  brief  note  I  sent  to 
Jack  apprising  him  of  the  Doctor's  death,  he  wrote  on  the 
fly-leaf  of  *When  God  Laughs'  and  sent  it  to  me:  .  .  . 
*  Hurrah  for  Doctor  Harvey!  He  was  a  good  scout,  and 
he 's  scouting  ahead  of  us  now,  though  he  never  sends  back 
a  report.' 

**Many  and  diverse  were  the  subjects  we  discussed, 
often  with  the  silent  Louis  as  our  only  listener.  Our  views 
did  not  always  coincide,  and  on  one  occasion  when  argu- 
ment had  waxed  long  and  hot  and  London  had  finally  left 


INTO  KLONDIKE  239 

us,  with  only  the  memory  of  his  glorious  smile  to  salve 
my  defeat,  Louis  looked  up  from  his  game  of  solitaire 
(which  I  think  he  played  because  it  required  no  conversa- 
tion) and  became  veritably  verbose.  This  is  what  he  said: 
*You  mak'  ver'  good  talk,  but  zat  London  he  too  damn 
smart  for  you.'  '* 

It  was  Jack's  irrepressible  entertaining  that  caused 
friction  between  himself  and  Sloper  and  Goodman.  The 
good  and  thrifty  souls  could  not  look  unmoved  upon  gen- 
erosity of  grub  to  a  **siwash*'  when  flour  was  worth  $120 
a  sack.  It  appears  that  seldom  did  the  three  sit  to  dine 
in  absence  of  a  visitor  or  two,  for  when  the  beans  and  bacon 
and  **  dough-gods '  *  were  ready  to  serve,  Jack,  who  if  he 
had  thought  about  it  would  have  starved  himself  rather 
than  be  inhospitable,  would  bid  every  one  to  join  the  family 
at  table.  This  in  the  face  of  Sloper's  eloquent  frown  and 
Goodman's  mild  expression  of  disapproval.  The  boys  be- 
longing to  the  camp  usually  declined  to  participate,  know- 
ing Jack's  weakness — often  a  weakness  of  their  own — 
which  but  endeared  him  to  them.  The  domestic  atmosphere 
did  not  clear,  and  matters  came  to  a  head  through  a  laugh- 
able incident  that  involved  Sloper 's  favorite  ax,  which 
with  other  treasured  carpenter  tools  he  kept  in  spic  and 
span  order. 

Jack,  by  mistake,  one  night  laid  hold  of  Sloper 's  ax 
to  chop  the  ice  from  the  water  hole.  The  chopping  of  this 
particular  hole  had  been  so  many  times  repeated,  with  the 
repeated  freezing  of  whatever  water  was  left  from  each 
successive  chopping,  that  the  river  at  that  spot  was  frozen 
to  the  bottom,  leaving  a  shaft  through  the  ice  from  its  mean 
surface  to  the  bed.  Jack,  unaware  in  the  dark  that  the 
hole  had  been  ** worked  out,"  drove  the  nice  edge  of 
Sloper 's  ax  full  and  fair  into  the  gravel.  When  the  fel- 
lows in  the  cabin  heard  bim  calling,  they  ran  out  to  find 
him  peering  into  the  hole.    **Say,  boys,"  quoth  Jack,  **did 


240      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

you  ever  see  ice  so  hard  that  it  would  strike  sparks  from 
an  axf^*  and  again  he  struck  fire  with  the  ax.  Sloper, 
suddenly  suspicious,  sprang  into  the  hole.  Sure  enough, 
it  was  his  ax — the  apple  of  his  eye.  By  common,  un- 
spoken consent,  partners  and  guests  adjourned  to  the  cabin 
where  the  row  could  be  held  without  their  freezing  to 
death.  On  the  way  Ilargrave  whispered  to  Jack:  *^Why 
did  you  do  itT'  And  Jack:  **Well — I  broke  off  the  edge 
of  that  ax  before  I  knew  it  was  his,  and  I  thought  that 
was  the  best  way  to  let  him  know  it!'' 

Arrived  at  the  cabin,  the  aggrieved  Sloper  started  in 
on  a  comprehensive  job  of  cursing,  which  disconcerted 
Goodman,  a  religious  man,  far  more  than  it  did  Jack,  al- 
though he  felt  much  worse  over  what  he  had  done  than 
he  was  able  to  express.  He  lighted  a  cigarette  and  listened, 
almost  respectfully,  answering  nothing.  But  there  was  a 
glint  in  his  eye  that  warned  Sloper  to  stop  just  short  of 
the  fighting  phrase.  And  that  night  Hargrave,  shortly 
bound  for  Dawson,  told  Harvey  he  would  better  **hook  up 
with  London."  So  Jack  moved  over  for  the  rest  of  his 
stay  on  Upper  Island,  for  the  Doctor  had  told  Hargrave: 
** After  you,  I'd  rather  have  Jack  London  for  a  partner 
than  any  man  on  the  river." 

Hank  Putnam,  the  gambler,  had  gone  to  Dawson,  leav- 
ing his  outfit  with  Doctor  Harvey.  Presently  a  stranger 
appeared  in  camp,  claiming  to  be  half  owner  of  Putnam's 
belongings.  The  claimant,  being  refused  by  Harvey  for 
lack  of  written  authority,  called  a  miners'  meeting  to  ad- 
judicate the  dispute.  Very  few  sour-doughs  were  left  in 
camp,  their  places  being  taken  by  *  *  chechahcos "  or  new- 
comers. These  sustained  the  stranger  by  vote,  and  de- 
mauded  that  the  Doctor  turn  over  half  the  goods  to  which 
it  later  developed  he  had  no  right.  The  Doctor  consulted 
Jack :    ' ' What  shall  we  do?' ' 

** Fight!"  advised  Jack. 

So  they  hastily  converted  the  cabin  into  a  fort  by  knock- 


L 


iMoii.    i'E(;(;y  -the  beloved."     the  -sipeu-dug  "  in  jacks  life 


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1905.  "BROWN  WOLF'  OF  STORY  OF  THAT  NAME,  JACKS  ALASKAN 

HUSKY 


INTO  KLONDIKE  241 

ing  out  chinking  in  several  places,  for  loopholes.  The 
chechahcos  descended  in  a  body,  but  when  in  response  to 
their  summons  the  two  defenders  of  the  fort  each  shoved 
a  thirty-eight  fifty-five  through  a  loophole,  they  withdrew 
to  discuss  a  plan  of  campaign. 

Of  all  persons,  it  was  the  unloquacious  Savard  who  set- 
tled the  bloodless  fray.  Suddenly  his  cabin  door  flew  wide, 
and  Louis  issued  with  a  wicked  looking  Winchester. 

**By  gar!  you  go!"  he  barked,  covering  the  enemy. 
They  went.    There  was  no  more  trouble. 

Another  there  was  whom  Jack  London  loved,  and  ad- 
mired to  the  extent  that  he  recurred  to  the  memory  of 
him  with  the  superlative  sentiment:  *^Emil  Jensen  is 
one  of  the  very  rare  persons  in  this  world  to  whom  the 
word  noble  can  be  applied.  I  put  some  of  him  into  my 
*Malemute  Kid.'  I  wish  I  knew  where  he  is,  for  I^d  give 
anything  to  see  him  again,  and  have  him  come  to  the 
Ranch."  After  Jack  was  dead,  Emil  Jensen  wrote  to  me, 
but  gave  no  specific  address.  I  replied  to  General 
Delivery,  San  Francisco,  and  the  letter  was  returned.  I 
want  Mr.  Jensen  to  know  how  Jack  esteemed  him.  If 
his  eye  should  happen  upon  these  pages,  it  is  my  earnest 
hope  that  he  will  write  me  once  more. 

Then  there  was  his  friend  Del  Bishop,  whom  he  has 
used  by  name  in  Klondike  yarns;  and  Sam  Adams,  and 
Mason,  and  John  Dillon.  Good  sour-doughs  all,  these 
beardless  youths.  Illustrators  are  wont  lamentably  to 
adorn  the  visage  of  a  sour-dough  with  ^^sufTicient  whiskers 
to  stuff  a  horse-collar,"  as  one  long-suffering  veteran  com- 
plains. The  public  never,  at  this  rate,  can  be  made  to 
realize  that  the  Klondike  was  no  place  for  old  or  even 
elderly  men  unless  they  were  very  exceptional  ones,  as  say 
Joaquin  Miller  and  a  few  others  who  escaped  deportation 
by  the  authorities.  I  do  not  tliink  Jack  ran  across  Miller; 
but  llargrave,  one  day,  laboriously  coaxing  a  sack  of  flour 


242      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

over  a  trail  that  had  melted  into  a  bottomless  bog  from 
Dawson  up  to  ** Number  Five  Below**  on  Bonanza,  came 
upon  a  picturesque  figure,  long-haired,  bearded,  resting 
on  the  bank  of  a  creek.  And  Hargrave  sat  there  and  listened 
to  his  discourse  of  the  far  future,  when  the  ice-locked 
land — they  were  in  the  ** lower  sixties** — would  be  the  scene 
of  great  cities,  marts  of  commerce  reached  by  tracks  of 
steel  that  would  conquer  the  now  untrodden  valleys  and 
mountains.  Not  until  an  hour  had  passed  did  young 
Hargrave  learn  that  he  had  been  audience  to  the  Poet  of 
the  Sierras. 

But  speaking  in  general  of  whiskers,  the  less  of  this 
sort  of  incumbrance  the  better,  for  the  same  ensnared 
dampness,  and  dampness  had  a  way  of  freezing.  It  was 
bad  enough  to  have  one*s  eyelashes  and  nostril-fuzz  con- 
gealed. So  a  razor  and  its  accessories  were  given  place 
in  every  kit,  though  it  was  often  difficult  to  put  one  *s  hand 
upon  a  mirror. 

Of  course,  nothing  would  do  but  Jack  must  achieve  bread 
that  would  be  second  to  none  in  his  neighborhood,  and  to 
his  last  day  he  boasted  of  his  prowess  in  turning  out  proper 
sour-dough  loaves.  But,  as  with  exhausting  *  *  fancy  starch  *  * 
of  old,  or  foot-blistering  hiking,  and  other  manual  efforts 
that  he  came  to  repudiate,  in  later  years  he  swore  he  had 
had  enough,  and  would  always  travel  with  helpers  who 
would  make  his  *^ roughing**  smooth,  so  that  he  «ould  de- 
vote working  hours  to  the  brain-toil  he  had  elected  to  pursue 
instead.  Strange — some  of  his  nearest  and  dearest  could 
never  compass  his  viewpoint,  but  persisted,  to  his  impotent 
wrath,  in  trying  to  explain  away  his  statement,  about '  ^  run- 
ning away  from  bodily  labor,**  on  the  grounds  of  fictional 
license. 

Many  and  altruistic  were  the  services  of  young  men 
thrown  so  closely  together  in  a  common  need.  One  of 
Jack*s  acts — and  I  never  heard  it  from  him — was  in  the 
spring  of  *98  before  the  ice  went  out,  when  he  broke  an 


INTO  KLONDIKE  243 

arduous  trail  eighty  miles  each  way,  in  company  with 
Doctor  Harvey,  to  bring  in  a  moose  for  **Kid**  Hargrave, 
who  had  sorely  suffered  with  scurvy  from  the  many  months' 
lack  of  fresh  meat. 

There  is  no  telling  how  long  Jack  London  would  have 
stayed  in  Klondike,  nor  what  treasure  he  might  have 
wrested  and  panned  from  the  detritus  of  his  claims,  could 
he  have  obtained  green  vegetable  food  from  time  to  time. 
As  ill  luck  would  have  it,  the  scurvy  undermined  him  to 
such  extent  that  he  was  forced  to  move  out  of  the  country 
as  soon  as  the  breaking  ice  would  permit.  He  did  not 
leave  the  region  by  the  way  he  came  in.  It  was  charac- 
teristic that  he  seldom  retraced  a  road,  though  this  did 
not  apply  to  the  water  routes  of  his  travel. 

It  was  during  May,  he  and  Dr.  Harvey,  with  whom  he 
had  been  bunking  for  some  time,  dismantled  the  latter 's 
cabin  (Hargrave  had  already  gone  to  Dawson  for  his 
scurv^O?  aiid  constructed  a  raft  from  the  logs,  which  they 
floated  down  the  Yukon  to  Dawson.  Here  the  two  realized 
several  hundred  dollars  from  the  sale  of  the  raft  to  the 
sawmill.  The  trip  was  fraught  with  incident,  for  their 
lives,  and  the  raft  which  represented  their  fortune,  were 
momentarily  threatened  in  the  break-up  of  the  mighty 
stream.  During  Jack's  brief  visit  in  Dawson,  he  and  the 
Doctor  made  better  than  miner's  wages — $15.00  per  day — 
picking  up  logs  from  out  the  Yukon,  and  towing  them  by 
rowboat  to  the  mill,  where  they  brought  a  fabulous  price. 
One  accident  of  the  raft-voyage  had  been  the  grounding 
of  the  craft  on  a  bar.  During  their  strenuous  efiForts  to 
get  it  afloat,  Jack  cracked  the  big  sweep  they  had  fashioned 
with  much  labor,  which  provoked  this  comment  from  the 
disgusted  sailor:  '* Doctor — I  don't  know  who  made  this 
world,  but  I  believe  I  could  piake  a  damn  sight  better  one 
myself!" — '* which,"  the  Doctor  was  fond  of  repeating, 
**was  the  most  blasphemous  thing  I  ever  heard." 

Far  greater  treasure  than  yellow  dust  of  Eldorado  or 


244      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Discovery  or  Bonanza  to  Jack  and  Harvey,  were  a  raw 
potato  and  a  lemon  they  shared  as  medicine  for  their  ravag- 
ing aihnent.  I  have  heard  one  of  them  descant  with  great 
feeling  upon  the  miraculously  quick  benefits  from  the  half 
of  a  raw  potato — and  as  for  his  part  of  the  lemon,  words 
failed.  Jack's  case  became  so  alarming  that  he  was  ad- 
vised in  the  little  hospital  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  that  it 
would  be  well  for  him  to  get  out  to  fresh  food  without 
delay.  But  ill  as  he  was,  this  did  not  withhold  him  from 
renewing  acquaintance  with  the  places  he  had  known  and 
the  social  life  therein.  How  good  it  was  to  see  a  woman's 
face  again — even  if  at  the  bar  or  in  the  dance-hall  of  the 
**M.  &  M."  Saloon,  or  in  Frank  Helen's  gambling  den,  and 
** Monte  Carlo,"  or  in  the  questionable  show  houses.  Jack 
admired  the  **grit  of  women"  who,  for  any  reason,  had 
entered  the  frozen  territory. 

There  were  all  sorts,  of  many  lands  and  breeds  and 
mixed-breeds.  Freda  Moloof,  dancer,  and  alleged  Grecian, 
touched  his  imagination  brightly  enough  later  to  employ 
her  romantic  personality  as  a  note  of  color  in  this  tale  and 
that — and,  in  a  much  transmogrified  form,  probably  due  to 
a  lavish  introduction  of  Lucille 's  characteristics,  as  the 
astute  heroine  of  the  play  *^ Scorn  of  Women,"  which  is 
based  upon  his  short  story  of  that  name. 

Jack  once  wrote  me  from  Oakland:  **And  who,  of  all 
people,  do  you  suppose  I  ran  into  last  evening,  when  Eliza 
and  1  was  rummaging  around  the  street-fair  in  Oakland? — 
Freda  Moloof,  fat  and  forty — doing  the  muscle  dance  in 
the  Streets  of  Cairo!  It  was  good  to  see  her  and  talk 
over  old  times  when  I,  all  doubled  up  with  scurvy,  used  to 
admire  her  dancing  and  her  plucky  spirit  in  Dawson.  I've 
promised  to  send  her  a  book  I  mentioned  her  in."  Which 
promise  he  redeemed,  and  her  letter  of  thanks  is  pasted  in 
his  copy  of  '^The  God  of  His  Fathers." 

And  Lucille,  she  of  patrician  features,  beautiful  speak- 
ing voice,  and  versatile  tongue  that  could  converse  in  his 


INTO  KLONDIKE  245 

own  language  with  almost  any  foreigner  in  Dawson.  No 
one  knew  her  history;  but  more  than  one  scurvy-mined 
unfortunate  or  lung-frozen  pneumonia  patient  well  knew 
the  heart  of  her.  Passing  along  the  main  street  one  day  in 
her  magnificent  furs,  she  heard  a  man  tell  another  that  his 
**pardner*'  could  not  last  long. 

**Some  one  sick?*'  she  inquired. 

**My  pardner,'*  replied  the  one  addressed,  **  dying  of 
scur\^y. ' ' 

Lucille  stepped  quietly  into  his  house,  shed  her  furs, 
and  fell  to  mothering  the  sick  boy.  When  she  rose 
to  go,  he  clung  and  whimpered  like  a  baby.  Just  before 
he  died,  **May  I  kiss  youf  he  said.  Lucille,  like  a 
merciful  death  angel,  nothing  loath,  folded  him  scurvy  and 
all  to  her  splendid  bosom.  I  can  imagine  that  Jack  Lon- 
don liked  her  well. 

Not  at  all,  except  as  they  represented  their  tribal  differ- 
ences, was  he  entangled  by  the  brown  maidens  of  the 
Indian  peoples,  nor,  personally,  in  the  half-and-less  breeds 
who  were  sometimes  very  and  elusively  beautiful  and 
unusual.  Again,  as  usual,  he  drew  the  line.  Once,  privily, 
after  hearing  his  familiar  insistence,  to  some  pilgrim, 
that  he  wrote  mostly  of  what  he  knew  at  first  hand, 
I  mischievously  queried:  **YouVe  written  considerably 
and  most  wonderfully  about  the  squaw-man  and  his 
psychology — as  well  as  that  of  the  squaw  herself!  How 
about  it?'' 

** Silly  I"  he  broke  into  his  delicious  giggle,  **  thought 
you  had  me  that  time,  didn't  the  wicked  woman,  who  knew 
better? — No,  my  dear,  I  never  was  a  squaw-man.  When 
I  make  the  statement  that  I  write  only  of  what  I  know,  I 
must  not  be  taken  too  literally,  of  course — an  artist  must 
have  some  latitude  to  spill  over  into." 

At  the  close  of  the  first  week  in  June,  that  year  of  1898, 
Jack  bade  farewell  to  Ilargrave  and  Harvey.    With  two 


246      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

companions,  Taylor  and  big-bodied,  big-hearted  John 
Thorson,  in  an  unsubstantial  mere  row-boat,  he  left  Dawson 
City  for  the  Outside — a  traverse  of  1500-odd  miles  of  the 
Yukon,  which  swerved  northward  till  it  touched  the  Arctic 
Circle  before  bending  down  toward  Bering  Sea.  The  Doc- 
tor and  Hargrave  followed  a  month  later,  and  though  they 
made  diligent  inquiry  at  the  few  sparsely  settled  camps  on 
the  icy  river,  no  trace  of  the  three  who  preceded  them  was 
picked  up  until  Holy  Cross  Mission  gave  information.  The 
priest  there  recognized  their  description  and  gave  assur- 
ance that  Jack's  boat  had  gone  safely  through. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

OUT  OF  KLONDIKE 
1898 

1HAVE  often  heard  Jack  say  that  he  had  no  idea  of  using 
the  Klondike  as  a  literary  asset,  until  his  dream  of  gold 
fell  through  and  he  was  bound  out  of  the  country,  penniless 
to  all  intents  and  purposes.  It  must  have  come  suddenly 
to  him  that  the  adventure  had  been  sufficient  in  itself,  for 
he  had  been  smitten  with  discouragement,  before  leaving 
home,  as  to  any  success  in  the  coveted  direction  of  a  writing 
future.  But  now,  floating  half-frozen  do^^^l  the  river  of 
defeat,  as  the  gray  and  white  Yukon  seemed  to  him  in  his 
predicament,  his  assertive  buoyancy  of  brain  could  not 
help  reviving  what  he  had  seen  and  done  and  felt  in  the 
year  just  past.  Surely  something  could  be  realized  out  of 
it  all,  to  enhance  his  chance  of  making  a  name,  earning  a 
voice  in  the  affairs  of  men. 

The  idea  grew.  Meager  as  the  notes  appear,  he 
cheered  up  and  went  on  with  a  penciled  diary  started  on 
the  day  he  and  the  boys  had  swung  into  the  current  out  of 
Dawson  and  begun  to  drop  downstream.  I  can  do  no 
better  than  give  the  entire  Journal,  dating  from  June 
8  to  30  inclusive.  In  view  of  his  vaulting  achievement  at 
no  far  distant  day,  it  is  amusing  to  note  that  at  this  time 
his  ambition  ventured  no  higher  than  Outing  Magcusine 
and  The  Youth's  Companion,  Also,  that  in  spite  of  piti- 
able suffering  those  three  unsheltered  weeks  in  a  frail 
open  boat  in  the  mush-ice,  only  one  reference  is  made  to 
his  scurvy  crippled  body  and  limbs.    Hero  is  his  lean  ao- 

247 


248      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

count  of  the  voyage :.    The  ONLY  NOTES  he  kept  on  the 
Klondike  experience: 

''Tuesday,  June  8,  1898. 
Steamboat  anticipation. 

We  start  [from  Dawson]  at  4  P.M.  for  Outside — ^last  words — 
sailor  and  miner  friends — parting  injunctions,  **see  so  and  so,  & 
such  a  one'* — ^love  and  business  messages — frankly  expressed  envy 
of  manj^  who  had  decided  to  remain — Dawson  slowly  fading  away. 

Pitched  camp  at  10  P.M. — no  bunk  in  boat — slight  rain.  Day 
light  &  broad  day  light  all  the  time. 

Indian  Camp  at  12  mile  Creek.  How  we  were  fooled — ^**Come 
back  Dawson  two  days  ago. ' ' 

Wednesday,  June  8. 

Arranged  bunk  &  pulled  out  at  11  A.M.  Reached  40  Mile 
at  3  P.M.  Place  practically  deserted.  Found  that  the  small 
river  steamer  Moa/  Mist — Mayor  Woods — ^had  passed  us  the  night 
before — with  6  tons  of  whiskey  aboard — hot  time  in  Dawson  as 
a  consequence.  Fort  Cudahy  likewise  deserted.  Saw  W.  A.  &  T. 
store  and  Barracks. 

Thursday,  June  9, 

Arrangement  of  watches — Taylor  cook — objects  to  watches  as 
has  been  accustomed  to  regular  hours. 

2  A.M. — ^my  watch  on  deck,  sighted  the  A.  C.  Co.  Steamer 
Victoria,  9  miles  above  Eagle  City — loaded  witlj  hardware — no 
passengers  possible. 

3:30  A.M. — arrive  at  Eagle  City — once  again  in  Uncle  Sam's 
dominions.  50  people  in  town,  engaged  in  bucking  faro  layout 
and  waiting  for  some  steamer  to  take  them  to  Dawson — short  of 
grub. 

9  A.M. — Moose  incident,  excitement. 

Mountains  rugged  &  sternly  outlined — few  islands  in  river — 
stiff  6  mile  (average)  current. 

4  P.M.    Passed  steamer  Wears,  W.  A.  T.  &  T.  Co. 

10  P.M.     Hailed,  hospitality  a  passenger  for  C. 

Friday,  June  10. 

6:30  A.M. — Passed  Seattle  No.  One — Mayor  Woods  high  and 
dry  on  a  bar  with  170  passengers.     How  they  started  last  summer 


OUT  OF  KLONDIKE  249 

— frozen  in  100  miles  below  Minook — etc.,  etc.  Some  discouraged 
&  starting  for  St.  Michaels  by  our  method. 

Circle  City  8:20.  Stopped  &  laid  in  tobacco — same  as  40 
Mile,  no  sugar,  butter  nor  milk.  Deserted — Mosquitos  make  a 
demonstration  in  force — now,  just  inside  the  terrible  (so  called) 
300  miles  of  Yukon  flats.  All  mountains,  after  receding  &  growing 
smaller  above  &  to  Circle  City,  now  utterly  disappear. 

Description  of  Plats — not  Thousand  Islands  of  St.  Lawrence  nor 
** thousands  of  thousands,**  but  thousands  of  millions — mosquito's, 
woods,  sloughs,  immense  piles  of  drift,  all  kinds  of  life  what  we 
had  been  told  about,  geese  &  goose  eggs,  our  experiences,  the 
shot  gun,  etc. 

Saturday,  June  11. 

11 :45  to  12  :15  no  sun,  23  hrs.  30  min.  sunshine,  warmth  at  mid- 
night, intense  heat  at  noonday — sweltering  in  a  tropical  tem- 
perature under  Arctic  Skies.    Cross  the  Arctic  Circle  at  3  A.M. 

148 
Governor  Stoneman  hard  and  fast.  98 

John  driven  out  of  bed  by  mosquitos — episode  at  A.  C.  Co.'s 
Cache.  146 

18S 


988 

Fort  Yukon  4  A.M.  Bella  (W.  A.  T.&T.  Co.)  emptying  cache. 
Description  of  Indians  working  at  stevedoring.  Indian  Squaws  & 
children.  Very  warm  in  the  sun,  more  likely  some  holiday  festival 
at  3  in  afternoon. 

Capt.  Ray  defense  of  caches  incident.  Nearly  all  engaged  have 
sledged  to  Circle  City  or  otherwise  disappeared. 

Smudges  burning  on  every  hand.     Mosquito  Rig. 

9  A.M.  Passed  steamer  Hamilton  (W.  A.  T.&T.)  5  hrs.  run 
from  Fort  Yukon. 

Porcupine  enters  on  right. 

Scattered  Indian  camps,  deserted  log  cabins ;  woody ards. 
(Outing)   [Must  have  had  the  magazine  in  deliberate  mind] 

Beauty  of  the  night — drifting  down  the  river,  midnight  & 
broad  daylight,  robins  &  other  song  birds  singing  on  the  islands; 
partridges  drumming  tern,  sea-gulls  &  loons  discordant  crys  echo- 


250      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

ing  across  the  glassy  river  stretches ;  kildees,  plover,  ducks,  foolish 
or  silly  cries  of  wild  geese.    Martins,  owls,  hawks. 

Heat  of  sun,  sleeping  on  top  blankets  at  12  P.M. 

Only  country  where  Indians  work ;  wood  choppers,  deck  hands, 
etc.  Big  prices  for  moccasins,  moose  meat,  furs,  etc.,  at  Dawson. 
River-pilots  get  from  $5  a  day  to  $1800  a  gradually  all  year 
round.  Big  husky  fellows,  & — ^here  and  there  plain  traces  of 
white  blood  apparent. 

Sunday,  June  12. 

All  day,  Yukon  flats.  Fun  shooting  goose.  Loaded  4i/^  drams, 
with  15  large  buckshot;  kicked  John's  arm. 

Water  sluggish.  Evening  burned  smudges.  Mountains  becom- 
ing visible  again. 

Monday,  June  13. 

A.M.    Arrived  at  Fort  Hamilton,  none  but  Indians  left,  every- 
body else  gone  to  Dawson  65  miles  to  Minook. 

12  M.    Coal  mine  on  right  25  miles  above  Minook. 

R.  E.  Russell  of  Seattle  &  an  Ohio  (Toledo)  man  working  it — 
cabin,  coal  bunker,  etc.,  carried  away  &  mine  flooded  by  high  water. 
Sell  to  steamers  $25  per  ton.  Faces  covered  with  clay,  hard  job 
fighting  mosquitos.  Bid  them  farewell  amid  clouds  of  the  same 
personified  ubiquity. 

Arrived  at  Minook  at  4  P.M.  The  first  man  to  greet  me  as  I 
climbed  ashore  was  Chestnut  &  old  acquaintance  &  a  university  man. 
Had  had  a  rough  time  coming  in.  All  about  barge,  Gov.  8toneman, 
etc.,  to  buying  men  out  $50  a  piece.  All  hands  to  hoist  anchor  at  4 
A.M.  Getting  out  on  bank  and  lining  steamboat  &  cargo,  etc. 
Minook  gold  (Little  Minook)  runs  $18.75  per  ounce.  Probably,  at 
favorable  estimate,  Minook  district  will  turn  out  $85,000.  Some 
company  faking  a  number  of  creeks  here  and  selling  stock  on  outside 
at  $1.00  per  share— 1,000,000  shares. 

Introduced  to  Capt.  Mayo — Thirty  years  in  country.  Getting 
stout — ^very  pleasant  to  converse  with.    About  500  people  in  town. 

All  along  river  asking  for  news — ^war — football,  Sharkey,  Jef- 
fries, Corbett,  Fitz— Did  Durrant  really  hang— what  did  he  say, 
etc    Went  through  Rampart. 

11  P.M.  Ran  Rapids. 


OUT  OF  KLONDIKE  251 

Tuesday,  June  14. 

Passed  Tanana  River  &  stopped  at  Tanana  Station  just  above  St. 
James'  Mission  &  situated  at  the  Indian  town  of  Muklukyeto,  at  the 
junction  of  the  Yukon  &  Toyikakat  Rivers.  The  camp  was  large 
and  the  Indians  had  arrived  from  the  Tanana  &  were  in  full  force, 
waiting  the  fishing.  Dance  in  progress,  white  man's  dances — low 
room  in  log  cabin. 

Effect — In  the  crowded  heated  room,  discerned  the  fair,  bronzed 
skin  &  blonde  mustache  of  the  ubiquitous  adventurous  Anglo 
Saxon,  always  at  home  in  any  environment. 

5  A.M.  &  everybody  was  up,  children  playing,  bucks  skylarking ; 
squaws  giggling  &  flirting,  dogs  fighting,  etc.  Soon  all  will  be 
asleep,  for  they  sleep  all  day,  and  work  and  play  at  night. 

Banks  lined  with  birch  bark  canoes,  nets  in  evidence  everywhere, 
everything  ready  for  the  fish.    Put  up  netting  &  fooled  mosquitos. 

Wednesday,  June  15, 

Went  on  watch  at  Midnight — mosquitos  thick.  Chant  of  In- 
dians from  miles  down  river.  Arrive  at  camp  (100  miles  below 
Tanana)  at  1 :30  A.M.  Bucks  singing,  women  dancing,  raven  hair, 
etc.  Skylarking,  etc.  Pointing  at  mountain,  **When  sun  appears, 
fun  ceases  and  all  go  to  bed.** 

Lafcadio  Hearn  &  Japanese  Half  Caste — ^Beautiful,  half-breed 
woman  saw  here,  Caucasian  features,  slender  form,  delicate  oval  of 
face  &  head,  describe  her  environment.  How  much  harder  her  lot 
than  the  Japanese  Half  Caste. 

Ubiquitous  Anglo  Saxon  White  man  from  Sacramento  living 
with  them,  brother-in-law,  etc.  They  also  waiting  fishing,  chopping 
cordwood  &  jumping  price  of  same. 

Pull  out  at  3 :30  A.M. 

6  A.M.  Passed  Steamer  Alice  bound  up  river  &  much  enquired 
about,  &  followed  by  the  Marguerite.  Many  thought  Alice  lost  in 
the  ice. 

2:30  P.M.     W.  C.Merwin. 

8  P.M.    White  man,  starting  a  store.     Indians,  camps,  etc. 

10  P.M.  Indian  village,  only  old  people  left.  The  perpetual 
cry  for  medicine.  Stoicism  of  the  sufferers.  Traces  of  white  blood 
among  the  papooses  everywhere  apparent. 


252      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Thursday,  June  16. 

3  P.M.  Stopped  at  temporary  camp  of  N.  A.  T.  &  T.  Co.*s  sta- 
tion. Station  flooded  and  people  camped  on  hillside.  Bought 
whitefish. 

Party  preparing  to  go  up  the  Koyokuk  River. 

6  P.M.  Indian  camp.  Squaw  three  quarter  breed  with  a  white 
baby  (girl)  (2  yrs.)  such  as  would  delight  any  American  mother. 
Unusual  love  she  lavished  upon  it.  An  erstwhile  sad  expression. 
Talked  good  English. 

*  *  I  have  no  man. '  * 

*  *  Father  of  child  had  deserted  her. "  Good  natured  joking,  *  *  I  '11 
be  your  man — I  go  St.  Michaels,  come  back  plenty  flour,  bacon, 
blankets,  clothes  &  grub  of  all  kinds.     You  marry  me." 

Ring  in  saving  bead  work  for  Charlie. 

*' Maybe  I  be  married  when  you  come  back.*' 

*  *  You  marry  Charlie  ? ' ' 

**No,  I  marry  Indian,  white  man  always  leave  Indian  girl.'* 

Mountains  from  Toyikakat  have  been  getting  quite  snowy,  & 
now,  even  those  with  a  southern  exposure  are  no  exception.  I  take 
for  a  sign  of  greater  snowfall  &  that  we  are  nearing  the  coast  with 
its  climatic  conditions  so  dissimilar  to  those  of  the  interior. 

9:30  P.M.  Nulato.  More  men  preparing  to  go  up  Koyokuk. 
First  heard  talk  of  Koyokuk  &  Minook.  Two  small  steamers  are 
getting  ready  also.     Is  looked  upon  as  coming  Alaskan  Clondyke. 

Visited  Roman  Catholic  Mission  during  service.  Shrill  chant- 
ing of  Indian  women  combining  with  the  basses  of  the  father  and 
brother — ^weird  effect.  Delicate  features  of  the  mocassined  black- 
stoled  priest  officiating  at  the  altar. 

Father  Monroe,  make  acquaintance.  Cultured  Frenchman  who 
has  devoted  his  life  to  his  task.  For  5  years  has  labored  at  this 
place  zealously. 

Indians  have  better  appearance — always  do  around  missions. 
Educational  work  of  missions. 

Between  6  &  700  miles  to  St.  Michaels. 

Friday  J  June  17. 

Uneventful.  Evidences  of  the  ice  run  all  along  the  line,  but  here 
more  plentiful  than  ever  and  more  striking.  Whole  islands  swept 
clear  of  trees.    Some  of  mainland  in  many  places.    Early  Spring  & 


OUT  OF  KLONDIKE  253 

greatest  high  water  known  in  many  years,  as  a  proof,  flooding  of 
old  established  towns,  stations  &  native  villages. 

Geese  have  long  since  disappeared  but  ducks  becoming  quite 
thick  as  we  near  the  mouth. 

Indian  camps  fresh  bear  skins  hanging  in  the  sun. 

Indians  all  along  the  line  spoiled  by  rush.  Demanding  all  kinds 
of  prices  for  their  labor  or  products.  Steamer  Co.  's  will  raise  grub 
in  proportion.  If  this  will  not  do  will  bring  in  own  men  under  con- 
tract. Indian  seems  unable  to  comprehend  the  fact  that  he  can 
never  get  the  better  of  the  white  man. 

Passed  the  steamer at  2  P.M. 

IMPORTANT  FEATURE— Indian  gtaves  along  Yukon  banks. 
Do  not  bury  in  trees  like  many  N.  A.  tribes.  Older  graves  more 
roughly  made  (palings),  later,  neatly  made,  often  pointed.  Shed 
rain.  Once  in  a  while  a  curiously  carved  totem  pole.  Catholic  mis- 
sions seem  to  get  bulk  of  converts — else  what  becomes  of  protestant 
graves,  as  all  in  evidence  have  crosses.  But  the  more  impressive 
ritual  of  the  Catholic  service,  so  pregnant  with  mysticism  to  the 
barbaric  mind,  as  opposed  to  the  bare  meetinghouse  puritanical 
mode  of  protestant,  may  doubtless  explain  away  some  of  this,  but 
beyond  a  doubt,  much  is  due  to  the  indefatigable  efforts  of  the 
fathers. 

Saturday,  June  18. 

Among  birds,  woodpeckers,  swallows,  kingfishers,  sea-gulls 
(many  could  not  classify)  Remember  ** Outing"  *' Youth's  Com- 
panion.*' 

Large  trees  uprooted  or  literally  sawed  in  two  by  ice.  Small 
trees  tender  bark  stripped,  and  stand  stretching  their  bleached  limbs 
heavenward,  mute  witnesses  to  the  Ice  God's  wrath. 

Drifting  the  boat  along  the  low,  flooded  banks  during  midnight 
watches  while  comrades  snore  under  the  mosquito  netting,  gun  in 
hand,  &  dropping  the  wild  fowl  as  they  rise  or  metaphorically  bless- 
ing the  crazy  gun  for  snapping.  I  will  always  recommend  such  a 
gun  for  amateurs.  Always  a  reliable  object  at  hand  to  lay  bad 
markmanship  to. 

Sun  rises  like  a  ball  of  copper. 

Mosquitos — One  night  badly  bitten  under  netting — couldn't 
vouch  for  it  but  John  watched  them  &  said  they  rushed  the  netting 
in  a  body,  one  gang  holding  up  the  edge  while  a  second  gang  crawled 


254      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

under.  Charley  swore  that  he  has  seen  several  of  the  largest  ones 
pull  the  mesh  apart  &  let  a  small  one  squeeze  through.  I  have  seen 
them  with  their  proboscis  bent  and  twisted  after  an  assault  on  sheet 
iron  stove.    Bite  me  through  overalls  &  heavy  underwear. 

A  deserted  malemute  dog  swam  off  to  us.  Injured  in  hind  legs. 
Gave  him  away  at  Anvik. 

Indians  come  off  in  canoes  to  trade.  Made  Anvik  at  10  P.M. 
Town  under  water.  Pressed  by  Episcopal  missionary  to  stop  over 
&  spend  *  *  at  least  one  Christian  Sunday. ' '  Traveling  west  and  set- 
ting our  watches  back.  Pulled  on  to  station.  Pickett  in  charge. 
Hearty  welcome  we  received.  Given  some  fresh  potatoes  &  a  can 
of  tomatoes  for  my  scurvy,  which  has  now  almost  entirely  crippled 
me  from  my  waist  down.  Right  leg  drawing  up,  can  no  longer 
straighten  it,  even  in  walking  must  put  my  whole  weight  on  toes. 
These  few  raw  potatoes  &  tomatoes  are  worth  more  to  me  at  the 
present  stage  of  the  game  than  an  Eldorado  claim — What  wots  it, 
though  a  man  gain  illimitable  wealth  &  lose  his  own  life  ? 

How  they  got  the  potatoes?  Quite  a  sacrifice  on  their  part. 
White  through  and  through. 

Left  at  11 :30  P.M. 

Icogmute  next  stop. 


Sunday,  June  19, 

At  Anvik,  Yukon,  on  38  ft.  Spring  rise  &  40  miles  wide. — Shag- 
luk  Slough,  etc.  Get  into  a  slough  ourselves.  Hoarse  croak  of  the 
raven,  blackbirds. 

In  afternoon  made  Holy  Cross  Mission,  headquarters  Cath- 
olic Missionary  work  in  Alaska.  Prom  here  four  sisters  have  just 
been  sent  to  aid  Father  Judge  at  Dawson. 

At  first  sight — make  homesick — Grassy  hills,  etc.,  fences,  farm, 
etc.  (Would  give  4^^  for  a  cow)  Indian  girls  playing  in  school 
yard.    Homelike. 

Trading  with  Indians.  Ducks,  Grouse,  Goose  &  Duck  eggs,  ber- 
ries, fish,  etc.  All  busy  doing  something.  Making  nets,  birch 
barks,  rope,  peeling  slender  rods  for  fish  traps,  etc.  etc. 

How  make  bark  rope.  Bark  off  roots — slit  into  strings,  wetted 
in  water  and  braided  into  a  three  stranded  rope,  very  strong  and 
durable. — How  squaws  work  at  all  such  things,  tanning  leather, 


OUT  OF  KLONDIKE  255 

making  nets,  mnc  luc,  mocassins,  etc.  etc.    Weaving  grass  matting, 
minding  dogs,  papooses,  etc.  etc. 
Getting  among  Malemutes  now. 

Monday^  June  20. 

Bad  weather,  went  ashore  1  P.M.     Pitched  Camp. 

Tuesday,  June  21. 

Native  village  Malemutes — holes  in  the  ground,  fire  place  in  mid- 
dle, hole  in  roof,  etc.  etc.     Deck  of  cards  for  Russian  Cross. 

6  P.M. — Icogmute — Russian  Mission.  Very  sleepy,  flooded,  etc. 
One  Russian,  could  not  understand  English.     Very  miserable  place. 

9  P.M.    Native  village  king  salmon  2  cups  of  flour. 

Wednesday,  June  22. 

Trading  native  villiages.    Nothing  important. 

Thursday,  June  23. 

Long  stretches  of  flats.  Once  in  a  while  river  strikes  bluffs  of 
low  barren  hills — the  same  lined  with  Malemute  villages — then  flats 
again. — Raven's  hoarse  croak 

11  P.M.     Andreasky.     2  miles. 

Up  Andreasky  river.  Native  villiage  at  confluence.  How  miser- 
able their  condition  yet  how  happy.  How  they  come  out  &  sit  on 
bank,  naked  legs,  bodies,  etc.  in  chill  north  wind.  Trading  for 
curios,  etc.  flour  for  fish  and  game.    Method  of  trading. 

At  midnight,  Malemute  paddling  kyak  &  singing — weird  effect. 
They  seem  never  to  sleep,  are  always  up. 

At  Andreasky  last  low  hills  are  left,  save  to  the  south  beyond 
Kusiluf,  a  snow  covered  jagged  mountain — a  land-mark  to  avoid. 
And  we  enter  the  great  Yukon  Delta,  for  a  126  mile  run  to  Kutlik. 

Threading  the  maze,  keeping  to  right,  etc.  Took  no  guides  at 
Andreasky,  avoiding  said  custom.  Fishing  villages  all  deserted. 
No  signs  of  human  life.  No  white  man  since  Holy  Cross  Mission, 
where  sick  steward  of  Str.  Jlamilton  was  down.  One  Russian  at 
Icogmute  who  could  not  speak  English. 

Terrible  racket  maintained  by  wild  fowl  between  2  &  5  A.M. 
Above  Andreasky  had  our  last  experience  with  eggs — large  goose 
eggs — ^Beautiful  king  salmon,  cool,  firm  flesh  fresh  from  icy  Yukon. 

Friday,  June  24. 

Threaded  Yukon  Delta  all  day.    Aphorn  Mouth. 


256      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Saturday,  June  25.  Hamilton  Station 

Last  N.  A.  T.  &  T.  Station,  11 :30  A.M.  Learned  that  we  passed 
the  Str.  Healy  lying  at  Andreasky.  Inquired  after  war  newsi — 
had  the  latest. 

Up  to  16th  no  ocean  strs.  had  reached  St.  Michaels. 

Indians  all  absent  hunting  seal  in  the  south  channel. 

8  miles  on  passed  Bill  Moore's.  Settled  down  with  Indian  wife 
(years  in  country)  satisfied  to  remain — ambition  lost — ^hurry-scurry 
devil  take  the  hindmost  competition  of  civilization  has  no  attraction 
— sure  thing  for  the  rest  of  life — but  how  bleak  and  blank  his  ex- 
istence.    Pride  of  Indian  in  calling  him  brother-in-law. 

Kutlik  in  evening — low  tide — round  bottom  sea  boats — ^first 
smack  of  old  ocean. 

5  miles  on  the  mouth  of  River — Slept  with  open  sea  in  sight. 

Sunday,  June  26. 

N.W.  wind.  Point  Romanoff  in  sight.  Sailed  till  on  shore. 
Beached  boat.  Episode  of  Taylor  &  Roubeau.  (Also  at  Eagle  City 
on  being  awakened.) 

Monday,  June  27. 

Off  Point  Romanoff  pick  up  Father  Roubeau  on  edge  of  surf  in 
3  hatch  kyak  or  as  Russians  call  it,  Bidarka.  Take  him  aboard — 
how  unlike  a  father  on  first  sight.  Sits  alongside  of  me  while  steer- 
ing— ask  him  if  smoke  objectionable — on  contrary  pipe  in  bidarka. 
So  all  light  up  and  are  content. 

Quite  a  linguist.  French,  Italian,  Spanish,  English,  Indian  dia- 
lects, etc.  A  native  of  Nice.  Pleasant  anecdotes  of  Jesuit  brother- 
hood. Obedience,  poverty,  chastity.  Alaska  12  years.  Reducing 
Innuit  language  to  a  grammar — pride  of  his  life.  Revel  for  hours 
in  eulogy  of  same,  moods,  tenses,  genders,  articles,  adverbs,  etc.  fill 
the  air. 

First  coming  aboard,  argument  over  day,  Sunday  or  Mond/iy. 

Dress — fur  cap,  coarse  blue  shirt,  muc  luc  sea  boots,  etc.  etc. 

Possessed  of  fatal  faculty  of  getting  lost. 

Camp,  beaching  boat  in  afternoon. 

11  P.M.  turned  out,  etc. 
Tuesday,  June  28. 

Midnight — southeast  wind  blowing — squally,  increasing,  splash 
of  rain.    Dirty  sky  to  southard.    Quite  a  task  of  running  boat  out 


OUT  OF  KLONDIKE  257 

through  surf.  Shorten  down  to  storm  canvas  &  rush  on  before 
it.  Big  sea  tumbling  after.  Bidarka  in  tow  performs  strange 
feats. 

Looking  for  canal.  Spots  it.  Small  boat  in  mouth.  Men 
asleep.    Jibe  over  sail  and  run  in. 

Laugh  at  us.  Keep  a-going.  Stay  so  long  they  finally  follow. 
Fooled.    7  hours  lost. 

Run  on  and  make  canal  at  1  P.M. 

Father  at  an  oar  or  on  the  towline. 

5  P.M.  Father  bids  good-by  &  goes  on.  Never  heard  of  again 
— lost  in  some  back  slough  most  likely. 

How  misleading  maps  [here  torn  and  cannot  make  out  word — 
Follows  something  that  looks  like  Towing  now.] 

Wednesday f  June  29. 

Camp  at  mouth  of  canal. 

Thursday,  June  30. 

St.  Michaels  early  in  morning — Find  it  to  he  Wednesday  28. 

Russian  priest  seen  no  sign  of  Jesuit.  Tanned  skin,  brilliant 
black  eyes,  of  Italian  quickness  of  speech,  vivid  play  of  emotion  so 
different  from  the  sterner,  colder  Anglo-Saxon. 

Leave  St.  Michaels — unregrettable  moment. 

Jack  stoked  his  steamship  passage  from  St.  Michaels 
to  British  Columbia,  thence  proceeded  steerage  to  Seattle. 
So  it  will  be  seen  that  his  homecoming  from  the  fabulous 
region  of  names  to  conjure  with — Eldorado  and  Dominion, 
Bonanza  and  Sulphur — was  the  reverse  of  spectacular,  and 
with  a  few  twinges  of  scurvy  still  witliin  him  to  remind  of 
the  unlucrative  year. 

He  found  his  widowed  mother  in  a  tiny  cottage  on  Six- 
teenth street  between  Nineteenth  and  Twentieth  Avenues, 
and  worrj^ing  about  the  rent,  although  in  face  of  Eliza's 
assurance  that  she  would  help  out.  Eliza  was  absent  on  a 
much-needed  vacation,  camping  in  Monterey;  but  she  hur- 
ried home  to  greet  her  brother,  whom  she  saw  bronzed  and 
bigger-muscled  than  ever,  showing  marked  physical  gain 
from  bis  rough  experience. 


CHAPTER  XVn 

EETURN  FBOM  KLONDIKE 
LILY  MAID  LETTERS 

1898-9 

WITH  John  London  removed  by  death,  Jack  must 
buckle  to  in  earnest  to  support  his  mother  and  the 
little  nephew  in  whom  she  was  entirely  wrapped  up — an 
infatuation  which  never  abated.  There  was  no  question  of 
choice  as  to  what  work  he  should  do.  There  were  unpaid 
bills  of  his  father's  which  he  felt  in  honor  bound  to  dis- 
charge— petty  sums  in  themselves,  but  hugely  troublesome 
in  Jack's  creditless  plight.  He  must  snap  up  the  first  job 
that  came  to  hand,  and  that  quickly.  It  sounded  simple, 
if  uninspiring ;  but  the  fact  is  there  was  no  place  offering  to 
an  unskilled  laborer  for  hard  times  were  on. 

His  only  trades  were  those  of  sailor  and  laundryman. 
The  long  absences  of  seafaring  did  not  fit  in  with  his  domes- 
tic responsibility,  and  he  could  not  uncover  any  opening 
in  the  laundries  of  Oakland.  Writing  was  not  to  be  thought 
of.  He  must  be  sure  of  roof  and  grub,  and  a  decent  suit  of 
ready-mades,  before  he  could  raise  eyes  again,  if  ever,  to 
the  literary  heavens. 

Five  employment  bureaus  and  advertisements  in  three 
dailies  failed  to  land  a  situation  of  any  sort,  and  he  be- 
gan pawning  his  few  personal  effects — the  silver  watch  Cap- 
tain Shepard  had  given  him  for  the  Klondike,  the  bicycle 
Eliza  had  bought,  and  a  raincoat  much  prized  by  his  father, 
whose  dying  wish  it  had  been  that  Jack  inherit.  Some 
curious  newspaper  items  were  followed  up,  but  nothing 
came  of  them.    He  owns  to  having  proffered  for  studio- 

258 


KLONDIKE  LILY  MAID  LETTERS  259 

model  his  one  hundred  and  sixty-four  pounds  of  well  set 
up,  twenty-two  years  growth  of  brawn,  but  some  one  of 
several  fine-bodied  fellows  likewise  out  of  employment 
won  the  prize.  And  of  course,  as  he  reminds  us,  along 
with  such  frivolous  occupations  he  was  trj^ing  with  might 
and  main  to  become  wop,  lumper,  or  roustabout.  The 
surplus  labor  army,  with  winter  not  far  off,  pressed  hard 
upon  the  scarcity  of  work.  **Also  I,'*  Jack  adds,  *'who 
had  romped  along  carelessly  through  the  countries  of  the 
world  and  the  kingdom  of  the  mind,  was  not  a  member  of 
any  union." 

While  preforming  small  odd  tasks  he  took  civil  service 
examinations  for  mailcarricr,  and  passed  in  the  lead,  only 
to  face  disappointment  in  that  no  vacancy  existed.  Await- 
ing his  chance  he  penned  an  article,  **Down  the  River,*' 
describing  his  Yukon  voyage.  The  San  Francisco  news- 
paper on  which  he  tried  it,  neither  acknowledged  nor  re- 
turned it.  This  was  not  encouraging ;  but  he  set  that  square 
jaw  and  launched  into  a  20,000-word  serial  especially  de- 
signed for  The  Youth* s  Companion,  It  was  completed, 
even  to  typing,  in  one  week.  **I  fancy  that  was  what  was 
the  matter  with  it,"  he  afterward  surveyed,  **for  it  came 
back."  To  the  Lily  Maid  he  wrote:  **The  art  of  omission 
is  the  hardest  of  all  to  learn,  and  I  am  weak  at  it  yet.  I  am 
too  long-winded,  and  it  is  hard  training  to  cut  down."  But 
here  enters  a  touch  of  faith  in  his  star:  **As  yet,  this  pre- 
vents me  from  writing  perfect  little  gems,  examples  of 
which  your  brother  sometimes  sends  me." 

He  shortened  his  tools,  focused  more  intently,  and  began 
hewing  unique  art  forms,  of  unmistakable  purity,  cut  from 
the  blocks  of  empirical  and  idealistic  material  so  long 
storing  in  the  house  of  his  mind  against  this  inevitable 
day.  Out  of  the  stuff  of  earth,  and  flesh,  mind,  and  heart, 
that  he  knew  of  his  own  contact,  with  head  and  hand  he 
wrought  the  transmutation  of  the  mass,  molded  it  into 
restrained  shapes  that  ho  felt  were  new — at  least  he  had  met 


260      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

nothing  like  them ;  shapes  of  beauty,  or  strength,  or  truth, 
as  desire  and  his  latent  genius  dictated.  In  the  dynamic, 
dramatic  power  of  his  creation  he  dared  but  a  hesitant 
confidence,  because  he  had  been  unable  to  conform  to  con- 
ventional patternings  revered  by  those  of  his  acquaintance 
not  big  enough  in  themselves  to  reassure  him  of  the  worth 
of  their  authority.  He  was  still  fearful  of  being  on  the 
wrong  track,  no  matter  how  the  gleam  of  it  lured. 

Even  the  Lily  Maid,  to  whose  perceptions  he  still  ren- 
dered a  measure  of  fidelity,  failed  him  with  wholly  un- 
intentional cruelty.  Passionately  anxious  to  polish  his 
astonishing  outlines,  though  sensing  unquestionable 
beauties  and  excellences,  she  was  overborne  by  the  spec- 
tacle of  her  friend  hollow-eyed  and  pasty-pale  from  lack 
of  sleep  and  beefsteak.  Moreover  and  most  important  to 
her  possessive  and  protective  femininity,  he  was  unsuc- 
cessful financially.  And  so,  by  means  of  a  tact  that  would 
have  deceived  and  influenced  a  less  perspicacious  lover, 
mth  veiled  promptings  toward  some  *  *  position ' '  that  would 
bring  in  a  regular  stipend,  she  chilled  him  with  hopeful 
references  to  the  mail-carrier  opportunity.  For  she  had 
distinctly  approved  of  his  taking  the  examinations;  he 
needed  steadying — some  reliable  outlook  for  the  future. 

More  than  vaguely  was  he  now  disillusioned.  Perhaps 
his  very  tenderness  increased  in  proportion  as  his  recoil 
doubled  back  from  her  restricted  horizon.  She  was  so 
softly  pretty,  white  woman  of  his  own  race — ^her  eyes  so 
blue  and  true,  her  long  mantle  of  perfect  golden  hair  as 
lovely  as  Lady  Godiva's,  when  she  let  it  ripple  down  for 
the  pleasuring  of  his  eyes.  And  then  her  delicate  health 
made  him  shrink  from  wounding  by  determination  to  assert 
his  own  ego^s  imperious  challenge.  Yet  it  was  in  the  fiber 
of  him  to  be  honest.  Although  he  drained  her  culture  of 
its  last  drop  that  could  further  the  form  of  his  work,  in- 
exorably he  cast  aside  what  his  unerring  senses  warned 


KLONDIKE  LILY  MAID  LETTERS  261 

him  as  weakening  to  it — leaving  the  pallid  girl  breath- 
less with  a  bafflement  due  to  her  fate  of  not  understanding. 

She  is  dead,  and  he  is  dead.  She  did  her  best.  But  her 
mold  was  too  narrowed  to  confine  his  best,  though  all  the 
while  Jack  appreciated  her  effort  to  help.  She  was  strong 
enough  in  no  possible  way  either  to  restrain  or  to  fly  with 
the  eagle  she  would  have  caged.  Even  in  the  days  of  her 
warmest  attractiveness,  he  would  find  himself,  quite  with- 
out forethinking,  involved  by  the  magnetism  of  a  woman 
met  in  her  very  company,  some  one  entirely  her  antithesis. 
Earlier,  he  marveled  at  the  phenomenon — perhaps,  he 
searched,  the  reason  lay  in  his  own  imperfectness  of  refine- 
ment. But  he  learned  about  women  from  both  of  them. 
Then  abruptly  he  would  overtake  the  discovery  that  the  Lily 
Maid^s  small,  vivacious,  quick-tongued  mother,  herself 
young,  was  more  compellingly  enticing  than  the  daughter 
he  had  almost  been  sure  was  his  accomplished  dream  of 
womanhood.  He  was  learning  about  women  from  them  all. 
His  opportunities  were  of  the  best — not  only  in  the  draw- 
ing room,  but  oat  of  doors  on  foot  or  wheel,  even  to  the 
notoriously  illuminating  exigencies  of  camp  life;  for  he 
made  one  of  their  party  to  Yosemite  Valley,  which  in- 
cluded her  immediate  family  and  some  outside  relatives, 
as  well  as  friends.  And  what  Jack  learned,  he  never  forgot. 
If  detail  were  lost,  the  broad  principles  remained,  to  play 
a  timely  part  in  maturing  tenets  and  conduct. 

Further,  and  finally,  an  apparently  slight  happening 
marked  the  passing  of  his  old  ineffable  instinct  of  worship 
toward  tlie  girl.  In  reality  it  was  a  trenchant  manifestation 
of  essential  fraility  and  lack  of  poise  that  forever  lost 
the  man  to  her. 

It  was  an  unconsidered  climax  of  petty  irritation  to  her 
vanity  that  he  should  spend  hours  of  his  rare  play-time  at 
chess,  when  they  might  be  out  on  their  wheels  or  otherwise 
enjoying  each  other's  society.  Right  in  front  of  him  she 
flung  her  fateful  bolt,  out  of  a  clear  sky  so  far  as  Jack's 


262      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

mood  was  concerned.  Shoulders  hunched,  brows  drawn, 
he  bent  over  the  checquered  board,  his  whole  soul  gathered 
in  still  ecstasy  of  calculation,  unconscious  of  any  universe 
beyond  the  problem  represented  by  the  carven  images. 

The  slender,  white-robed  blonde  angel  stood  beside  the 
unheeding  mathematician  for  one  exasperated  moment,  then 
swooped,  lightly  in  the  flesh  but  oh !  how  heavily  in  spiritual 
consequences,  and  swept  the  table  clean  with  her  two  small 
hands. 

**What  did  you  doT'  I  asked  with  bated  breath,  when 
years  later  in  reminiscent  mood  over  the  Lily's  death  he 
recalled  the  garden  tragedy. 

**  Nothing — what  was  there  to  dof  slowly  he  recon- 
structed his  bleak  state  of  mind.  **I  felt  every  bit  of  blood 
leave  my  face;  and  from  her  brother's  expression,  mine 
must  have  been  something  awful.  The  thing  was  un- 
forgivable, don't  you  see?  To  me  it  was  sheer,  brutal, 
blind-mad  outrage  to  every  decency  of  human  fair  play. 
It  was  a  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost  I  It  was  a  vicious  act, 
to  wipe  a  half-solved  problem  out  of  existence  in  that  way — 
from  small  jealousy  of  a  bloodless  rival.  .  .  .  No,  I  did 
not  say  a  word — ^then  or  ever.  But  when  I  looked  up  at 
her  after  what  seemed  a  frozen  century,  and  her  frightened 
eyes  met  mine,  she  knew  what  had  really  happened."  For 
a  fleeting  moment  the  young  woman  glimpsed  the  im- 
port of  her  pettish  deed — that  what  she  had  done  reached 
into  the  very  body  of  their  incompatibility.  In  the  biology 
of  things,  no  superior  human  entity  of  vibrating  atoms,  no 
matter  how  little  ill-met,  can  perfectly  complement  any 
other  entity  of  similar  superiority.  Jack,  once  at  rest  as  to 
the  fundamental  largenesses  in  a  given  person,  could  gen- 
erously discount  incidental  light  qualities,  except  as  they 
might  indicate  some  abysmal  vacuity.  And  in  the  Lily  Maid 
he  came  to  discern  the  stamp  of  an  incomprehension  too 
vast  for  the  two  ever  to  dwell  together  in  mutual  satisfac- 
tion of  any  kind. 


KLONDIKE  LILY  MAID  LETTERS  263 

By  now,  for  all  the  tenderness  of  what  was  become 
passionless,  if  staunch  and  lasting,  friendship  toward  the 
loving  giri,  he  still  beat  against  the  bars  of  her  inadequacy, 
bars  which  she  fain  would  have  laid  down  had  hers  been 
the  ability  to  do  so. 

If  ever  I  knew  how  he  came  by  the  following  letters 
written  to  the  Lily  Maid,  all  memory  has  fled.  It 
is  likely  that  at  some  stage  of  their  long  acquaintance — ^per- 
haps after  his  marriage  in  1900 — the  pair  may  have  ex- 
changed their  old  correspondence.  Much  of  the  matter 
in  these  letters  was  combed  for  the  creating  of  Martin 
Eden's  Ruth,  as  the  author's  blue-penciling  bears  witness. 
This  proves  what  I  had  forgotten:  that  he  had  the  letters 
with  him  in  Hawaii  and  aboard  the  yacht  Snark  to  Tahiti 
in  1907,  since  it  was  during  this  interval  he  composed  the 
novel,  which  originally  he  had  cynically  entitled  *  *  Success. ' ' 

Here  is  the  first  of  the  letters  remaining  in  his  files, 
typed  by  him  at  962  East  16th  street,  November  27,  1898, 
and  sent  to  the  Lily  Maid  at  College  Park : 

**  Forgive  my  not  writing,  for  I  have  been  miserable  and  half 
sick.     So  nervous  this  morning  that  I  could  hardly  shave  myself. 

'* Everything  seems  to  have  gone  wrong — why,  I  haven't  received 
my  twenty  dollars  for  those  essays  yet.  Not  a  word  as  to  how  I 
stood  in  my  Civil  Service  Exs.  Not  a  word  from  the  Youth's 
Companion,  and  it  means  to  me  what  no  one  can  possibly  realize. 

"You  seem  to  misunderstand.  I  thought  I  made  it  perfectly 
plain,  that  those  squibs  of  poetry  were  merely  diversions  and  ex- 
periments; yet  you  say — ^But  always  the  same  theme.'  Theme  has 
nothing  to  do  with  it ;  they  were  studies  in  structure  and  versifica- 
tion. Though  it  took  me  a  long  while,  I  have  learned  my  lesson,  and 
thanks  to  no  one.  I  made  ambitious  efforts  once.  It  makes  me 
laugh  to  look  back  on  them,  though  sometimes  I  am  nearer  weeping. 
I  was  the  greenest  of  tyros,  dipping  my  brush  into  whitewash  and 
coal-tar,  and  without  the  slightest  knowledge  of  perspective,  pro- 
portion or  color,  attempted  masterpieces — without  a  soul  to  say 
'you  are  all  wrong;  herein  you  err;  there  is  your  mistake.' 

**Why,  that  poem  on  gold  is  one  of  the  finest  object-lessons  in 


264      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

my  possession.  I  was  ambitious  in  that.  With  no  more  compre- 
hension of  the  aims  and  principles  of  poetry,  than  a  crab,  I  pro- 
posed or  rather,  purposed  to  make  something  which  would  be  some- 
thing. I  would  strike  out  on  new  trails;  I  would  improve  on  the 
Spencerian  Stanza ;  I  would  turn  things  upside  down.  So  I  tried 
what  has  been  probably  tried  a  thousand  times  and  discarded  be- 
cause it  was  worthless;  one  Alexandrine  at  the  end  of  the  stanza 
was  not  enough ;  I  added  a  second.  I  treated  my  theme  as  Dryden 
or  Thompson  would  have  treated  it.  My  elephantine  diction  was 
superb — I  out-Johnsoned  Johnson.  I  was  a  fool — and  no  one  to 
tell  me. 

*  *  So  you  see,  to-day,  I  am  unlearning  and  learning  anew,  and  as 
such  things  are  merely  principles,  you  can  readily  see  why  I  don't 
care  a  snap  for  the  theme.  I  have  played  Darius  Green  once,  and 
if  my  neck  is  broken  a  second  time  it  will  be  my  own  fault.  I  shall 
not  be  ready  for  any  flights  till  my  machine  is  perfected,  and 
to  that  perfection  I  am  now  applying  myself.  Until  then,  to  the 
deuce  with  themes.  I  shall  subordinate  thought  to  technique  till 
the  latter  is  mastered;  then  I  shall  do  vice  versa. 

* '  I  do  not  know  when  I  can  be  down — I  may  be  digging  sewers 
or  shoveling  coal  next  week.  Am  glad  to  hear  you  are  better.  Give 
my  regards  to  everybody. 

**Good-by, 

''Jack." 

Three  days  later  in  blackest  mood  he  wrote  to  her  the 
letter  from  which  I  have  already  drawn  portions  from  time 
to  time  as  they  fitted  into  my  mosaic.  I  present  the  re- 
mainder : 

'962  East  16th  St.    Nov.  30,  1898. 
Dear : 

"I  do  appreciate  your  interest  in  my  affairs,  but — we  have  no 
common  ground.  In  a  general,  vaguely  general,  way,  you  know  my 
aspirations ;  but  of  the  real  Jack,  his  thoughts,  feelings,  etc.,  you  are 
positively  ignorant.  Yet,  little  as  you  do  know,  you  know  more 
about  me  than  anybody  else.  I  have  fought  and  am  fighting  my 
battle  alone. 

"You  speak  of  going  to :  I  know  how  well  she  loves 


KLONDIKE  LILY  MAID  LETTERS  265 

me ;  do  you  know  how?  or  why?  I  spent  years  in  Oakland  and  we 
saw  nothing  of  each  other — ^perhaps  once  a  year  looked  on  each 
other's  face.  If  I  had  followed  what  she  would  have  advised,  had 
I  sought  her  I  would  to-day  be  a  clerk  at  forty  dollars  a  month, 
a  railroad  man,  or  something  similar.  I  would  have  winter  clothes, 
would  go  to  the  theater,  have  a  nice  circle  of  acquaintances,  belong 

to  some  horrible  little  society  like  the  ,  talk  as  they  talk, 

think  as  they  think,  do  as  they  do — in  short,  I  would  have  a  full 
stomach,  a  warm  body,  no  qualms  of  conscience,  no  bitterness  of 
heart,  no  worrying  ambition,  no  aim  but  to  buy  furniture  on  the 
instalment  plan  and  marry.  I  would  be  satisfied  to  live  a  puppet 
and  die  a  puppet.  Yes,  and  she  would  not  like  me  half  as  well  as 
she  docs.  Because  I  felt  that  I  was  or  wanted  to  be  something 
more  than  a  laborer,  a  dummy ;  because  I  showed  that  my  brain  was 
a  little  bit  better  than  it  should  have  been,  considering  my  ad- 
vantages and  lack  of  advantages ;  because  I  was  different  from  most 
fellows  in  my  station;  because  of  all  this  she  took  a  liking  to  me. 
But  all  thia  was  secondary ;  primarily,  she  was  lonely,  had  no  chil- 
dren, a  husband  who  was  no  husband,  etc.,  she  wanted  some  one 
to  love. 

* '  If  the  world  was  at  my  feet  to-morrow,  none  would  be  happier 
than  she,  and  she  would  say  she  knew  it  would  be  so  all  the  time. 
But  until  that  time — well,  she  would  advise  to  not  think  of  it,  to 
sink  myself  in  two  score  years  of  oblivion  with  a  full  belly  and  no 
worry,  to  die  as  I  had  lived,  an  animal.  Why  should  I  so  study 
that  I  may  extract  joy  from  reading  some  poem?  She  does  not,  and 
does  not  miss  an>i:hing :  Tom,  Dick  and  Harry  do  not,  and  they  are 
happy.  Why  should  I  develop  my  mind  ?  It  is  not  necessary  for 
happiness.  A  babble  of  voices,  petty  scandals,  and  foolish  nothings, 
should  satisfy  me.  It  does  Tom,  Dick  and  Harry,  and  they  are 
happy. 

"As  long  as  my  mother  lives,  I  would  not  do  this;  but  with  her 
gone  to-morrow,  if  I  knew  that  my  life  would  be  such,  that  I  was 
destined  to  live  in  Oakland,  labor  in  Oakland  at  some  steady  occupa- 
tion, and  die  in  Oakland — then  to-morrow  I  would  cut  my  throat 
and  call  quits  with  the  whole  cursed  business.  You  may  call  this 
the  foolish  effervescence  of  youthful  ambition,  and  say  that  it  will 
all  tone  down  in  time ;  but  I  have  had  my  share  of  toning  down. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

(Here  follows  the  paragraph  upon  Duty,  already  quoted, 
and  the  incident  of  the  meat  at  school.)    He  goes  on : 

'•You  say,  'It  is  your  duty,  if  you  wish  to  hold  the  esteem  of 
those  whose  approval  or  companionship  is  worth  having. '  If  I  had 
followed  that,  would  I  have  known  you?  If  I  had  followed  that, 
who  would  I  know  whose  companionship  I  would  esteem  ?  If  I  had 
followed  that  from  childhood,  whose  companionship  would  I  be 
fitted  to  enjoy? — Tennyson's,  or  a  bunch  of  brute  hoodlums  on  a 
street  corner? 

**I  cannot  lay  bare,  cannot  put  my  heart  on  paper,  but  I  have 
merely  stated  a  few  material  facts  of  my  life.  These  may  be  cues 
to  my  feelings.  But  unless  you  know  the  instrument  on  which 
they  play,  you  will  not  know  the  music.  Me — ^how  I  have  felt  and 
thought  through  all  this  struggle ;  how  I  feel  and  think  now — you 
do  not  know.  Hungry!  Hungry!  Hungry!  From  the  time  I 
stole  the  meat  and  knew  no  call  above  my  belly,  to  now  when  the 
call  is  higher,  it  has  been  hunger,  nothing  but  hunger. 

"You  cannot  understand,  nor  never  will. 

"Nor  has  anybody  ever  understood.  The  whole  thing  has  been 
by  itself.  Duty  said  *  Do  not  go  on ;  go  to  work. '  So  said  others, 
though  they  would  not  say  it  to  my  face.  Everybody  looked  askance ; 
though  they  did  not  speak,  I  knew  what  they  thought.  Not 
a  word  of  approval,  but  much  of  disapproval.  If  only  some  one 
had  said,  '  I  understand. '  From  the  hunger  of  my  childhood,  cold 
eyes  have  looked  upon  me,  or  questioned,  or  snickered  and  sneered. 
What  hurt  above  all  was  that  they  were  some  of  my  friends — not 
professed  but  real  friends.  I  have  calloused  my  exterior  and 
receive  the  strokes  as  though  they  were  not;  as  to  how  they  hurt, 
no  one  knows  but  my  own  soul  and  me. 

"So  be  it.  The  end  is  not  yet.  If  I  die  I  shall  die  hard,  fight- 
ing to  the  last,  and  hell  shall  receive  no  fitter  inmate  than  myself. 
But  for  good  or  ill,  it  shall  be  as  it  has  been — alone. 

* '  And  you,  remember  this :  the  time  is  past  when  any  John  Hali- 
fax, Gentleman,  ethics  can  go  down  with  me.  I  don't  care  if  the 
whole  present,  all  I  possess,  were  swept  away  from  me — I  will  build 
a  new  present ;  if  I  am  left  naked  and  hungry  to-morrow — ^before  I 
give  in  I  will  go  naked  and  hungry.  .  .  . 

".  .  .  .  Frank  [Frank  Atherton,  an  old  friend]  has  been  play- 


KLONDIKE  LILY  MAID  LETTERS  267 

ing  the  violin  and  Johnny  the  devil  in  the  room  while  I  have  been 
writing  this,  so  you  will  forgive  its  disconnectedness.  .  .  . 

''Yours, 

"Jack." 

The  next  missive  is  of  December  6, 1898,  and  records  the 
debatable  success  of  a  manuscript  entitled  *  *  To  The  Man  On 
Trail,**  which  he  had  submitted  to  the  Overland  Monthly/, 
The  Uncle  referred  to  in  my  Prologue  as  business  manager 
of  the  magazine,  from  this  time  on  began  speaking  of  the 
remarkable  work  being  turned  in  by  **this  boy,  Jack  Lon- 
don/' 

**  Frank  is  at  last  gone  and  I  can  do  a  little  writing.  Why  did 
you  not  send  me  what  you  had  written  ?  Were  you  afraid  of  hurt- 
ing my  feelings — it  seems  your  previous  frankness,  extending 
through  several  years,  had  precluded  any  such  possibility.  .  .  . 

**Sent  out  in  this  mail,  'trailers'  after  articles  I  mailed  last 
September,  and  which  have  vanished  utterly.  Received  a  letter 
from  the  Overland  Monthly.  This  is  the  substance  of  it:  We 
have  read  your  MS  and  are  so  greatly  pleased  with  it,  that,  though 
we  have  an  enormous  quantity  of  accepted  and  paid-for  material  on 
hand,  we  will  at  once  publish  it  in  the  January  number,  if — aye,  if 
you  can  content  yourself  with  five  dollars. 

*  *  There  are  between  three  and  four  thousand  words  in  it.  Worth 
far  more  than  five  dollars,  at  the  ordinary  reportorial  rate  of  so 
much  per  column.  What  do  you  think  of  that  for  a  first  class 
magazine  like  the  Overland?  .  .  . 

*  *  We  are  getting  ready  to  sue  the  Republican  Club  for  our  prizes. 
No  word  from  Youth's  Companion, 

'*If  I  could  only  come  down.  Hope  this  will  find  you  in  better 
health— -I  hate  to  think  of  you  lying  sick." 

Jack  had  won  first  award  for  an  essay  in  a  contest  held 
by  the  Fifth  Ward  Republican  Club  for  campaign  songs, 
essays,  cartoons  and  poems,  the  song  prize  being  taken  by 
his  friend  Rev.  Robert  J.  Whitaker.  The  Club  seems  to 
have  defaulted  in  payment,  and  hence  was  sued  by  the 
various  winners. 


268  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

On  December  22,  he  wrote  the  Lily  Maid : 

**A11  this  week  and  part  of  last  I  have  spent  in  the  superior 
court  of  San  Francisco.  One  of  my  Klondike  partners,  Sloper, 
has  returned,  and  because  he  had  not  struck  it  rich,  his  wife,  to 
whom  he  had  deeded  over  four  thousand  dollars  worth  of  prop- 
erty before  he  left,  has  sued  him  for  divorce,  alleging  desertion. 
I  had  to  serve  as  witness  on  various  points.  It  sickens  one  to  find 
a  woman  can  be  so  small  and  cold-blooded. 

**No  news  from  Republican  Club.  Overland  has  not  paid  five 
dollars  yet.  Youth's  Companion  yarn  came  back — prime  cause  of 
rejection  they  state  to  be  unusual  length  of  each  chapter,  which 
length  is  never  allowed,  they  say,  'except  in  very  special  in- 
stances.* In  the  beginning,  in  response  to  my  queries,  I  was  told 
that  3000  words  made  an  average  chapter,  and  in  the  end,  none  of 
my  chapters  exceeded  that  amount.  I  take  it  to  be  merely  an 
alleged  cause,  or  else  a  mistake  on  the  part  of  the  one  who  first 
advised  me. 

** Enclosed,  you  will  find  the  successful  Examiner  story.  [Jack's 
own  contribution  to  this  newpaper's  contest  had  been  rejected.] 
Please  keep  it,  remembering  that  strength  of  narrative  and  orig- 
inality of  plot  were  demanded  by  those  in  charge  of  contest. 
Some  day,  when  the  MSS.  I  submitted  are  published  elsewhere, 
I  shall  forward  to  you  so  that  you  may  compare.  Also,  in  the 
successful  story  I  send  you,  please  endeavor  to  find  what  plot 
there  is,  if  any,  or  if  it  is  a  study,  or  pseudo-study.'* 

The  Christmas  of  1898  was  a  blue  one.  He  faced  losing 
his  typewriter,  for  want  of  its  small  rent,  and  the  day  brings 
up  dreams  that  make  him  evince  a  trace  of  unthinking  mas- 
culine cruelty  to  the  deprived  girl  who  loves  him,  in  his 
picture  of  that  ever  latent  desire  for  fatherhood. 

*' About  the  loneliest  Christmas  I  ever  faced — guess  I'll  write 
to  you.  Nothing  to  speak  of,  though — everything  quiet.  How 
I  wish  I  were  down  at  College  Park,  if  for  no  more  than  a  couple 
of  hours.  Nobody  to  talk  to,  no  friend  to  visit — nay,  if  there  were, 
and  if  I  so  desired,  I  would  not  be  in  position  to.  Hereafter  and 
for  some  time  to  come,  you'll  have  to  content  yourself  with  my 
beastly  scrawl,  for  this  is,  most  probably,  the  last  machine-made 


KLONDIKE  LILY  MAID  LETTERS  269 

letter  I  shall  send  you.  .  .  .  The  typewriter  goes  back  on  the 
thirty-first  of  December.  .  .  .  Then  the  New  Year,  and  an  entire 
change  of  front. 

"I  have  profited  greatly,  have  learned  much  during  the  last 
three  months.  How  much  I  cannot  even  approximate — I  feel  its 
worth  and  greatness,  but  it  is  too  impalpable  to  put  down  in 
black  and  white.  I  have  studied,  read,  and  thought  a  great  deal, 
and  believe  I  am  at  last  beginning  to  grasp  the  situation — the 
general  situation,  my  situation,  and  the  correlative  situation  be- 
tween the  two.  But  I  am  modest,  as  I  say,  I  am  only  beginning 
to  grasp — I  realize,  that  with  all  I  have  learned,  I  know  less  about 
it  than  I  thought  I  did  a  couple  of  years  ago. 

**  Are  you  aware  of  the  paradox  entailed  by  progress?  It  makes 
me  both  jubilant  and  sad.  You  cannot  help  feeling  sad  when 
looking  over  back  work  and  realizing  its  weak  places,  its  errors, 
its  inanities;  and  again,  you  cannot  but  rejoice  at  having  so 
improved  that  you  are  aware  of  it,  and  feel  capable  of  better 
things.  I  have  learned  more  in  the  past  three  months  than  in 
all  my  High  School  and  College;  yet,  of  course,  they  were  neces- 
sary from  a  preparatory  standpoint. 

**And  to-day  is  Christmas — it  is  at  such  periods  that  the  vaga- 
bondage of  my  nature  succumbs  to  a  latent  taste  for  domesticity. 
Away  with  the  many  corners  of  this  round  world!  I  am  deaf  to 
the  call  of  the  East  and  West,  the  North  and  South — a  picture 
such  as  Fred  [Jacobs]  used  to  draw  is  before  me.  A  comfortable 
little  cottage,  a  couple  of  servants,  a  select  coterie  of  friends,  and 
above  all,  a  neat  little  wife  and  a  couple  of  diminutive  models 
of  us  twain — a  hanging  of  stockings  last  evening,  a  merry  surprise 
this  morning,  the  genial  interchange  of  Christmas  greeting;  a  cosy 
grate  fire,  the  sleepy  children  cuddling  on  the  floor  ready  for  bed, 
a  sort  of  dreamy  communion  between  the  fire,  my  wife,  and  myself; 
an  assured,  though  quiet  and  monotonous,  future  in  prospect;  a 
satisfied  knowledge  of  the  many  little  amenities  of  civilized  life 
which  are  mine  and  shall  be  mine;  a  genial,  optimistical  contem- 
plation  

*  *  Ever  feel  that  way  T  Fred  dreamed  of  it,  but  never  tasted ;  I 
suppose  I  am  destined  likewise.  So  be  it.  .  .  .  The  whole  thing 
is  a  gamble,  and  those  least  fitted  to  understand  the  game  win  the 


270      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

most.  The  most  unfortunate  gamblers  are  those  who  have  or  think 
they  have  systems  to  beat  the  game — they  always  go  broke.  .  .  . 

**I  shall  forsake  my  old  dogmas,  and  henceforth,  worship  the 
true  god.  *  There  is  no  Grod  but  Chance,  and  Luck  shall  be  his 
prophet. '  He  who  stops  to  think  or  beget  a  system  is  lost.  As  in 
other  creeds,  faith  alone  atones.  Numerous  hecatombs  and  many 
a  fat  firstling  shall  I  sacrifice — ^you  just  watch  my  smoke  (I  beg 
pardon,  I  mean  incense). 

**I  started  to  write  a  letter;  I  became  nonsensical;  forgive  me. 
I  go  to  dine  at  my  sister 's.     Happy  New  Year  to  all  I " 

The  January,  1899,  Overland  published  his  story,  **To 
the  Man  on  Trail.''  I  find  part  of  a  letter  written  about 
this  time,  containing  a  reference  to  the  skepticism  of  the 
Black  Cat  concerning  himself ;  likewise  his  discovery  of  the 
non-existence  of  inspiration: 

*'I,  from  a  stylistic  and  constructive  standpoint,  have  wandered 
afar  after  strange  gods,  and  find  it  difficult  to  get  back  to  the  right 
trails.  My  conversation  is  still  learning  to  walk,  as  you  will  have 
observed.  .  .  .  Don't  criticize  punctuation  in  my  letters;  I  type 
them  off  as  fast  as  I  can  think.  .  .  . 

**The  only  other  reason  of  refusal  by  YouWs  Companion,  was 
loosely  strung  narrative,  which  I  can't  exactly  see;  at  least  the 
Companion  is  publishing  much  worsely  strung,  balder  stuff  every 
issue.     So  be  it.  .  .  . 

**I  have  reached  a  conclusion:  there  is  no  such  thing  as  in- 
spiration. I  thought  so  once,  and  made  an  ass  of  myself  accord- 
ingly. Dig  is  the  arcana  of  literature,  as  it  is  of  all  things  save 
being  bom  with  a  silver  spoon  and  going  to  Klondike.  The  only 
inspiration  is  that  which  comes  to  an  orator  when  addressing  a 
vast  multitude  which  is  in  sympathy  with  him. 

*  *  Poor  child !  You  took  four  guesses  as  to  the  fate  of  my  wheel 
and  missed  it,  every  one — soaked  with  my  Hebrew  uncle.  Also 
other  articles  too  numerous  to  mention.  Lots  of  fun  working  under 
such  conditions.  You  are  in  luck  to  obtain  this  Overland.  It's 
the  only  one  I  possess,  and  I  had  to  borrow  the  dime  to  buy 
it.  .  .  . 

**The  Black  Cat  writes  me  concerning  an  MS.  submitted  to 


KLONDIKE  LILY  MAID  LETTERS  271 

them.  They  want  references,  as  I  am  unknown.  Then  they  wish 
to  know  if  I  wrote  it  myself,  if  the  idea  is  mine,  if  it  has  ever 
been  in  print  in  part  or  whole,  if  it  has  ever  been  submitted  else- 
where, and  if  others  have  or  will  have  a  copy  of  it.  .  .  .  Wonder 
what  they'll  pay?  It  is  a  pseudo-scientific  tale,  founded  on  hypo- 
thetical chemical,  biological,  and  pathological  laws,  dealing  with 
the  diametric  converse  of  chemical  aflBnity  and  the  mysteries  of 
protoplasmic  coagulation.  Very  sorry,  but  can't  forward  defini- 
tions. 

*  *  I  have  Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  but  no  stamps  to  forward ;  besides, 
I  would  vastly  prefer  reading  it  with  you.  .  .  .  Would  like  to  talk 
Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox  over  with  you.  You  seem  to  misunderstand 
her.  .  .  . 

**  'Magnificent.'  No  word  bears  exactly  the  same  significance 
to  any  two  persons.  Barbaric  splendor  is  magnificence  to  the 
barbaric  mind.  Two  such  specimens  as  Jack  and  Lucille,  fur- 
dressed,  be-moccasined,  etc.,  may  strike  you  as  bizarre — it  strikes 
me  as  possessing  a  crude  magnificence. 

"Yes,  some  of  the  qualities  of  Jensen  go  into  Malemute  Kid. 
But  Malemute  Kid  is  still  something  more.  I  shall  tell  more 
about  Lucille,  some  day.*' 

And  here  is  a  lovely  fragment,  treating  of  an  expectant 
young  mother,  a  mutual  friend: 

**I  have  seen  a  woman  in  such  condition,  but  the  feeling  of 
wonder,  of  sacred  mystery  about  it,  never  stales  upon  me.  It's 
such  a  natural  event,  but  somehow,  I  cannot  bring  my  own  prac- 
tical self  to  view  it  exactly  in  that  light — there's  a  something,  a 
vague  and  intangible  something  over  and  beyond,  which  eludes 
the  grasp.  As  reason  is  excluded,  suppose  it  must  be  classified 
under  the  head  of  emotion,  sentiment.  Well,  sentiment  within 
bounds  is  one  of  the  redeeming  traits  of  the  world." 

Another  fragment,  January  13,  1899,  attests  his  loneli- 
ness and  restlessness: 

"I  doubt  if  you  can  understand  how  disappointed  I  have  been — 
thirteen  days  since  I  wrote  you,  and  no  sign.  At  last  I  thought, 
*  Perhaps  she  remembers  my  birthday  and  is  waiting  so  her  letter 


272      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

may  arrive  on  that  day.  *    Yesterday  morning  I  thought  surely  it , 
would  arrive.    When  it  did  not  the  afternoon  became  invested  with 
an  infallible  certainty.     Alas  1     The  postman  brought  a  dun ! 

"Well,  yesterday  was  my  birthday.  I  did  not  look  for  'many 
happy  returns  of  the  day ' ;  nor  did  I  receive  many.  My  sister  was 
the  only  one  who  wished  me  that,  or  anything  else.  Thought  I 
would  break  the  tediousness  of  my  endless  prose  writing  and 
take  a  little  holiday.  ...  So  I  read  the  morning  papers ;  answered 
a  couple  of  pressing  letters;  stood  off  the  butcher  and  baker  to 
satisfy  the  absurd  cravings  of  life ;  wooed  the  Muse ;  and  sat  down 
to  write  poetry.  The  funniest  part  of  the  whole  thing  is  that  I  did 
it  from  a  sense  of  duty.^* 

In  the  course  of  the  next  letter,  dated  January,  1899, 
again  he  takes  up  arms  for  Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox ;  and  sin- 
gularly enough  the  paragraph  he  quotes  from  the  **  sweet 
singer,*'  as  he  termed  her  in  later  life,  expresses  what  he 
had  felt  for  the  Lily  Maid  to  whom  he  offers  the  paragraph 
with  a  challenge  to  criticize  it : 

** Right  in  the  neck — don't  mention  it.  'Tisn't  exactly  right  to 
ask  for  criticism,  and  then  criticize — I  understand  that,  but,  well,  I 
wanted  to  show  the  point  of  view  by  which  I  worked.  I  was  wrong 
in  doing  it,  and  besides,  did  it  rather  rudely.  Still,  I  believe 
you're  none  the  worse  for  it.  I  wish  I  could  talk  with  you;  I 
might  explain  better. 

* '  One  other  thing.  I  don 't  know  whether  you  share  this  belief 
with  your  brother,  but  think  you  do — ^that  I  do  not  take  time 
enough ;  do  not  let  a  thing  cool ;  do  not  write  and  write  and  rewrite ; 
do  not,  in  short,  exhibit  the  peculiar,  or  rather,  exercise  the  peculiar 
methods  of  the  lapidary.  To  this,  I  believe,  you  attribute  the  weak- 
ness of  the  characters  I  have  drawn.  Two  other  possibilities  arise. 
First,  as  I  stated  before,  the  lack  of  effect  may  be  laid  to  your 
egregious  ignorance  of  such  types.  Secondly,  the  fault  may  lie  in 
me,  but  not  in  the  trick  of  the  hand  or  phrase.  The  latter  may 
do  their  work  very  thoroughly,  admirably,  and  through  no  weak- 
ness on  their  part,  produce  a  puerile  result.  This  then,  is  due  to 
insincerity  of  vision  on  my  part ;  and  all  the  polishing  of  the  MS. 
will  never  succeed  in  bettering  it.    You  see  what  I  am  driving  at. 


KLONDIKE  LILY  MAID  LETTERS  273 

I  am  sure  what  I  have  written  reflects  almost  perfectly  the  thought, 
the  image  in  my  mind.  I  know,  if  I  draw  the  complete  character 
of  Malemute  Kid  in  one  short  story,  all  raison  de  etre  of  a  Male- 
mute  Kid  series  ceases. 

**Am  very  sorry  to  hear  you  are  worse;  and  you  had  been  so 
hopeful,  too.  Hope  my  last  letter  had  no  bad  effects — if  it  stirred 
you  up,  as  it  evidently  did  your  brother,  it  was  really  criminal  on 
my  part.  Forgive  me.  Though  I  guess  you  know  already  what 
a  rough-shod  barbarian  I  am,  even  at  my  best.  At  least  you 
cannot  say  I  am  anything  but  candid.  Unless  your  brother  men- 
tions it,  don't  let  him  know  you  know  I  was  lectured — it's  only 
Jack,  anyway. 

*'By  the  way,  forgot  to  tell  you  in  my  last  letter,  that  I  stand 
first  on  the  eligible  list  for  carriers.  My  percent  was  85.38.  My 
postman  tells  me  I  stand  a  good  show  for  appointment.  At  first 
one  goes  on  as  extra  man,  making  about  forty -five  dollars  per  month. 
After  about  six  months  of  that  he  becomes  regular  with  sixty- 
five  dollars.  But  the  whole  year  may  elapse  before  I  get  any- 
thing at  all.  .  .  . 

**You  are  unusually  prejudiced  against  Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox; 
your  brother  shares  it  with  you ;  I  am  sure  your  mother  does  too ; 
and  hence,  with  no  further  search,  you  fan  each  other's  distaste. 
Tell  me  what  you  think  of  the  following — style  and  thought : 

**  *The  effect  of  the  sweetly  good  woman  upon  man  is  like 
the  perfume  of  a  flower  that  grew  in  his  childhood's  garden, 
or  a  strain  of  music  heard  in  his  youth.  He  is  ashamed  of  his 
grosser  appetites  when  he  is  in  her  presence.  He  would  not 
like  her  to  know  of  his  errors  and  vices.  He  feels  like  an- 
other man  when  near  her  and  realizes  that  he  has  a  spiritual 
nature.  Yet  as  the  effect  of  the  strain  of  music  or  the  perfume 
of  the  flower  is  necessary,  so  often  her  influence  ceases  when  he 
is  absent  from  her,  unless  she  be  the  woman  who  rules  his  life. ' 

"Speaking  of  marriage — the  following  is  what  ZangvN'ill  calls 
Spinoza's  'aphorism  on  marriage':  *It  is  plain  that  Marriage  is 
in  accordance  with  Reason,  if  the  desire  is  engendered  not  merely 
by  external  form,  but  by  love  of  begetting  children  and  wisely 
educating  them ;  and  if,  in  addition,  the  love  both  of  husband  and 


274      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

wife  has  for  its  cause  not  external  form  merely,  but  chiefly  liberty 
of  mind.' 

**John  Keats  wrote  to  Miss  Jeffry:  'One  of  the  reasons  that 
the  English  have  produced  the  finest  writers  in  the  world  is  that 
the  English  world  has  ill  treated  them  during  their  lives  and 
fostered  them  after  their  deaths.' 

*  *  What  do  you  think  of  it  ?  Don 't  harbor  the  idea  for  a  minute 
that  I  deem  myself  in  that  category.  I  consider  myself  a  clumsy 
apprentice,  learning  from  the  master  craftsmen  and  striving  to  get 
my  hand  in. 

''It's  midnight,  and  I'm  going  to  mail  this  before  I  turn  in. 
Your  brother  is  over  in  'Frisco,  gone  to  the  theater  I  believe.  I 
shall  read  in  bed  till  his  return.  If  the  Overland,  Black  Cat,  and 
Republicans  pay  me  next  week,  within  a  couple  of  days  of  each 
other,  I  may  be  able  to  come  down.     Good-night " 

Follows  the  last  of  this  correspondence  in  my  posses- 
sion, with  its  opportune  dovetailing  as  will  be  seen  in  the 
final  paragraph ;  into  the  Clondesley  Johns  series  of  letters ; 
letters  which  carry  on  the  evidence  of  Jack  London's  un- 
folding in  the  crucial  beginnings  of  his  rapid  elevation  to 
prominence.  In  the  closing  paragraph  one  marvels  upon 
the  boy's  perspective  on  his  own  work,  from  his  heartstick 
reference  to  **The  White  Silence/'  that  masterly  story 
of  which  George  Hamlin  Fitch  a  year  thence  wrote:  **I 
would  rather  have  written  *The  White  Silence'  than  any- 
thing that  has  seen  the  light  in  fiction  in  ten  years." 

*'962  East  16th  St.     Feb.  28,  1899. 

Dear : — 

"Yours  came  to  hand  not  half  an  hour  ago.  Am  very  sorry 
to  hear  of  your  brother 's  illness,  and  can  appreciate  just  about  how 
well  worn  out  every  one  is.  Now  as  to  my  coming  down.  If 
absolutely  necessary,  telegraph,  and  I  will  be  there.  Yet  much 
as  I  would  like  to,  my  hands  are  so  full  and  there  is  so  much 
to  be  done,  that  I  could  not  be  just  to  my  family  and  myself 
did  I  come  when  it  was  not  absolutely  necessary.  You  know  how 
we  are  living  from  hand  to  mouth,  nothing  coming  in  except  what 


KLONDIKE  LILY  MAID  LETTERS  275 

is  earned,  even  yet  much  of  my  stuff  is  in  pawn  and  bills  running 
galore. 

*  *  And  I  wish  to  turn  out  some  good  work  in  this  coming  month, 
for  I  expect  a  call  from  the  Post  Office  in  April  if  not  sooner.  As 
to  the  good  work — I  will  explain.  James  Howard  Bridge,  editor 
of  the  Overland,  has  at  last  returned.  He  at  once  sent  for  me.  .  .  . 
This  is  the  essence  of  our  conversation : 

**  While  advising  the  majority  of  candidates  for  the  magazine 
field  to  seek  other  pursuits,  he  would  not  do  so  in  my  case.  I 
showed  the  proper  touch,  only  needed  bringing  out.  Different  peo- 
ple had  been  asking  about  me,  Sunday  Editors  of  the  Examiner, 
etc.  He  had  bought  the  Feb.  Overland  on  the  train  West,  and 
was  quite  taken  with  my  *  White  Silence.*  Said  it  was  the  most 
powerful  thing  which  had  appeared  in  the  magazine  for  a  year; 
but  he  was  afraid  it  was  a  fluke  and  perhaps  it  would  be  im- 
possible for  me  to  repeat  it,  etc.  Now  to  his  proposition.  The 
Overland  prints  forty  pages  of  advertisements  at  thirty  dol- 
lars per  page,  while  McClure's  print  one  hundred  pages  three 
hundred  dollars  per  page ;  yet  printing,  plates,  paper,  mail  service, 
etc.  cost  just  as  much  for  the  Overland.  The  only  thing  the  Over- 
land could  scale  down  was  the  writers,  and  these  it  had  to.  While 
not  in  position  to  pay  me  well,  he  thought  he  could  give  me  most 
valuable  returns  for  my  work.  If  I  sustained  the  promise  I  had 
given,  he  would  give  me  a  prominent  place  in  the  pages  of  his 
magazine,  see  that  the  newspapers,  reviews,  etc.  puffed  me,  and 
inaugurate  a  boom  to  put  my  name  before  the  public.  You  can 
readily  see  how  valuable  this  would  be — putting  future  employ- 
ment into  my  hands  from  publications  which  could  afford  to  pay 
well.  Yet  the  best  he  could  do  would  be  $7.50  per  sketch.  It 
would  take  too  long  to  go  over  all  we  said.  I  may  be  called  over 
again  some  day. 

"You  understand  my  position,  I  hope;  yet  frankly,  should  it  be 
necessary  you  know  you  can  call  upon  me.  As  I  expect  it  to  rain 
this  week,  the  roads  will  be  impassible  and  I  will  have  to  have 
recourse  to  Ferry  to  Alviso.  .  .  . 

"From  what  I  have  told  you  above,  you  may  see  that  things  are 
brightening,  only  as  yet  in  the  future.  I  may  not  fulfil  ex- 
pectations, break  down,  and  have  to  still  further  develop  before  I 
come  out ;  and  if  I  do  not,  even  present  success  is  a  matter  of  much 


276      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

waiting.  Enclosed  letter  from  Cloudesley  Johns,  return  with  what 
you  think  of  it.  Don't  think  I've  got  the  swellhead.  I  was  sick 
at  heart  when  I  read  printed  *  White  Silence/  and  I  yet  fail  to 
see  anything  in  it.  Give  my  regards  to  all,  not  excepting  a  good 
share  to  yourself,  and  believe  me  ready  to  come  if  you  cannot  get 
along  without  me, 

''Jack/» 


CHAPTER  XVin 

THB  CLOUDESLBY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCB 

CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  was  the  first  person  who  ever 
wrote  to  me  about  my  work, '  *  I  have  heard  Jack  say. 
Mr.  Johns  had  read  ^^To  the  Man  On  Trail'*  and  *^The 
White  Silence*'  in  the  January  and  February  numbers  of 
the  Overland,  and  was  unreserved  in  praise.  At  the  head 
of  Jack's  reply  is  penciled,  for  the  guidance  of  some  one 
to  whom  Mr.  Johns  may  have  sent  it  for  perusal  : 

*'I  prophesied  greatness,  and  told  him  not  to  disappoint  me. 
He  won't.     **Cloude8ley  Johns." 

Jack's  reply  is  dated  at  962  East  16th  St.,  Oakland, 
February  10,  1899: 

**Dear  sir: 

*  *  What  an  encouragement  your  short  note  was !  From  the  same 
I  judge  you  can  appreciate  one's  groping  in  the  dark  on  strange 
trails.  It's  the  first  word  of  cheer  I  have  received  (a  cheer,  far 
more  potent  than  publisher's  checks). 

*'If  a  strong  chin  and  a  perhaps  deceptive  consciousness  of 
growing  strength,  will  aid  in  the  fulfilment  of  your  prophecy, 
it  may  to  a  certain  extent  be  realized.  Yes,  my  name  is  Jack 
London — rather  an  un-American  heritage  from  a  Yankee  ancestry, 
dating  beyond  the  French  and  Indian  wars. 

**  Thanking  you  for  your  kindness,  I  am, 
"Very  truly  yours, 

"Jack  London." 

With  his  second  letter,  Mr.  Johns  sent  Jack  a  manuscript 
to  pass  upon.  And  pass  upon  it  did  Jack,  with  no  uncertain 
touch.  It  is  a  pity  I  have  not  space  to  print  his  critique  in 
full,  the  advice  is  so  pertinent.    As  an  example:  ' 

277 


278      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

**It*8  hard  to  explain  what  I  mean.  Thus,  for  the  Mexican 
— Statistics  are  not  emotional,  when  stated  in  statistical  manner. 
Don't  say  the  Co.  treated  the  men  this  way,  or  cheated  them 
that  way.  Let  the  reader  learn  these  facts  through  the  minds  of 
the  men  themselves,  let  the  reader  look  at  the  question  through 
their  eyes.  There  are  a  variety  of  ways  by  which  to  do  this — ^the 
most  common  would  be  to  have  them  talk  with  each  other.  Let 
them  carambo!  and  speak  out  the  bitterness  of  their  hearts,  the 
injustice  they  suffer  or  think  they  suffer  from  the  Co.,  the  hatred 
they  bear  their  bosses  etc.,  etc." 

He  is  generous  in  extolling  wherever  lie  honestly  can : 

**Your  style  occasionally  reminds  me  of  Bierce,''  or  **a  true 
stroke  and  a  strong  stroke.*'  And  I  smile,  in  view  of  the  clamor 
that  often  arose  from  frightened  editorial  staffs  anent  Jack  Lon- 
don 's  offensive  redbloodedness,  to  read  his  uncompromising  advice : 
**I  would  not  be  so  ghastly  with  that  intestine;  strike  out  *and 
hung  down' — (my  taste  only,  yet  I  appreciate  such  things  for  I 
have  seen  much  of  them).*' 

It  will  be  noticed  that  Jack  had  not  yet  conquered  his  own 
over-niceness,  for  the  word  ** intestine"  is  used,  whereas  not  so 
long  thereafter  he  would  have  employed  the  shorter  and  more 
commanding  **guts,"  in  grim  defiance  of  horrified  friends  and 
public — ^who  nevertheless  continued  to  read  and  extoll  him. 

Jack  softens  his  forthright  rending  of  Johns's  manus- 
cript : 

**I  never  did  any  criticizing  anyway;  so  I  just  say  what  I 
think — ^hence,  you  gain  sincerity  of  me,  if  nothing  else." 

He  continues: 

**  Thanks  for  tip  to  Western  Press;  I  have  some  of  my  earlier, 
immature  work  with  them  now.  Suppose  I'll  some  day  call  my 
present  work  just  as  immature.  .  .  . 

**Will  take  advantage  of  tip  to  Vanity  Fair.  ...  As  to  photo 
of  myself.  You  shall  be  one  of  a  number  of  friends  who  wait  and 
wait  in  vain  for  a  likeness  of  yours  truly.  My  last  posed  foto 
was  taken  in  sailor  costume  with  a  Joro  girl  in  Yokohama.  Have 
but  one.    But  I'll  do  this:  tell  you  all  about  me.    23  years  of 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  279 

age  last  January.  Stand  five  foot  seven  or  eight  in  stocking  feet — 
sailor  life  shortened  me.  [He  measured  five  feet  nine  inches  at 
full  stature.]  At  present  time  weight  168  lbs. ;  but  readily  jump 
same  pretty  close  to  180  when  I  take  up  outdoor  life  and  go  to 
roughing  it.  Am  clean  shaven — when  I  let  'em  come,  blonde 
mustache  and  black  whiskers — but  they  don*t  come  long.  Clean 
face  makes  my  age  enigmatical,  and  equally  competent  judges 
variously  estimate  my  age  from  twenty  to  thirty.  Greenish-gray 
eyes,  heavy  brows  which  meet;  brown  hair,  which,  by  the  way, 
was  black  when  I  was  born.  .  .  .  Face  bronzed  through  many  long- 
continued  liaisons  with  the  sun,  though  just  now,  owing  to  bleach- 
ing process  of  sedentary  life,  it  is  positively  yellow.  Several  scars 
— hiatus  of  eight  front  upper  teeth,  usually  disguised  with  false 
plate.    There  I  am  in  toto. 

**Tell  me  what  you  think  of  inclosed  verse — get  your  mother  *s 
criticism  too.  Tender  my  thanks  to  your  mother  for  her  short 
note.*'  [Mr.  Johns'  mother,  Mrs.  Jeania  Peet,  to  whom  Jack  at 
intervals  refers,  is  an  exceptionally  talented  woman — writer,  sculp- 
tress, and  ** artist  of  happiness"  as  Jack  expressed  it;  mother 
of  gifted  sons,  and  once  stepmother  of  our  American  poet  Percy 
Mackaye.] 

**Feb.  27,  1899. 
**Dear  sir: 

**...!  cannot  express  the  effect  of  hearing  that  what  I  have 
written  has  pleased  others,  for  you  know,  of  all  people  in  the  world, 
the  author  is  the  least  competent  to  judge  what  he  produces.  .  .  . 
When  I  have  finished  a  thing  I  cannot,  as  a  rule,  tell  whether  it 
is  good  or  trash.  .  .  . 

**My  life  has  been  such  a  wandering  one  that  there  are  great 
gaps  in  my  reading  and  education,  and  I  am  so  conscious  of  them 
that  I  am  afraid  of  myself — ^besides,  in  the  course  of  a  sketch, 
I  become  saturated  with  the  theme  till  at  last  it  palls  upon  me. 

"I  appreciate,  in  a  way,  the  high  praise  of  being  likened  to 
Tourgenieff.  Though  aware  of  the  high  place  he  occupies  in  litera- 
ture, we  are  as  strangers.  I  think  it  was  in  Japan  T  read  his  'House 
of  Gentlefolk';  but  that  is  the  only  book  of  his  I  have  ever  seen 
— I  do  not  even  know  if  the  title  is  correct.  There  is  so  much 
good  stuff  to  read  and  so  little  time  to  do  it  in.     It  sometimes  makes 


280      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

me  sad  to  think  of  the  many  hours  I  have  wasted  over  mediocre 
works,  simply  for  want  of  better. 

**I  can  only  thank  you  for  your  kindness:  it  has  put  new  life 
into  me  and  at  the  same  time  placed  a  few  landmarks  on  the  un- 
charted path  the  beginner  must  travel.  Would  you  tell  me  of  the 
error  you  mentioned?  The  compositors  made  some  bad  mistakes, 
the  worst  being  a  wilful  change  in  the  title,  and  a  most  jarring 
one.  It  was  plainly  typewritten  *To  the  Man  On  TraiP;  this  they 
printed  'To  the  Man  on  the  Trail.'  What  trail t  The  thing  was 
abstract. 

"Yours  sincerely," 

**My  dear  sir: 

*  *  How  I  appreciate  your  complaining  of  your  friends  when  they 
say  of  your  work,  'Splendid,*  'Excellent,*  etc.  That  was  my  one 
great  trouble.  The  farther  I  wandered  from  the  beaten  track  (I 
mean  the  proper  trend  of  modern  style  and  literary  art),  the  more 
encomiums  were  heaped  upon  me — by  my  friends.  And  believe 
me,  the  darkness  I  strayed  into  was  heartbreaking.  Surely,  I 
have  since  thought,  they  must  have  seen  where  I  was  blind.  So  I 
grew  to  distrust  them,  and  one  day,  between  four  and  five  months 
ago,  awoke  to  the  fact  that  I  was  all  wrong.  Everything 
crumbled  away,  and  I  started,  from  the  beginning,  to  learn  all 
over  again.  .  .  . 

"...  I  do  join  with  you,  and  heartily,  iii  admiration  of 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson.  What  an  example  he  was  of  application 
and  self  development !  As  a  story-teller  there  isn  't  his  equal ;  the 
same  might  almost  be  said  of  his  essays.  While  the  fascination  of 
his  other  works  is  simply  irresistible.  To  me,  the  most  powerful 
of  all  is  his  *  Ebb  Tide. '  There  is  no  comparison  possible  between 
him  and  that  other  wonderful  countryman  of  his;  there  is  no 
common  norm  by  which  we  may  judge  them.  And  I  see  I  do 
not  share  with  you  in  my  admiration  of  Kipling.  He  touches  the 
soul  of  things.  'He  draws  the  Thing  as  he  sees  it  for  the  God 
of  Things  as  they  Are.  *  It  were  useless  for  me  to  mention  all  my 
favorites  of  his;  let  one  example  suffice.  'The  Song  of  the  Banjo,' 
and  just  one  line  from  it.  Away  in  the  wilderness  where  younger 
sons  are  striving  for  hearth  and  saddle  of  their  own,  the  banjo  is 
singing,  reminding  them  of  the  world  from  which  they  are  exiled : 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  281 

**  *Hear  me  babble  what  the  maddest  won*t  confess: 
I  am  memory  and  torment;  I  am  town; 
I  am  all  that  ever  went  with  evening  dress.* 

How  often,  a  thousand  miles  beyond  the  bounds  of  civilization, 
thirsting  for  a  woman's  face,  a  daily  paper,  a  good  book,  or  better 
music, — sick  for  the  charms  of  the  old  life — have  I  had  that  line 
recalled  by  the  tumpy  tum  of  a  banjo,  epitomizing  the  whole 
mood.  .  .  . 

*  *  No ;  I  appreciate  how  educating  my  roving  has  been.  At  the 
same  time  I  am  sorry  that  my  years  could  not  have  been  con- 
densed in  some  magic  way,  so  as  to  have  introduced  an  equal 
amount  of  the  scholar's  life.  That's  the  trouble  of  having  one's 
nature  dominated  by  conflicting  impulses. 

**0  yes:  I  have  children  constantly  footing  it  to  the  *  silent 
sullen  peoples'  who  run  the  magazines!  The  Overland  .  .  .  *The 
Son  of  the  Wolf '  was  sent  to  them  a  week  ago ;  they  will  have  it 
out  in  the  April  number,  if  possible,  illustrated  by  Dixon.  I  have 
seen  some  of  his  Indian  work  and  think  he's  just  the  man  for  my 
types.  .  .  . 

*' Speaking  of  the  Black  Cat:  sometime  since,  they  accepted  a 
pseudo-scientific  tale  from  me.  I  want  to  warn  you,  in  case  it 
comes  out  in  the  next  year  or  so,  that  it  was  written  several  years 
ago— so  you  will  forgive  it.  I  hardly  remember  what  it  is  like. 
The  title  is  enough — 'By  a  Thousand  Deaths.' 

*' Another  friend  made  the  same  criticism  of  *sole  speck  of  life.* 
I  was  saturated  with  my  thought — on  the  relation  of  the  soul  to 
infinity,  etc. — was  dealing  with  the  soul  of  Malemute  Kid  and 
did  not  at  the  time  recognize  the  dogs.  Such  slips  are  liable,  since, 
like  you,  I  can't  revise  manuscript.  My  favorite  method  of  com- 
position is  to  write  from  fifty  to  three  hundred  words,  then  type 
it  in  the  Ms.  to  be  submitted.  Whatever  emendations  are  made, 
are  put  in  in  the  course  of  typing  or  inserted  with  ink  in  the 
Ms.  .  .  .  Have  at  last  learned  to  compose  first,  to  the  very  conclu- 
sion, before  touching  pen  to  paper.  I  find  I  can  thus  do  better 
work. 

"...  And  I  warn  you,  I  am  as  harsh  on  others  as  I  expect 
them  to  be  on  mc.  This  primrose  dalliance  among  friends  never 
leads  anywhere.    I  once  had  a  friend  [this  was  Fred  Jacobs] — 


282      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

we  went  to  college  and  did  much  of  our  studying  together — with 
whom  we  could  candidly  discuss  each  other,  holding  back  nothing. 
But  he  lies  dead  in  Manila  now.  Yet  once  in  a  while  even  he  got 
angry  when  I  expressed  my  opinion  too  plainly. 

**.  .  .  How  are  you  off  for  humor?  To  save  my  life,  while 
I  can  appreciate  extremely  well,  I  cannot  develop  a  creative  faculty 
for  the  same.'* 

'*Mar.  15,  1899. 
*  *  Dear  sir : 

**...!  agree  with  you  that  R.  L.  S.  never  turned  out  a  foot  of 
polished  trash,  and  that  Kipling  has;  but — well,  Stevenson  never 
had  to  worry  about  ways  or  means,  while  Kipling,  a  mere  journalist, 
hurt  himself  by  having  to  seek  present  sales  rather  than  pothumous 
fame.  .  .  .  Kipling  has  his  hand  upon  the  *  fatted  soul  of  things.' 

**.  .  .  Speaking  of  humor — find  enclosed  triolets,  the  first,  and 
also  the  last,  I  ever  attempted.  Perhaps  there's  no  market  for  such 
things.    Judge  and  Life  refused  them  and  I  quit. 

**So  you  have  completed  a  novel?  Lucky  dog!  How  I  envy 
you!  I  have  only  got  from  ten  to  twenty  mapped  out  but  God 
knows  when  1 11  ever  get  a  chance  to  begin  one,  much  less  finish  it. 
I  have  figured  that  it  is  easier  to  make  one  of  from  thirty -five  to 
sixty  thousand  words  and  well  written,  then  one  three  or  four 
times  as  long  and  poorly  written.     What  do  you  think  about  it?'' 

Mar.  30,  1899. 
**My  dear  friend: 

**  Three  or  four  months  on  the  edge  of  the  desert,  all  alone — 
how  I  envy  you;  and  again,  how  I  thank  Heaven  I  am  not  in  a 
similar  position.  What  a  glorious  place  it  must  be  in  which  to 
write!  That's  one  of  the  drawbacks  of  my  present  quarters. 
Everybody  comes  dropping  in,  and  I  haven't  the  heart  to  turn 
them  away.  Every  once  in  a  while,  some  old  shipmate  turns  up. 
With  but  one  exception,  this  is  their  story :  just  returned  from  a 
long  voyage;  what  a  wonderful  fellow  Jack  London  is;  what  a 
good  comrade  he  always  was ;  never  liked  anybody  in  all  the  world 
so  much;  have  a  barrel  of  curios  aboard  which  will  bring  over  in 
a  couple  of  days  for  a  present;  big  payday  coming;  expect  to  get 
paid  off  to-morrow — *  Say,  Jack  old  boy,  can  you  lend  us  a  couple 
of  dollars  till  to-morrow?'    That's  the  way  they  always  wind  up. 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  283 

And  then  I  scale  them  down  about  half,  give  them  the  money  and 
let  them  go.  Some  I  never  hear  from  again ;  others  come  back  the 
third  and  fourth  time. 

**But  I  have  the  fatal  gift  of  making  friends  without  exertion. 
And  they  never  forget  me.  Of  course  they  are  not  of  the  above 
caliber;  but  I'd  just  as  soon  give  them  the  money  and  let  them 
go,  as  to  have  them  eat  up  my  time  as  they  always  do.  Among  my 
feminine  friends  I  am  known  as  'only  Jack.*  *Nough  said.  Any 
trouble,  tangles,  etc.,  finds  me  called  upon  to  straighten  out.  Since 
Saturday  morning  I  have  spent  my  whole  time  for  one  of  them, 
and  have  accomplished  what  she  and  her  friends  failed  to  do  in 
five  years.  This  evening  I  shall  finally  have  settled  the  whole 
thing  to  her  satisfaction — but  look  at  the  time  I  have  lost.  Of 
course,  remuneration  is  out  of  the  question;  but  it  will  have  so 
endeared  me  to  her,  that  she'll  call  again  the  next  time  she  gets 
into  a  scrape.  And  so  it  goes — ^time — time — ^time.  How  precious 
the  hours  are ! 

**But  I  should  not  be  unjust.  The  other  afternoon  I  met  an 
old  friend  on  the  car.  Delighted  to  see  me;  must  go  back  to  the 
'society'  again.  I  finally  promised  to  go  down  the  following  night ; 
but  lo,  he  had  spread  the  news  among  other  friends  who  had  not 
seen  me  for  two  long  years.  I  really  did  not  think  they  or  people 
in  general  ever  had  cared  so  much  for  me,  and  I  was  ready  to 
weep  with  sheer  happiness  at  the  sincerity  of  their  delight.  .  .  . 
Couldn't  escape;  the  whole  night  was  lost  among  them;  supper 
had  been  ordered,  other  forgotten  friends  invited,  etc. 

"And  to  me,  the  strangest  part  is,  that  while  considering  myself 
blessed  above  all  with  the  best  of  friends,  I  know  that  I  have 
never  done  anything  to  deserve  them  or  to  hold  them.  Mind  you, 
the  crowd  I  have  reference  to  in  previous  paragraph,  has  never 
received  a  favor  of  me,  nor  is  bound  to  me  by  the  slightest  social, 
racial,  or  perhaps  intellectual  tie.     And  so  it  goes. 

"But  I  have  been  isolated  so  much,  that  I  can  no  longer  bear 
to  be  torn  away  for  long  at  a  time  from  the  city  life.  Iij  this 
particular  you  will  see  my  thankfulness  at  not  filling  your  position. 
Yet  you  may  keep  in  touch  with  the  world  with  those  trains  ever 
passing. 

"I  suppose  you  see  many  of  the  genus  hobo,  do  you  not?  I, 
too,  was  a  tramp  once.  ...  I  remember,  one  night,  leaving  a  swell 


284      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

function  in  Michigan  and  crossing  the  lake  to  Chicago.  There,  the 
following  morning  found  me  hustling  at  back  doors  for  a  breakfast. 
That  night  I  made  over  two  hundred  miles  into  Ohio  before  they 
finally  put  me  off  the  train.  I  wonder  what  the  young  lady  whom 
I  took  into  supper  would  have  thought,  had  she  seen  me  anywhere 
from  twelve  to  twenty-four  hours  after. 

"...  How  I  chatter — all  about  self!  ...  I  cannot  rewrite; 
but  in  turn,  I  write  more  slowly.  I  used  to  go  at  it  like  a  hurri- 
cane, but  found  I  failed  to  do  myself  justice.  .  .  .  After  sending 
criticism,  and  being  reminded  by  the  same  of  Bierce,  I  dug  up 
'Soldiers  and  Civilians.*  I  notice  in  his  work  the  total  absence 
of  sympathy.  They  are  wonderful  in  their  way,  yet  owe  nothing 
to  grace  of  style;  I  might  almost  characterize  them  as  having  a 
metallic  intellectual  brilliancy.  They  appeal  to  the  mind,  but  not 
to  the  heart.  Yes;  they  appeal  to  the  nerves,  too;  but  you  will 
notice  in  a  psychological  and  not  emotional  manner.  I  am  a  great 
admirer  of  him,  by  the  way,  and  never  tire  of  his  Sunday  work  in 
the  Examiner. 

"...  A  strong  will  can  accomplish  anything — I  believe  you  to 
be  possessed  of  the  same — why  not  form  the  habit  of  studying? 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  inspiration,  and  very  little  of  genius. 
Dig,  blooming  under  opportunity,  results  in  what  appears  to  be  the 
former,  and  certainly  makes  possible  the  development  of  what 
original  modicum  of  the  latter  one  may  possess.  Dig  is  a  wonderful 
thing,  and  will  move  more  mountains  than  faith  ever  dreamed  of. 
In  fact,  Dig  should  be  the  legitimate  father  of  all  self -faith. 

"...  And  by  the  way,  what  do  you  think  of  Le  Gallienne  ?  As 
a  writer  I  like  him.  ...  I  know  nothing  about  him  as  a  man.  .  .  . 
In  his  version  of  the  *Rubaiyat,'  I  was  especially  struck  by  the 
following,  describing  his  search  for  the  secret  of  life ; 

**  *XJp,  up  where  Parrius'  hoofs  stamp  heaven's  floor, 
My  soul  went  knocking  at  each  starry  door, 
Till  on  the  stilly  top  of  heaven's  stair, 
Clear-eyed  I  looked — and  laughed — and  climbed  no  more.* 

"...  My  one  great  weakness  is  the  study  of  human  nature. 
Knowing  no  God,  I  have  made  of  man  my  worship ;  and  surely  I 
have  learned  how  vile  he  can  be.    But  this  only  strengthens  my 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  285 

regard,  because  it  enhances  the  mighty  heights  he  can  bring  him- 
self to  tread.  How  small  he  is,  and  how  great  he  is  I  But  this 
weakness,  this  desire  to  come  in  touch  with  every  strange  soul  I 
meet,  has  caused  me  many  a  scrape. 

*'I  may  go  to  Paris  in  1900;  but  great  things  must  occur 
first.  I  like  the  story  you  sent.  No  sentimental  gush,  no  hysteria, 
but  the  innate  pathos  of  it !  .  .  .  Our  magazines  are  so  goody-goody, 
that  I  wonder  they  would  print  a  thing  as  risque  and  as  good  as 
that.  This  undue  care  to  not  bring  the  blush  to  the  virgin  cheek 
of  the  American  young  girl,  is  disgusting.  And  yet  she  is  per- 
mitted to  read  the  daily  papers  I  Ever  read  Paul  Bourget*s  com- 
parison of  the  American  and  French  young  women?** 

To  a  warning  from  Cloudesley  Johns,  Jack  had  replied : 

**I  realize  the  truth  in  your  criticism  of  ringing  the  changes 
on  Malemute  Kid.  .  .  .  But  you  will  notice  in  *The  Son  of 
the  Wolf  that  he  appears  only  cursorily.  In  the  June  tale  he 
will  not  appear  at  all,  or  even  be  mentioned.  You  surprise  me  with 
the  aptness  of  your  warning,  telling  me  I  may  learn  to  love  him 
too  well  myself.  I  am  afraid  I  am  rather  stuck  on  him — not  on 
the  one  in  print,  but  the  one  in  my  brain.  I  doubt  if  I  ever  shall 
get  him  in  print.'* 

"April  17,  1899. 

"My  dear  friend: — 

* '  Am  afraid  you  will  suffer  offense  every  time  I  write  to  you.  I 
never  wrote  a  letter  yet  without  forcing  myself  to  it,  and  I  never 
completed  one  without  sighing  a  great  sigh  of  relief.  As  a  cor- 
respondent I  shall  never  shine.  But  O  how  dearly  I  love  to  read 
the  letters  which  come  to  me  from  those  who  little  know  how  I 
dislike  answering.  And  I  never  would  answer,  did  I  not  know 
they  would  also  cease.  .  .  . 

".  .  .  I  see  you  are  opposed  to  Jingoism.  Yet  I  dare  not  ex- 
press my  views,  for  to  so  do  myself  adequate  justice,  would  re- 
quire at  least  one  hundred  thousand  words.  An  evolutionist, 
believing  in  Natural  Selection,  half  believing  Malthus*  'Law  of  Pop- 
ulation,' and  a  myriad  other  factors  thrown  in,  I  cannot  but  hail 
as  unavoidable,  the  Black  and  the  Brown  going  down  before  the 


286      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

White.  I  see,  after  stating  that  I  would  not  express  my  views, 
I  have  done  the  contrary.     Will  shut  up  at  once. 

**.  .  .  Town  Topics  has  accepted  a  two  eight-line  stanza  humor- 
ous fancy.  Have  you  ever  dealt  with  them?  [This  was  "If  I 
were  God  One  Hour,*'  published  May  11,  1899.] 

*  * .  .  .  But  enemies — bah !  .  .  .  Lick  a  man,  when  it  comes  to  a 
pinch,  or  be  licked,  but  never  hold  a  grudge.  Settle  it  once  and 
all,  and  forgive. 

**A11  my  life  I  have  sought  an  ideal  chum — such  things  as 
ideals  are  never  attainable,  anyway.  I  never  found  the  man  in 
whom  the  elements  were  so  mixed  that  he  could  satisfy,  or  come 
any  where  near  satisfying  my  ideal.  A  brilliant  brain — good; 
and  then  the  same  united  with  physical  cowardice — nit.  And 
vice  versa.     So  it  goes  and  has  gone.  .  .  . 

**It's  a  great  thing,  this  coming  to  believe  *that  the  universe 
can  continue  to  exist  and  operate  in  a  satisfactory  manner,  without 
the  perpetuation  of  one's  own  individuality.'  I  am  an  agnostic, 
with  one  exception:  I  do  believe  in  the  soul.  But  in  the  latter 
case,  I  can  only  see  with  death,  the  disintegration  of  the  spirit's 
individuality,  similar  to  that  of  the  flesh.  If  people  could  come 
to  realize  the  utter  absurdity,  logically,  of  the  finite  contemplating 
the  infinite  I 

**.  .  .  Don't  agree  with  you  regarding  your  criticism  of  face 
torn  away  by  bear.  Had  forgotten  Kipling's  *  Truce,'  but  any- 
way it  does  not  matter.  Many  men  are  killed  yearly,  up  there, 
and  many  more  fearfully  mangled.  If  we  should  allow  the  suc- 
cessful men  to  copyright  any  topic  they  once  happen  to  camp 
upon,  what  the  devil  would  you  and  I  and  a  very  numerous  tribe 
do? 

**.  .  .  Ran  across  these  lines  of  Helen  Hunt  Jackson;  have  been 
haunting  me  ever  since : 

'*  *His  thoughts  were  song,  his  life  was  singing, 
Men's  hearts  like  harps  he  held  and  smote, 
But  ever  in  his  heart  went  ringing, 
Ringing  the  song  he  never  wrote.* 

** Yours,  as  ever,  sincerely," 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  287 

**  April  22,  1899. 
"My  dear  friend: — 

**I  remember  'Thomas  the  Doubter.'  A  friend  of  mine  quoted 
portions  of  it  one  night,  but  I  was  just  dozing  off  and  failed  to 
follow  him.  It  is  very  good,  and  how  one  can,  in  the  face  of  it, 
stomach  such  things  as  the  infinite  mercy  of  the  most  infinitely 
merciless  of  creators,  is  more  than  I  can  understand.  Pardon  the 
double  superlative.  .  .  . 

**...!  sometimes  fear  that,  while  I  shall  surely  develop  ex- 
pression some  day,  I  lack  in  origination.  Perhaps  this  feeling 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  almost  every  field  under  the  sun,  and  over 
it  too,  has  been  so  thoroughly  exploited  by  others.  Sometimes  I 
hit  upon  a  catchy  title,  and  just  as  sure  as  I  do  I  find  some  one 
else  has  already  used  it. 

**.  .  .  Ha!  ha!  You  demand  comfort  in  place  of  convention- 
ality, eht  Ditto  here.  To-morrow  I  shall  put  on  a  white  shirt, 
and  I  shall  do  it  under  protest.  I  wear  a  sweater  most  of  the 
time,  and  pay  calls,  etc.,  in  a  bicycle  suit.  My  friends  have  passed 
through  the  stage  of  being  shocked,  and  no  matter  what  I  should 
do  henceforth,  would,  I  know,  remark  *  It 's  only  Jack. '  I  once  rode 
a  saddle  horse  from  Fresno  to  the  Yosemite  Valley,  clad  in  almost 
tropical  nudity,  with  a  ball  room  fan  and  a  silk  parasol.  It  was 
amusing  to  witness  the  countryside  turn  out  as  I  went  along.  Some 
of  my  party  who  lagged  behind,  heard  guesses  hazarded  as  to 
whether  I  was  male  or  female.  The  women  of  the  party  were 
tenderly  nurtured,  and  I  hardly  know  if  they  have  recovered 
yet,  or  if  their  proprieties  rather  have  yet  come  down  to  normal. 
In  fact,  there  was  only  one  I  failed  to  disturb,  and  he  was  the 
rugged  old  Chinese  cook — nothing  shocked  him  except  the  Mariposa 
Big  Trees.  Coming  unexpectedly  upon  the  first  one  ...  he 
blurted  forth  'Gee  Glist!  Chop'm  up  four  foot  ties,  make'm  one 
damn  railroad!'  .  .  . 

"As  to  evening  dress,  I  think  many  a  man  looks  extremely 
well  in  it.  Of  course,  not  all  by  a  large  majority.  I  like  that 
clean  feeling  of  well  fitting  clothes,  etc. — which  is  strange  for  one 
who  has  passed  through  as  many  dirty  periods  as  I  have.  But 
there  are  very  few  women  I  care  to  see  in  d6collet6.  ...  As  to  the 
breeding  of  cripples,  I  shall  try  to  get  something  uncompressed 
before  marrying,  and  then,  if  I  have  to  take  her  off  to  a  desert  isle, 


288      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

111  see  that  no  compression  goes  on  while  she  is  carrying  any 
fle^  and  bone  of  mine.  Barrenness  is  a  terrible  thing  for  a 
woman ;  but  the  paternal  instinct  is  so  strong  in  me  that  it  would 
almost  kill  me  to  be  the  father  of  a  child  not  physically  or  men- 
tally sound.  Sometimes  I  think,  because  this  is  so  very  strong  in 
me,  that  I  am  destined  to  die  childless.  I  can  understand  a  Napo- 
leon divorcing  a  Josephine,  even  casting  aside  state  reasons.  At 
the  same  time,  I  could  not  do  likewise  under  similar  circumstances. 
I  can  condone  in  others  what  I  haven  *t  the  heart,  or  have  too 
much  heart  to  do  myself. 

*  *  How  one  wanders  on ! 

*'I  also  send  you  some  of  my  schoolboy  work.  Stuff  written 
years  ago.  .  .  .  Through  reading  it  you  may  gain  a  comprehension 
of  one  of  my  many  sides,  though  of  course  you  must  take  into 
consideration  my  youth  at  the  time  of  writing,  if  you  should  try  to 
weigh  my  presentation  of  the  subjects  in  hand.  People  thought  I 
would  outgrow  that  condition  and  fall  back  into  the  conservative 
ways  of  thinking.  I  am  happy  to  say  they  were  mistaken.  But 
believe  me,  while  a  radical,  I  am  not  fanatical ;  nor  am  I  anything 
but  normal,  and  fallible,  in  all  affairs  of  reason.  Emotion  is 
quite  another  matter.  The  trouble  is  so  few  understand  Socialism 
or  its  advocates.  But  I  shall  cut  this  short,  else  I  will  be  deliver- 
ing a  diatribe  on  the  dismal  science. 

**.  .  .  There  is  only  one  kind  of  infallibility  that  I  can  tolerate, 
nay,  I  can  enjoy  it,  and  that  is  the  infallibility  of  the  good- 
natured  fool.  As  for  cowardice  in  man :  I  can  forgive  the  errors 
of  a  generation  of  women  far  more  easily  than  one  poltroon  of  the 
opposite  gender. 

**  *In  the  fell  clutch  of  circumstance- 
I  have  not  winced  nor  cried  aloud. 
Under  the  bludgeoning  of  chance 
My  head  is  bloody,  but  unbowed. ' 

Such,  in  all  things,  is  what  I  admire  in  men.  The  *fine  frenzy' 
of  the  poet  can  rouse  no  greater  number  of  tingles  along  my  spine 
than  a  Captain  going  down  on  the  bridge  with  his  ship ;  the  leading 
of  a  forlorn  hope,  or  even  a  criminal  who  puts  up  a  plucky  fight 
against  overwhelming  odds.  .  .  .  Say  what  you  will,  I  love  that 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  289 

ma^ificent  scoundrel,  Rupert  of  Hentzau.  And  a  man  who  can 
take  a  blow  or  an  insult  unmoved,  without  retaliating — Paugrh ! — 
I  care  not  if  he  can  voice  the  sublimest  sentiments,  I  sicken. '* 

*' April  30,  1899. 
**My  dear  friend: — 

**...!  like  the  form  of  refusal  you  sent  me.  Here  you  will 
find  a  couple  I  received  the  middle  of  this  week.  Disagree  with 
both  as  a  matter  of  course.  Can't  see  any  other  ending,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  to  the  McClure  Ms.,  while  Frank  Leslie's — 
well,  that  poor  young  American  girl  who  mustn't  be  shocked,  nor 
receive  anything  less  insipid  than  mare's  milk — she  seems  to  rule 
our  destinies. 

**.  .  .  So  you,  also,  are  a  Socialist?  How  we  are  growing!  I 
remember  when  you  could  almost  count  them  on  one's  great 
toes  in  Oakland.  Job  Harriman  is  considered  to  be  the  best 
popular  socialist  speaker  on  the  Coast;  Austin  Lewis  the  best 
historical,  and  Strawn-Hamilton  the  best  philosophical.  The  latter 
has  just  gone  to  his  old  home  in  Mississippi,  where  he  remains  until 
December.  Then  he  will  go  to  Washington  to  fill  a  private  secre- 
taryship under  some  legislative  relative.  He  spent  48  straight 
hours  with  me  a  couple  of  days  before  he  went.  He  has  a  marvelous 
brain,  one,  I  think,  which  could  put  that  of  Macaulay's  to  shame. 
He  has  served  no  less  than  twenty-nine  sentences  for  vagrancy,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  times  turned  up  on  trial,  in  the  several  years 
preceding  his  joining  the  socialists.  As  interesting  a  character 
in  his  way  as  your  Holt,  who,  by  the  way,  I  would  like  to  run 
across.  The  world  is  full  of  such,  only  the  world  does  not  gen- 
erally know  it.  But  I  don't  agree  with  you  regarding  the  death 
stroke  to  individuality  coming  with  the  change  of  system.  There 
will  always  be  leaders,  and  no  man  can  lead  without  fighting  for 
his  position — leaders  in  all  branches.  Sometimes  I  feel  as  you  do 
about  it,  but  not  for  long  at  a  time. 

**I  see  we  at  least  agree  about  courage.  A  man  without  courage 
is  to  me  the  most  despicable  thing  under  the  sun,  a  travesty  on  the 
whole  scheme  of  creation. 

'*.  .  .  You  misunderstand  me.  It  was  the  very  strength  of 
paternal  desire,  coupled  with  the  perversity  of  things,  which  made 
me  feel  doubtful  of  ever  realizing  it.     The  things  we  wish  the 


290      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

most  for  usually  pass  us  by — at  least  that  has  been  my  experi- 
ence. He  who  fears  death  usually  dies,  unless  he  is  too  con- 
temptible, and  then  the  gods  suffer  him  to  live  on  and  damn  his 
fellow  creatures. 

'*.  .  .  See  Frank  Norris  has  been  taken  up  by  the  McClures. 
Have  you  read  his  *Moran  of  the  Lady  Letty^t    It's  well  done. 

**.  .  .  My  mother  also  wishes  to  be  cremated.  I  think  it  is  the 
cleanest  and  healthiest,  and  best ;  but  somehow,  I  don 't  care  what 
becomes  of  my  carcass  when  I  have  done  with  it.  As  for  being 
buried  alive — he 's  a  lucky  devil  who  can  die  twice,  and  no  matter 
how  severe  the  pang,  it's  only  for  a  moment.  I  am  sure  the  pain 
of  dissolution  can  be  no  greater  than  the  moment  the  forceps  are 
laid  upon  a  jumping  tooth.  If  it  is  greater,  then  it  must  be  stun- 
ning in  its  effect. 

**Do  you  remember  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  moralizing  on 
death  in  his  *  Inland  Voyage'?  It  is  a  beautiful  expansion  of  *Bat, 
drink  and  be  merry,  for  to-morrow  we  die.' 

*  *  You  asked  about  the  age  of  Prof.  Markham :  I  saw  him  down 
at  the  Section  last  Sunday  night,  when  Jordan  spoke  on  *  The  Man 
Who  Was  Left.'  He  (Markham)  is  a  noble  looking  man,  snow 
white  hair  and  beard,  and  very  close  to  sixty.  I  send  you  a 
miserable  reporter's  account  of  the  meeting,  in  which  nobody 
or  nothing  is  done  justice. 

**You  really  must  pardon  this  letter;  my  mind  is  dead  for  the 
time  being.  Have  been  reading  a  little  too  heavily.  Just  as  a 
sample,  I  shall  give  you  a  list  of  what  I  am  as  present  working  on, 
to  say  nothing  of  three  daily  papers,  and  a  stagger  of  an  attempt 
at  current  literature : 

**Saint-Amand's  *  Revolution  of  1848.' 
Brewster's  *  Studies  in  Structure  and  Style.' 
Jordan's  *  Footnotes  to  Evolution.' 
Tyrell's  *  Sub-Arctics, ' 

and  Bohm-Bawerk's  'Capital  and  Interest' — this  latter  is  a  refuta- 
tion of  Carl  Marx's  theory  of  values,  as  determined  or  measured 
by  labor. 

*  *  Good  night — By  the  way,  I  have  forgotten  to  inform  you  that 
an  unwelcome  guest  has  annoyed  me  all  evening,  and  is  now  getting 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  291 

ready  to  crawl  into  bed.    This  has  bothered  me  not  a  little.    He 
is  such  a  fool.*' 

This  was  one  of  the  drawbacks  of  Jack's  quarters — that 
he  must  share  his  bed  with  no  matter  what  guest  chose  to 
remain,  invited  or  otherwise.  **And  I'd  as  soon  sleep  with 
a  snake  as  with  a  man,"  he  complained  to  his  sister. 

And  now  I  come  across  an  incomplete  letter  to  the  Lily 
Maid,  of  date  May  4,  1899 : 

"Dear :— 


*' Yours  to  hand  yesterday  morning;  caught  me  in  bed,  and 
sick  abed  for  the  first  time  in  over  three  years.  But  I  could  n  't 
stand  the  pressure,  so  got  up  in  the  afternoon.  Feeling  too  heavy 
and  forlorn  to-day  to  do  anything,  hence,  this  prompt  reply.  Your 
brother  has  already  remarked  that  little  trait  of  mine;  inflicting 
letters  upon  my  friends,  only  at  such  periods  that  I  cannot  do 
anything  else. 

*' What  am  I  doing!  Same  old  thing.  Got  a  twenty -five  dollar 
offer  from  Youth  and  Age.  Not  so  bad,  or  at  least  better  than 
having  the  thing  die  in  my  drawer.  It  stands  for  ten  days'  work, 
so  I  get  two  and  a  half  per  day  for  it.  I  notice  in  to-day's  want 
column  of  the  Examiner  an  ad.  which  runs  to  the  following  pur- 
pose: 'Wanted:  a  bright,  intelligent,  well  educated  young  man, 
thoroughly  competent  at  stenography  and  typewriting,  for  office 
work.  References  required.  $4  per  week  to  commence. '  He  who 
runs  may  read — ^he'd  have  to  work  nearly  two  months  to  get  what 
I  expect  to  get. 

*  *  And  there  *8  this  redeeming  feature  in  thus  getting  rid  of  my 
earlier  work :  it  cleans  up  my  books ;  reduces  my  stamp  outlay ;  and 
gives  me  the  wherewithal  to  send  new  things  a-traveling.  .  .  . 

**Sea  Sprite  and  Shooting  Star:  Held  the  *Cair  up  to  find 
out  whether  they  paid  or  not.  Their  reply  was  *not.'  Then  I  told 
them  to  return ;  they  replied  by  giving  me  hogwash  and  sending 
proofsheets.  Subsequent  letter  from  me  to  them  was  courteously 
sententious,  and  if,  on  top  of  that,  they  dare  to  publish,  I'll  sue 
them. 

"...  Have  you  seen  this  month 's  Black  Cat  f  It  has  my  story, 
written  a  couple  of  years  ago,  revised  hastily  and  then  sadly  man- 


292      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

gled  by  those  at  the  other  end.  It  can  only  be  taken  for  a  penny 's 
worth  of  rot.  You  have  not  told  me  of  'The  Son  of  the  Wolf.' 
May  Overland,  have  you  seen  it?  Maynard  Dixon  has  done  ex 
cellent  work — excellent  is  even  too  weak  to  do  him  justice.  . 
**Then  I  received  a  refusal  from  Frank  Leslie* s  Monthly.  . 
'Well  written,  too  risque  for  our  use.  We  would  be  glad  to  con 
sider  a  short  story  if  you  wish  to  submit  one  in  the  Fall.'  . 
Encouraging,  to  say  the  least.  Well,  well,  plenty  of  dig,  and  an 
equal  amount  of  luck  may  enable  me  some  day  to  make  perhaps  a 
small  livelihood  out  of  the  pen.  But  what's  the  diff.?  I  get  so 
hungry  sometimes,  hungry  for  all  I  have  not,  that  I  'd  rather  quit 
the  whole  thing  and  lie  down  for  the  good  long  sleep,  did  I  not 
have  my  mother  to  look  out  for.  This  world  holds  so  much,  and  it 
takes  but  such  a-  little  to  get  a  fair  share  of  it ' ' 

The  remainder  is  missing. 

I  take  up  the  Johns  correspondence  at  May  18,  1899. 

**My  dear  friend: — 

''Back  again  at  the  machine.  How  one  grows  to  miss  it !  And 
you  did  not  mention  my  scrawl — said  scrawl  feels  slighted.  .  .  . 

"I  do  most  heartily  agree  with  you  as  regards  drowning.  My 
stock  statement  is  that  I  should  prefer  hanging  to  drowning.  From 
this  you  may  infer  that  I,  as  a  strong  swimmer,  have  had  some 
experience.  One  notable  instance  was  similar  to  the  one  you 
mention  as  happening  to  you:  that  of  being  dragged  down  by 
another,  who,  perhaps,  wasn't  worth  saving.  It  happened  to  me 
by  the  dock,  with  a  crowd  above  but  not  a  boat  or  boat  hook  to  be 
had,  and  the  tide  very  low — ^twenty  feet  nearly  from  the  water  to 
the  top  of  the  wharf.  I  was  about  sixteen,  end  the  lad  I  was 
trying  to  pull  out,  a  wharf-rat  of  about  twelve  or  thirteen.  Really, 
I  saw  nothing  of  my  past  life,  nor  beautiful  scenes,  nor  blissful 
sensations.  My  whole  consciousness  was  concentrated  upon  the 
struggle,  my  sensation  upon  the  awful  feeling  of  suffocation.  An- 
other time,  I  fought  a  lonely  battle  in  the  ocean  surf  on  a  coral 
beach.  Carelessly  going  in  swimming  from  a  sheltered  nook,  I 
had  drifted  too  far  out  and  along  the  shore,  and  not  having  the 
strength  to  stem  my  way  back,  was  forced  to  a  landing  on  the  open 
beach.    Not  a  soul  in  sight.     The  seas  would  swat  me  onto  the 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  293 

beach  and  jerk  me  clear  again.  I'd  dig  hand  and  foot  into  the 
sand,  but  fail  to  hold.  It  was  a  miracle  that  I  finally  did  pull  out, 
nearly  gone,  in  a  fainting  condition,  and  pounded  into  a  jelly-like 
condition/'  Here  he  gives  a  brief  account  of  his  attempted  suicide 
by  drowning  in  the  Carquinez  Straits,  ending  with  **And  I  was 
about  gone,  paddling  as  the  man  in  the  Black  Cat  paddled,  with 
the  land  breeze  sending  each  snappy  little  wave  into  my  mouth. 
Was  still  keeping  afloat  mechanically,  when  a  couple  of  fishermen 
from  Vallejo  picked  me  up,  and  can  dimly  recollect  being  hauled 
over  the  side.     No,  drowning  is  not  a  pleasant  shuffle. 

**.  .  .  As  with  you,  socialism  was  evolutionary,  though  I  came 
to  it  quite  a  while  ago.  You  say,  'that  to  retain  a  leadership  one 
must  possess,  or  acquire,  all  the  virtues  which  society  and  politics 
demand  of  their  favorites — hypocricy,  insincerity,  deceit,  etc.' 
Robt.  Louis  Stevenson  was  a  man  looked  up  to,  a  leader  of  certain 
very  large  classes,  in  certain  very  fine  ways.  I  am  sure  he  lacked 
those  virtues.  So  it  would  be  in  all  the  arts,  sciences,  professions, 
sports,  etc.  ...  Of  course,  I  realize  you  mainly  applied  your 
statement  to  politics.  But  have  you  ever  figured  how  much  of  this 
fawning  and  low  trickery,  etc.,  is  due  to  party  politics;  and  with 
the  removal  of  party  politics  and  the  whole  spoils  system  from  the 
field,  cannot  you  figure  a  better  class  of  men  coming  to  the  fore 
as  political  leaders — men,  whose  sterling  qualities  to-day  prevent 
them  crawling  through  the  muck  necessary  to  attain  party  chief- 
tainship T 

"...  How  concisely  you  analyzed  the  lack  of  unity  in  the  May 
tale — a  lack  of  unity  which  you  may  see  is  recognized  in  the  very 
title,  *The  Men  of  Forty  Mile.'  The  sub-heading  was  not  of  my 
doing,  as  were  none  of  the  others.  I  wonder  what  you  will  think 
of  *In  a  Far  Country,'  which  comes  out  in  the  June  Number,  and 
which  contains  no  reference  to  Malemute  Kid  or  any  other  char- 
acter which  has  previously  appeared.  As  I  recollect  my  own  judg- 
ment of  it,  it  is  either  bosh,  or  good ;  either  the  worst  or  the  best 
of  the  series  I  have  turned  out.  I  shall  await  your  opinion  of  it 
with  impatience. 

*'.  .  .  We  live  and  learn.  With  such  letters  as  this,  the  stereo- 
typed forms  of  ending  have  always  tortured  me.  I  now  compre- 
hend the  beauty  of  yours  and  make  haste  to  adopt  it. 

'*Jack  London." 


294  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

'*May  28,  1899. 
**My  dear  friend: — 

"...  further,  believe  me,  I  do  not  look  for  the  regeneration 
of  mankind  in  a  day :  nor  do  I  think  man  must  be  born  again  before 
socialism  can  attain  its  ends.  The  first  motor  principle  of  the 
movement  is  selfishness,  pure,  downright  selfishness;  the  elevation 
merely  an  ultimate  and  imperative  result  of  better  environment. 

**.  .  .  As  you  have  lost  your  respect  for  Roosevelt,  so  had  I 
long  ago  lost  mine  for  George  Washington,  because  of  the  ill 
manner  in  which  he,  too,  treated  Paine — Paine,  who  in  this  case 
was  a  contemporary,  and  who  had  in  his  own  way  done  probably  as 
much  for  the  American  Revolution  as  had  his  immortal  traducer. 
However,  I  believe  you  to  be  less  tolerant  than  I,  at  least  con- 
cerning religion.  Apropos  of  Dewey's  alleged  remark  that  God 
superintended  the  fight  in  Manila  Bay,  and  your  conjecture  as  to 
whether  he  (Dewey)  ever  took  the  trouble  to  notice  that  God 
didn't  prevent  the  blowing  up  of  the  Maine,  brings  to  recollection 
a  similar  query  from  the  *  Social  Contract'  of  Jean  Jacques  Ros- 
seau:  *A11  power  comes  from  God,  I  acknowledge  it;  but  all  sick- 
ness comes  from  Him,  too :  does  that  mean  that  it  is  forbidden  to 
call  a  physician?'  "  Jack  then  devotes  a  paragraph  to  Schopen- 
hauer's **  terrific  arraignment  of  women,  or  rather  his  philippic 
against  them,"  and  precedes  some  extracts:  ** Don't  believe  that  I 
endorse  them  in  toto.'* 
"Dear  friend:-  "June  7,  1899. 

"...  0  I  have  been  busy.  Have  been  going  out  more  than 
at  any  other  time  in  the  past  eight  months;  have  been  studying 
harder  than  ever  in  my  life  before ;  and  have  been  turninr;  out  more 
copy  than  hitherto.  Finding  that  I  must  go  out  more  and  that  I 
was  becoming  stale  and  dead,  I  have  really  ventured  to  be  gay  in 
divers  interesting  ways. 

"Yes;  the  time  for  Utopias  and  dreamers  is  past.  Cooperative 
colonies,  etc.,  are  at  best  impossible  (I  don't  mean  religious  ones), 
and  never  was  there  less  chance  for  their  survival  than  to-day.'* 

"My  dear  friend:-  "June  12,  1899. 

"Yes,  I  agree  with  you,  *In  a  Far  Country'  should  have  been 
the  best  of  the  series,  but  was  not.    As  to  the  clumsiness  of  struc- 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  295 

ture,  you  have  certainly  hit  it.  I  doubt  if  I  shall  ever  be  able 
to  polish.  I  permit  too  short  a  period — one  to  fifteen  minutes — 
to  elapse  between  the  longhand  and  the  final  MS.  You  see,  I  am 
groping,  groping  for  my  own  particular  style,  for  the  style  which 
should  be  mine  but  which  I  have  not  yet  found. 

**A8  to  plagiarism:  you  seem  very  hyper-sensitive  on  the  sub- 
ject. Know  thou,  that  *In  a  Far  Country*  was  written  long  after 
I  had  read  your  *  Norton-Drake  Co. '  Yet  I  had  no  thought  of  the 
coincidence  till  you  mentioned  it.  Great  God!  Neither  you  nor 
I  have  been  the  first  to  make  use  of  a  broken  back,  nor,  because 
of  this  fact,  should  we  be  debarred  from  using  it.  How  many 
broken  legs,  broken  backs,  broken  hearts,  etc.,  have  been  worked 
up,  over  and  over  again?  .  .  .  Take  *  White  Silence,*  how  many 
have  made  use  of  a  falling  tree.  For  instance.  Captain  Kettle 
in  June  Pearson's.  ...  I  see  no  reason  in  the  world  why  you 
should  cut  the  broken  back  out  of  *  Charge  it  to  the  Com- 
pany.' .  .  . 

**  Pardon  brevity.  I  have  been  writing  this  and  entertaining 
half  a  dozen  friends  at  the  same  time.  Really  don't  know  what  I 
have  been  saying.  * ' 

A  second  letter  of  June  12 : 

**.  .  .  How  I  envy  you  the  thrill  of  life,  such  as  must  surely 
have  been  gained  through  your  mix-up  with  the  Greasers.  In  this 
prosy  city  existence  I  have  even  failed  to  tangle  up  with  a  lone 
footpad.  And  one  cannot  really  come  to  appreciate  one's  life,  save 
by  playing  with  it  and  hazarding  it  a  little. 

'*.  .  .  Have  also  tried  my  hand  at  storiettes  for  Munsey,  but 
without  success,  then  I  ship  same  off  to  Tillitson  &  Son,  203 
Broadway,  N.  Y.  C.  Figuring  it  up,  it  seems  to  me  they  pay  some- 
where around  four  dollars  per  thousand.  .  .  .  They  are  a  syndicate 
.  .  .  but  their  demand  for  such  stuff  seems  unlimited.  I  don't  like 
that  kind  of  work,  myself,  as  I  can  readily  see  you  do  not.  .  .  . 

'*Ye8;  going  out  more  isn't  a  bad  idea;  but  as  to  the  less  study, 
can't  agree  with  you.  My  mind  has  at  least  reached  partial 
maturity  and  I  believe  I  know  how  far  I  may  go  without  injury 
to  it.  And  when  I  do  go  out,  I  assure  you  I  go  out  with  a  ven- 
geance, and  throw  utterly  to  the  winds  all  thought  and  worry  of 
my  every-day  life.    And  it  has  been  my  luck  never  to  be  without 


296      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

the  one  companion  to  share  with, me  temporary  oblivion.  No;  I 
don't  mean  dope,  but  a  proper  unadulterated  good  time  with  one 
who  knows  a  good  time  when  it  is  seen. 

**How  rabid  you  are!  I  feel  called  upon,  for  that  matter,  to 
tell  you  that  you  are  really  narrow  in  some  things.  Remember, 
the  infidel  that  positively  asserts  that  there  is  no  God,  no  first 
cause,  is  just  as  imbecile  a  creature  as  the  deist  that  asserts  posi- 
tively that  there  is  a  God,  a  first  cause.  Have  you  ever  read 
Herbert  Spencer's  First  Principles  of  synthetic  philosophy,  and 
noted  the  line,  the  adamantine  line  of  demarkation  he  draws 
between  the  knowable  and  the  unknowable.  Pardon  me,  I  should 
not  have  allowed  myself  this  discursion,  for  I  have  never  heard 
you  make  that  rash  negative  assertion.  But,  as  regards  your 
Anglo-Saxon  views.  In  one  breath  you  say  you  are  of  pure  Anglo- 
Saxon  descent  on  both  sides  and  that  your  descent  (evidently  on 
one  side  at  least)  can  be  traced  to  the  Welsh  kings.  Know  thou, 
that  the  Welsh  blood  is  really  no  nearer  (save  geographically)  and 
no  farther  away  from  the  Anglo-Saxon,  than  is  the  Hindoo  blood 
of  India  or  the  Iranic  of  Persia.  The  Welsh,  of  which  breed  were 
the  Welsh  kings  you  mention,  belongs  to  the  Celtic  branch  of  the 
Aryan  Family,  as  the  pure  Russian  does  to  the  Slavonic,  the  Hindoo 
and  Persian  to  the  Indo-Iranic.  All  the  same  family,  but  distinct- 
ly different  branches.  What  is  the  Anglo-Saxon,  as  we  understand 
it  to-day?  Let  me  make  you  miserable  with  a  little  history  and 
ethnology."  And  he  goes  on  at  some  length  polishing  up  his 
memory  of  what  he  has  read,  continuing: 

**But  enough,  this  is  not  my  hobby,  as  you  may  think,  but  only 
one  portion  of  my  philosophy  or  whatever  you  wish  to  call  the 
entire  edifice  of  my  views.  Some  day  we  shall  meet  and  I  may  be 
able  to  explain  myself  better." 

His  next  letter,  of  June  23,  proceeds  with  the  racial  dis- 
cussion. This  paragraph  is  of  especial  note  as  regards  his 
biological  attitude  toward  women : 

"Remember,  there  is  even  a  higher  logic  than  moral  or  formal 
logic.  Moral  and  formal  logic  demonstrate  thoroughly  that  woman 
shall  vote ;  but  the  higher  logic  says  she  shall  not.  Why  ?  Because 
she  is  woman ;  because  she  carries  that  within  her  that  will  prevent, 
that  which  will  no  more  permit  her  economic  and  suffragal  inde- 


i 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  297 

pendence,  that  it  will  permit  her  to  refrain  from  sacrificing  her- 
self to  the  uttermost  to  man.  I  speak  of  woman  in  general.  So, 
with  the  race  problem.  The  different  families  of  man  must  yield 
to  law — to  LAW,  inexorable,  blind,  unreasoning  law,  which  has 
no  knowledge  of  good  or  ill,  right  or  wrong;  which  has  no  pref- 
erence, grants  no  favors,  whether  to  the  atoms  in  a  molecule  of 
water  or  to  any  of  the  units  in  our  whole  sidereal  system ;  which  is 
unconscious,  abstract,  just  as  is  Time,  Space,  Matter,  Motion;  of 
which  it  is  impossible  to  postulate  a  beginning  nor  an  end.  This 
is  the  law,  the  higher  logic,  which  the  petty  worms  of  men  must 
bow  to,  whether  they  will  or  no. 

**  Socialism  is  not  an  ideal  system,  devised  by  man  for  the 
happiness  of  all  life ;  nor  for  the  happiness  of  all  men ;  but  it  is 
devised  for  the  happiness  of  certain  kindred  races.  It  is  devised 
80  as  to  give  more  strength  to  these  certain  kindred  favored  races 
so  that  they  may  survive  and  inherit  the  earth  to  the  extinction  of 
the  lesser,  weaker  races.  The  very  men  who  advocate  socialism, 
may  tell  you  of  the  brotherhood  of  all  men,  and  I  know  they  are 
sincere;  but  that  does  not  alter  the  law — they  are  simply  instru- 
ments, working  blindly  for  the  betterment  of  these  certain  kindred 
races,  and  working  detriment  to  the  inferior  races  they  would  call 
brothers.  It  is  the  law;  they  do  not  know  it,  perhaps;  but  that 
does  not  change  the  logic  of  events/' 

**War,'*  Jack  declared  upon  a  later  occasion,  *4s  a  di- 
vine beneficence  compared  with  mixed  breeding!*'  During 
the  several  years  before  his  death,  his  experimentation  with 
livestock  only  cemented  his  convictions.  As  witness  this 
letter,  written  in  his  last  year,  to  a  young  Athenian  who 
had  dared  pit  his  unripened  opinions  against  the  elder's 
philosophy : 

"In  reply  to  yours  of  Dec.  24, 1915.  .  .  .  God  abhors  a  mongrel. 
In  nature  there  is  no  place  for  a  mixed-breed.  The  purest  breeds, 
when  they  are  interbred,  produce  mongrels.  Breed  a  Shire  stallion 
to  a  Thoroughbred  mare,  and  you  get  a  mongrel.  Breed  a  pure 
specimen  of  greyhound  to  a  pure  specimen  of  bulldog,  and  you  get 
mongrels.     The  purity  of  the  original  strains  of  blood  seems  only  to 


298      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

increase  the  mon^elization  that  takes  place  when  these  strains  are 
interbred  or  cross-bred. 

**  Consult  the  entire  history  of  the  human  world  in  all  past 
ages,  and  you  will  find  that  the  world  has  ever  belonged  to  the 
pure  breed  and  has  never  belonged  to  the  mongrel.  I  give  you  this 
as  a  challenge :  Read  up  your  history  of  the  human  race.  Remem- 
ber, Nature  permits  no  mongrel  to  live — or,  rather,  Nature  per- 
mits no  mongrel  to  endure. 

** There's  no  use  in  your  talking  to  me  about  the  Greeks.  There 
are  not  any  Greeks.  You  are  not  a  Greek.  The  Greeks  died  two 
thousand  years  ago,  when  they  became  mongrelized.  Just  because 
a  lot  of  people  talk  the  Greek  language,  does  not  make  those  people 
pure  Greeks.  Because  a  lot  of  people  talk  Italian,  does  not  make 
them  Roman.  The  Greeks  were  strong  as  long  as  they  remained 
pure.  They  were  possessed  with  power,  achievement,  culture,  cre- 
ativeness,  individuality.  When  they  mongrelized  themselves  by 
breeding  with  the  slush  of  conquered  races,  they  faded  away,  and 
have  played  nothing  but  a  despicable  part  ever  since  in  the  world's 
history.  This  is  true  of  the  Roman ;  this  is  true  of  the  Lombards ; 
this  is  true  of  the  Phoenicians ;  this  is  true  of  the  Chaldeans ;  this 
is  true  of  the  Egyptians ;  this  is  not  true  of  the  Gipsies,  who  have 
kept  themselyes  pure.  This  is  not  true  of  the  Chinese,  it  is  not 
true  of  the  Japanese,  this  is  not  true  of  the  Germans,  this  is  not 
true  of  the  Anglo-Saxons.  This  is  not  true  of  the  Yaquis  of 
Mexico.  It  is  true  of  the  fifteen  million  mongrels  of  Mexico ;  it  is 
true  of  the  mongrels  that  inhabit  the  greater  portion  of  the  West 
Indies,  and  who  inhabit  South  America  and  Central  America  from 
Cape  Horn  to  the  Rio  Grande.  This  is  true  of  the  mongrelized 
Hindoos. 

*'Read  up  your  history.  It  is  all  there  on  the  shelves.  And 
find  me  one  case  where  you  can  breed  a  greyhound  with  a  bulldog 
and  get  anything  but  a  mongrel.  Read  up  your  history.  You 
will  find  it  all  there  on  the  shelves.  And  find  me  one  race  that 
has  retained  its  power  of  civilization,  culture,  and  creativeness, 
after  it  mongrelized  itself.  Read  up  your  history,  and  try  to  find 
any  remnant  of  a  pure  Roman  race,  of  a  pure  Hindoo  race.  .  .  . 

"You  know  how  I  am.  I  talk  straight  out.  When  I  am  asked 
to  hit  straight  from  the  shoulder,  I  hit  straight  from  the  shoulder. 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  299 

It  is  now  up  to  you  to  come  back  at  me  on  the  very  question  at 
issue.  .  .  . 

**And,  in  conclusion,  let  me  repeat — you  know  the  straight 
talker  I  am — ^that  no  matter  how  straight-out  and  savagely  I  talk, 
my  hand  rests  no  less  warmly  upon  your  shoulder,  and  that  only 
you  can  be  offended  by  me,  and  that  you  cannot  offend  me. 
** Affectionately  yours.'* 

To  Cloudesley  he  goes  on : 

**.  .  .  *The  artist  is  known  by  what  he  omits.'  That  is  my 
chiefest  obstacle,  one  that  I  am  fully  aware  of,  and  one  that  I 
struggle  ceaselessly  to  overcome.  That  is  why  I  am  trying  my 
hand  at  storiettes.  I  do  not  like  them,  but  I  realize  what  excellent 
training  they  give.  Also,  the  shekels  they  bring  in  are  not  exactly 
distasteful  to  me.  To  me,  all  my  work  is  practice,  experimenta- 
tive,  and  I  consider  myself  lucky  to  be  able  to  sell  the  sheets  of 
my  copybook. 

*' Forty -six  stories — I  have  not  written  that  many  in  all  my 
life — why  it 's  a  book !  Neither  have  I  ever  written  a  book.  Nor 
shall  I  till  I  consider  myself  prepared,  and  time  and  place,  and 
man  are  met." 

On  July  5, 1899,  reference,  I  believe,  is  made  to  the  young 
woman  he  subsequently  married: 

**Just  got  home  this  morning,  and  have  been  hard  at  it  ever 
since.  Have  written  fifteen  hundred  words  of  a  new  story,  trans- 
acted all  my  business,  started  a  few  more  of  my  returned  children 
on  the  turf  (as  you  put  it),  and  am  now  winding  up  the  last 
letter  of  my  correspondence.  Go  away  again  on  Friday,  for  a 
jaunt  on  wheels  down  country  with  a  young  lady  whom  I  have 
been  promising  for  some  time.  She  made  me  a  call  to-day  and 
fore-closed.    We  stop  with  mutual  friends  along  the  way." 

Then  he  comments  upon  some  editorial  errors  in  his 
story  **The  Priestly  Prerogative,'*  published  in  the  July 
Overland,  ending  his  letter:  **Darau  editors  I'* 

The  letter  of  July  22,  illustrates  Jack  London's  law- 
abiding  proclivity,  as  well  as  his  determination  to  be  an 
artist : 


300      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

**As  for  myself,  I  believe  in  these  present  marriage  customs  and 
laws,  but  that  is  no  reason  why  I  should  sway  my  tale  one  way  or 
the  other  for  aught  save  the  tale's  sake.  As  for  my  judgment  of 
the  tale,  I  like  it  least  of  the  series.  Just  about  as  much  as  I  do 
the  next  which  is  now  in  press  and  which  is  the  last  of  the  Overland 
series.     [**The  Wife  of  a  King."] 

''As  to  the  hog-train — when  a  passenger  goes  by  in  the  day- 
light, shunning  six-wheelers  it  has  been  my  custom  to  swing  under 
between  the  trucks  and  ride  the  rods — by  this  I  do  not  mean  the 
gunnels,  brake-beams,  or  springs,  or  brake-rods.  I  have  often  gone 
along  that  way  in  the  daytime,  with  feet  cocked  up,  reading  a 
novel,  peering  out  at  the  scenery,  and  enjoying  a  comfortable  if 
sometimes  dusty  smoke. 

* ' .  .  .  As  soon  as  I  get  well  ahead  of  the  game — ^very  problem- 
atical— I  shall  escape  all  my  friends,  and  creditors  alas !  by  engag- 
ing cabin  passage  on  a  big  English  ship  for  a  voyage  round  the 
Horn  to  Europe.  Shall  go  aboard  with  a  box  of  books,  a  type- 
writer, and  several  boxes  of  paper,  and  say!  I  won't  do  a  thing 
to  things  in  general  and  particular.  I'll  write  some  sea  yarns 
soaked  in  the  atmosphere,  besides  other  and  what  I  would  con- 
sider more  important  work,  and  do  no  end  of  reading  up  all  that 
which  the  present  and  continuous  flood  of  current  literature 
will  not  permit  me  to  enjoy.  Ah  plans,  plans  I  How  many  have 
I  builded !  and  how  few  have  I  realized. ' ' 

''July  29,  1899. 
"My  dear  friend: — 

' '  Trip  knocked  out  in  the  middle.  Whole  lot  of  company  came 
to  house — very  small  house.  .  .  .  Well,  we  had  some  of  our  fun 
anyway. 

"Guests  are  at  last  gone,  and  am  too  flabbergasted  to  get  to 
work.  Have  all  kinds  of  work  awaiting  me,  too.  Did  you  ever 
write  a  yarn  of,  say,  twelve  thousand  words,  every  word  essential 
to  atmosphere,  and  then  get  an  order  to  cut  out  three  thousand  of 
these  words,  somewhere,  somehow?  That's  what  the  Atlantic  has 
just  done  to  me.  Hardly  know  whether  I  shall  do  it  or  not.  It*s 
like  the  pound  of  flesh.  [This  was  "An  Odyssey  of  the  North," 
published  in  Atlantic  the  following  January.]  Say,  am  ham- 
mering away  at  that  Cosmopolitan  essay,  at  spare  intervals.  .  .  . 
Am  thoroughly  satisfied,  as  far  as  I  have  gone,  which  is  saying  a 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  301 

good  deal  for  me — am  usually  sick  at  this  stage,  and  it's  such  dry, 
dissertative  stuff  after  all. 

**.  .  .  Drop  in  on  us  when  you  do  come.  Small  house,  but 
usually  plenty  of  fair  steak,  chops,  etc.,  in  the  larder.  I  am  a 
heavy  eater,  but  a  plain  one,  fruit,  vegetables  and  meat,  and  plenty 
of  them,  but  with  small  regard  for  pastries,  etc.  If  youVe  a  sweet 
tooth  you  will  not  receive  accommodation  here  except  in  the  fruit 
line  and  the  candy  stores. 

**.  .  .  0,  by  the  way,  just  to  show  how  this  business  of  placing 
MSS.  is  a  despairing  one.  Long  years  ago — three,  anyway,  I  wrote 
a  synopsis  of  'The  Road,'  luider  that  title,  describing  tramps  and 
their  ways  of  living,  etc.  It  has  been  everywhere — every  syndicate 
and  big  Sunday  edition  refused  it  as  a  feature  article ;  but  I  kept 
it  going.  And  lo,  to-day,  came  a  note  of  acceptance  of  same  from 
the  Arena.  Think  I  '11  resurrect  some  of  my  old  returned  third  rate 
work  and  send  it  to  Harper's,  Century,  etc.  That  is,  if  there  is  any 
chance  of  their  accepting  what  tenth  class  publications  have  re- 
fused. .  .  . 

**And  say,  when  a  third  rate  magazine  publishes  something  of 
yours,  and  you  wait  thirty  days  after  publication  for  pay,  and 
then  dun  them,  and  then  they  do  not  even  answer  your  note,  what 
do  you  dot  Is  there  any  way  of  proceeding  against  them?  Or 
must  one  suffer  dumbly?  Tell  me,  tell  me — I'd  like  to  make  it 
hot  for  some  of  those  Eastern  sharks. 

**And  in  these  pay-on-acceptance  fellows,  did  you  ever  get 
your  check  at  the  same  time  you  were  notified  of  acceptance? 
They  always  make  me  an  offer,  first,  and  then  I  needs  must  sit 
idly  and  grow  weary  and  sick  at  heart  waiting  during  the  period 
between  my  closing  with  offer  and  the  arrival  of  the  all-need- 
ful. .  .  . 

**.  .  .  As  you  say,  I  am  firm.  I  may  sometimes  appear  im- 
patient at  nothing  at  all,  and  all  that;  but  this  everybody  who 
has  had  a  chance  to  know  me  well  have  noticed:  things  come  my 
way  even  though  they  take  years;  no  one  sways  me,  save  in  little 
things  of  the  moment ;  I  am  not  stubborn  but  I  swing  to  my  pur- 
pose as  steadily  as  the  needle  to  the  pole;  delay,  evade,  oppose 
secretly  or  openly,  it's  all  immaterial,  the  thing  comes  my  way. 
To-day  I  have  met  my  first  serious  wall.  For  three  long  years  the 
fight  has  been  on ;  to-day  it  balances ;  is  a  deadlock ;  I  may  have 


302      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

met  my  master ;  I  may  not ;  the  future  will  tell,  and  one  or  the  other 
of  us  will  break — and  on  top  of  it  all  I  may  say  it  concerns  neither 
my  interest  or  theirs,  nothing  except  the  personal  vanity  and  the 
clash  of  our  wills.    *I  won't*  and  *I  wiir  sums  the  whole  thing  up. 

**Firm?  But  I  am  firm  in  foolishness,  as  well  as  other  things. 
Take  things  more  seriously  than  you?  Bosh  I  You  don't  know 
me.  Ask  my  very  intimate  friends.  Ask  my  creditors.  Pshaw — 
let  this  illustrate:  a  very  dear  friend,  a  woman  charming  enough 
to  be  my  wife,  and  old  enough  to  be  my  mother,  discovered  that 
my  most  precious  possession,  my  wheel,  was  hocked.  You  know 
I  only  live  for  the  day.  She  at  once  put  up  the  all-needful  so 
that  I  might  regain  it.  She  could  well  afford  it,  so  that  was  all 
right;  but  mark  you,  she  virtually  had  a  lien  upon  it.  Well,  to 
top  it — had  been  extravagant  on  the  strength  of  receiving  money 
which  did  not  materialize.  Creditors  waxed  clamorous ;  a  few  dol- 
lars judiciously  scattered  among  them  would  have  eased  things; 
but  credit  exhausted ;  along  comes  a  particularly  nice  person  for  a 
good  time.  A  very  nice  person  who  wished  to  see  things;  wheel 
hypothecated  and  things  seen  for  some  forty  odd  hours.  This  is 
me  all  the  time  and  all  over — seriously  take  things  of  life — does 
it  look  like  it?     Pshaw.    Ask  those  who  know  me. 

**And  I  am  firm  in  my  foolishness. 

**I  am  glad  you  took  Jordan  in  the  right  way.  He  is,  to  a 
certain  extent,  a  hero  of  mine.  He  is  so  clean,  and  broad,  and 
wholesome.  Would  to  God  he  were  duplicated  a  few  thousand 
times  in  the  U.  S.  Working  for  a  sheep-skin!  That's  what  most 
fools  do  who  go  in  for  education,  and  most  of  the  rest  are  geniuses 
and  cranks,  who  get  the  kernel  and  then  don't  or  won't  use  it. 

**.  .  .  As  for  my  writing  histories  and  works  on  economics — I 
may,  some  day — but  I  have  little  ambition  to  do  so.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  any  kind  of  writing  under  the  sun.  My  only  wish 
that  way  is  the  all-needful — it  seems  the  easiest  way.  Had  I  an 
assured  income,  my  ambition  would  be  for  music,  music,  music. 
As  it  is,  impossible — I  bend.*' 

Aug.  10,  1899. 
"Dear  Friend: 

"Same  old  tale.  Wound  off  one  visitor  the  first  of  last  week, 
to  receive  at  once  two  more — they  have  just  now  gone  home.  I'll 
get  even  with  them  yet,  so  that  even  their  letters,  much  less  them- 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  303 

selves  shall  not  reach  me.  I  see  you  have  been  suffering  a  similar 
affiction. 

*  *  Say,  remember  telling  me  if  I  got  a  check  from  Town  Topics 
to  frame  it?  After  acceptance  I  let  them  slip  for  several  months, 
then  wrote  them  a  nice  little  note  of  enquiry — five  lines — and  be- 
hold! They  dug  up  a  dollar  for  that  triolet — 'He  Chortled  with 
Glee*,  and  two  twenty -five  for  the  x>oem  *If  I  Were  God  One 
Hour.*  You  mentioned  the  Owl  as  a  snare  and  a  delusion.  Well, 
they  haven't  got  the  best  of  me  yet,  at  least  that's  all  I  can  say. 
You  know  I  wrote  long  ago  a  lot  of  stuff  upon  which  I  wasted 
many  stamps.  Nor  would  I  retire  it  if  hope  of  getting  my  postage 
back  still  lived.  And  I  must  say  I  have  succeeded  in  disposing  of 
quite  a  lot  of  rubbish  that  way  by  sending  it  to  the  way  down 
publications.  The  Owl  published  a  skit  of  mine  a  couple  of  months 
ago.  When  they  made  the  offer  for  it,  I  almost  fainted — One 
Dollar  and  Fifty  cents  for  two  thousand  words.  But  it  more  than 
paid  for  the  stamps  I  had  wasted  on  the  thing,  and  gave  promise 
of  release  from  at  least  one  of  my  early  night-mares,  so  I  closed 
with  the  offer.  But  they  have  not  yet  paid  me.  Then  the  question 
arises:  why  should  they  have  made  such  a  miserable  offer  if  they 
intended  to  take  the  whole  works  T  And  one  answer  suggests  itself : 
that  from  very  shame  at  the  smallness  of  the  selling  price,  the 
author  would  refrain  from  making  any  trouble  in  the  event  of 
non-payment.    However,  I  am  devoid  of  that  kind  of  shame. 

"Yes,  I  cut  the  story  for  the  Atlantic.  There  were  12,250 
words;  but  while  they  wanted  it  reduced  three  thousand,  I  only 
succeeded  in  getting  it  down  to  an  even  ten  thousand.  So  I  don*t 
know  what  they  will  do  about  it.  They  seem  very  nice  people  from 
their  letters,  but  that,  however,  remains  to  be  substantiated  by 
something  solid.  Have  also  sent  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  collection 
of  tales.     [This  was  "The  Son  of  the  Wolf"  collection.] 

"I  closed  with  a  cash  offer  of  ten  dollars,  and  five  yearly  sub- 
scriptions with  the  Arena,  so  probably  it  is  alright  with  them. 
Say,  it's  great,  learning  the  inner  nature  of  some  of  these  concerns! 

"0  but  I  do  take  myself  seriously.  My  self-estimation  has  been 
made  in  very  sober  moments.  I  early  learned  that  there  were  two 
natures  in  me.  This  caused  me  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  till  I 
worked  out  a  philosophy  of  life  and  struck  a  compromise  between 
the  flesh  and  the  spirit.    Too  great  an  ascendancy  of  cither  was  to 


304      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

be  abnormal,  and  since  normality  is  almost  a  fetish  of  mine,  I 
finally  succeeded  in  balancing  both  natures.  Ordinarily  they  are 
at  equilibrium;  yet  as  frequently  as  one  is  permitted  to  run  ram- 
pant, so  is  the  other.  I  have  small  regard  for  an  utter  brute  or 
for  an  utter  saint. 

**A  choice  of  ultimate  happiness  in  preference  to  proximate 
happiness,  when  the  element  of  chance  is  given  due  consideration, 
is,  I  believe,  the  wisest  course  for  a  man  to  follow  under  the  sun. 
He  that  chooses  proximate  happiness  is  a  brute;  he  that  chooses 
immortal  happiness  is  an  ass;  but  he  that  chooses  ultimate  happi- 
ness knows  his  business. 

'*...!  doubt  if  even  you  would  consider  the  novel  avowedly 
with  a  purpose  to  be  real  literature.  If  you  do,  then  let  us  abandon 
fiction  altogether  and  give  the  newspaper  its  due,  for  the  fixing  or 
changing  of  public  opinion  especially  on  lesser  things.  But 
Spencer's  *  First  Principles'  alone,  leaving  out  all  the  rest  of  his 
work,  has  done  more  for  mankind,  and  through  the  ages  will  have 
done  far  more  for  mankind  than  a  thousand  books  like  *  Nicholas 
Nickleby,'  'Hard  Cash,'  'Book  of  Snobs,'  and  'Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin. '  Why,  take  the  enormous  power  for  human  good  contained 
in  Darwin's  'Origin  of  Species'  and  'Descent  of  Man.'  Or  in 
the  work  of  Ruskin,  Mill,  Huxley,  Carlyle,  IngersoU.  .  .  . 

"As  to  'that  retired  stuff' — many  thanks  for  your  kind  offer; 
but  really,  I  shall  never  resurrect  it  again.  Whenever  I  get  to 
thinking  too  much  of  myself  I  simply  look  some  of  it  up,  and  am 
at  once  reduced  to  a  more  becoming  modesty.  No,  it's  put  away 
for  good.  I  have  very  little  out,  just  now.  And  it's  growing  less 
all  the  time.  It  will  soon  catch  me  up,  I'm  afraid,  if  I  don't  get 
down  and  dig. 

"Well,  say,  hold  on  a  minute.  Let  me  explain.  But  first  let 
me  say  how  glad  I  was  that  you  liked  '  The  Wife  of  a  King. '  But 
I  was  candid,  though  I  cannot  for  the  life  of  me  remember  what 
'shameful  comparison'  I  made  in  letter  to  you  concerning  it.  This 
is  the  way  it  happened.  I  had  the  most  terrific  dose  of  blues  I  ever 
was  afflicted  with  in  my  life.  I  couldn  't  think  of  anything  original, 
so  I  made  a  composite  of  three  retired  MSS.,  slapped  them  together, 
as  I  at  the  time  considered,  haphazard,  with  the  crudest  of  dove- 
tailing. Shipped  the  result  off  in  disgust,  and  forgot  all  about  it, 
save  a  most  uncomfortable  sense  of  general  dissatisfaction.     And 


Jaeh  lAndnn 

Kwtomu  Co.,  Cat. 
U.Ji.  jL     - 

;uM  2S.    1914 


'DtBT  aUfb  raapw:- 

.^nat  a  r-Jth  ll.i*  to  rou.      T   nav*  com  hnck   froa  '  isico,  aid  at  pr«a«nt  tiAs  an  c»tch- 
l.%-  a?,  a"    irj*!,  wiy*  a(r  corr««pr»nJ«ie«,  and  in  aildlMon  r-covsrin-   frcs  an  B^*^ev  of  rottsn, 

ruah. 


>^cJllarv  a/r»ntary,  hanca,  njr  inavitabla  as  aaual ,jA 


r  hava  aUrajrs  indlnad  tonunl  'iaacHl'a  poaiUon.  In  fact,  ineli-iu  is  '.<.t,  **ak  a 
■VM.  X  aM  a  hopalaaa  aattrtallat.  I  i««a  tha  aoul  aa  nothior  »laa  tnan  tha  aua  of  *.*-.«  ac- 
tlTltiaa  of  tba  or«wiiaa  ?lua  ^araonal  HaM*.a,  M-Mriaa,  and  «x:>4i*lancaa  cf  *>«  f^an- 

iaa,  plua  i'lharltaii  ha>lta,    atiorlia,  axparlancaa,  of  ^h^  oriianiaii..    I  b«liar«  *.'a*.  v*;«n  I  ain 

iaad,    ;aa  daad.     T  ballava  that  vlth  qr  daath  I  at*  Ju^t  aa'auch  3blitaratad  a*  tha  laat  ica- 

»    '■  -._ . — 

qiil*o  »0'J  or  T  aaa«hC>4^  • 

T  t»va  cc  patla.ica  •i»S  n-/-V--ii«'it  pHlloaophara  auch  aa  bar*^R.  .»-.  »     .   >    .ian«« 

vlth  th«  wtAp'rralcal  >':iU040;/n«rs.      "i*.  i  t^iara,  alaaa,   tti*  «lah  la  parar.t  to  t>a  Vno  .rht,  maA 
thair  ala)i  la  paran^  to  thair  profcundaat  philoaopr.ical  cor.elwoiona.     I   $eln  aith  'aacVal  In  «•• 

Ir.r  ■»'-Jit,    in  liau  of  any  othar  phraaa,    T  am  romtslUil   *n   r«l'    "«  t»o«1*iv%   ./•«.,«<fs,    ....,.-_" 
"laaaa  for-i"s  ruah, 

i^ncaraly    'oira, 


Q^^  -/;,^/^ 


llil4.      LETTEIi     FKOM     .JA(  K     l.oMmN     SlAllNi.     Ill>     MATKKIALISTIC 

BELIEF 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  305 

for  the  first  time,  when  I  looked  upon  it  printed,  I  was  not  wholly 
disgusted  with  myself — not  because  it  was  the  best  I  had  done,  but 
because  I  had  rated  it  so  low  that  disappointment  or  disgust  seemed 
impossible. 

**Are  there  any  phases  of  humanity,  under  any  combinations 
which  have  not  already  been  exploited?  Yet  I  think  I  have  for 
some  time  had  an  entirely  original  field  in  view,  so  why  should  I 
askf  But  who  knows.  ...  I  should  think  the  only  way  to  write 
a  novel  would  be  to  do  it  at  a  fair  rate  per  day,  and  then  ship  off 
at  once.  If  I  can  only  get  ahead  of  the  game,  I'm  going  to  jump 
back  to  Jerusalem  in  the  time  of  Christ,  and  write  one  giving  an 
entirely  new  interpretation  of  many  things  which  occurred  at  that 
time.  I  think  I  can  do  it,  so  that  while  it  may  rattle  the  slats  of 
the  Christians  they  will  still  be  anxious  to  read  it. '  * 

The  next  is  a  handwritten  note  dated: 

**  College  Park,  May  13/99. 
''Dear  Friend: — 

**A  friend  has  taken  it  into  his  head  to  die;  so,  in  resultant 
tangle,  am  at  present  wasting  time  at  present  quarters.  Must 
acknowledge  receipt  of  'Splendid  Spur,'  also  of  two  letters,  which 
same  I  shall  answer  on  my  return  home.  Yes,  *Q'  did  good  work 
when  he  completed  *  St.  Ives. '  .  .  .  How  do  you  like  my  scrawl  ?  *  * 

'*962  East  16th  St., 
*'Aug.  24,  1899. 
*'My  dear  friend: — 

*  *  Trisco  and  Oakland  have  been  roaring  since  last  evening, 
when  the  Sherman  was  sighted.  Nor  will  things  quiet  down  till 
the  week  is  past.  So  no  work  for  me — besides,  have  had  another 
friend  to  stop  with  me. 

**.  .  .  Am  going  down  country  the  first  of  next  month  to  pose 
as  best  man  for  a  foolish  friend  of  mine  who  has  abandoned  the 
torturing  of  catgut  for  the  harmony  of  matrimony.  And  I  have  to 
dig  up  a  wedding  present  besides!     Wow!     .  .  . 

"Have  you  read  anything  of  Weismann'sT  He  has  struck  a 
heavy  blow  to  the  accepted  idea  of  acquired  characters  being  in- 
herited, and  as  yet  his  opponents  have  not  proved  conclusively 


306      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

one  case  in  which  such  a  character  has  been  inherited.  Another 
idea  he  advances  well,  is  that  death  is  not  the  indispensable  cor- 
relative of  life,  as  hitherto  it  has  been  supposed  to  be.  In  fact, 
his  researches  in  the  germ-plasm  have  proven  quite  the  contrary. 
Read  him  up,  you  will  find  him  interesting.  But  it^s  heavy.  If 
you  have  not  studied  evolution  well,  I  would  not  advise  you  to 
tackle  him.  He  takes  a  thorough  grounding  in  the  subject  for 
granted. 

**Are  you  going  in  for  that  Black  Cat  Prize  Competition?  It 
has  just  been  announced,  and  the  time  is  not  up  till  the  31st  of 
March,  1900.  The  style,  etc.,  is  worth  imitating  for  the  money — 
if  one  thinks  he  is  able  to  do  it.  I  intend  having  a  go  at  it.  I 
.  .  .  to-day  received  confirmation  of  acceptance  of  my  MS.  from  the 
Atlantic.  But  say,  can  you  explain  this  to  me?  I  understand  that 
they  pay  on  acceptance.  Well,  to-day  acceptance  comes  with  assur- 
ance of  publication  in  an  early  number,  and  that  is  all.  No  check, 
no  nothing  concerning  rate  of  payment,  when,  or  how. 

**.  .  .  Was  there  ever  a  luckier  fellow  than  I  when  it  comes 
to  friends?  I  doubt  it.  And  between  you  and  myself,  I  likewise 
greatly  fear  for  the  bit  of  femininity  who  takes  me  for  little  better 
and  much  worse.  .  .  . 

**.  .  .  But  really,  I  shall  have  to  ask  you  to  accept  this  stuff  as 
a  letter.  I  have  striven  and  striven  and  striven.  It  is  warm ;  doors 
and  windows  are  open.  Three  youngsters  are  playing  on  the  porch 
before  my  window.  Their  elders  are  in  the  parlc^.  My  guest  and 
a  temporary  visitor  are  in  the  same  room  with  me,  waxing  hotter 
and  hotter  over  some  mooted  point  in  that  much  mooted  question 
of  telepathy,  so  I  must  call  quits.  .  .  .'* 

''Sept.  6,  1899. 
**My  dear  friend: — 

''Back  again,  but  not  yet  settled  down.  Have  blown  myself 
for  a  new  wheel  ('99  Cleveland),  and  hence,  between  appearing  at 
weddings  in  knickerbockers  and  rampaging  over  the  country  with 
bloomer-clad  lassies,  and  celebrating  the  return  of  the  Californians, 
I  have  been  unable  to  chase  ink.  The  way  I  happened  to  get  said 
wheel  is  an  illustration  of  how  little  rhyme  or  reason  there  is  in 
placing  MSS.  Some  time  ago  I  wrote  an  avowedly  hack  article  for 
an  agricultural  paper,  expecting  to  receive  five  dollars  for  the 
same,  and  to  receive  it  anywhere  from  sixty  to  ninety  days  after 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  307 

acceptance.  But  it  was  rejected,  and,  being  short  at  the  time,  I 
was  correspondingly  dejected.  But  straight  away  I  shipped  off 
the  MS.  to  the  Youth's  Companion^  and  lo  and  behold,  without  any 
warnings,  they  forwarded  me  a  check  for  thirty-five  dollars — 
eleven  dollars  per  thousand.    How's  that  for  luckT 

**.  .  .  Don  't  weep  over  what  the  National  did — they  pay 
poorly.  Some  time  ago  they  accepted  one  of  my  ancient  efforts, 
for  which  they  gave  me  five  yearly  subscriptions,  and  five  dollars 
cash,  pay  on  publication.  I  expect  it  to  come  out  in  the  September 
number.     God  bless  the  publishers. 

".  .  .  Go  it  for  the  Black  Cat!  I  cannot  even  think  of  a  suit- 
able plot — my  damnable  lack  of  origination  you  see.  I  think  I  had 
better  become  an  interpreter  of  the  things  which  are,  rather  than 
a  creator  of  the  things  which  might  be. 

"...  Well,  time  is  flying;  I've  got  a  visitor  as  usual,  spending 
a  few  days  with  me,  and  as  I  hear  the  tinkle  of  his  bicycle  bell 
approaching,  I  must  cut  off.  But  just  you  watch  my  smoke  some 
of  these  days — I  intend  shaking  every  mortal  who  knows  me  and 
going  off  all  by  myself.'* 

**Sept.  12,  1899. 
**My  dear  friend: — 

'*  Between  engagements,  visitors,  and  friends,  I  have  not  yet 
succeeded  in  doing  a  tap.  And  to-morrow  I  start  out  on  that 
postponed  trip  of  mine  to  Stanford  University  and  Mt.  Hamilton, 
to  say  nothing  of  way  points.  And  when  I  return  from  that  I  am 
going  to  lock  myself  up."  [In  an  unimportant  handwritten  post- 
script he  signs  himself  **J.  G.  L." — ^the  only  instance  I  know 
where  he  used  his  middle  initial.] 

'*Sept.  20,  1899. 
"Dear  Cloudesley: — 

*  *  Back  again.  Had  a  glorious  time.  Stopped  over  at  Stanford, 
where  I  met  several  students  I  know,  sat  under  the  various  profs., 
etc.  And  looked  through  the  thirty -six  inch  reflector  on  top  of  Mt. 
Hamilton.  There  we  saw  the  moon,  Saturn  and  his  rings,  and 
quite  a  number  of  bourgeois  pigs.  Yes,  they  were  pigs,  dressed 
like  tourists.  My  companion  and  I,  after  seeing  them,  were  ex- 
ceeding proud  of  the  fact  that  we  were  mere  proletarians.  .  .  . 

*'.  .  .  Ah,  therein  you  differ  from  me — it's  money  I  want,  or 
rather,  the  things  money  will  buy ;  and  I  could  never  possibly  have 


308      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

too  much.  As  to  living  on  practically  nothing — I  propose  to  do  as 
little  of  that  as  I  possibly  can.  Remember,  it's  the  feed  not  the 
breed  which  makes  the  man.  .  .  . 

*  * .  .  .  As  an  artisan  cannot  work  without  tools,  so  a  man  cannot 
think  without  a  vocabulary,  and  the  greater  his  vocabulary  the 
better  fitted  he  is  to  think.  Of  course,  an  ass  may  acquire  the  tools 
of  an  artisan  and  be  unable  to  work  with  them,  so  with  words. 
But  that  does  not  interfere  with  the  broad  statement  I  have  laid 
down.'*  .  .  . 

**Sept.  26,  1899. 
''Dear  Cloudesley: — 

**.  .  .  Did  I  ever  mention  a  MS.  I  received  in  response  to  a 
trailer,  which  same  MS.  had  been  O.K'd  and  blue-penciled?  Well, 
such  happened  to  me  some  time  ago.  Without  removing  marks 
or  anything  I  shipped  it  off  to  Youth* s  Companion.  There  were 
fifteen  hundred  words  to  it.  Last  week  a  check  comes  for  twenty- 
five.  Say  I'm  having  lots  of  luck  with  the  Companion,  sending 
them  my  old,  almost-ready-to-be-retired  stuff.  .  .  .  They  pay  good 
and  promptly.  Though  such  work  won't  live,  it  at  least  brings 
the  ready  cash. 

'*.  .  .  How  I  envy  you  when  you  say  that  you  do  not  write  for 
publication.  There  is  certainly  far  greater  chance  for  you  to  gain 
the  goal  you  have  picked  out  than  for  me  who  am  in  pursuit  of 
dollars,  dollars,  dollars.  Yet  I  cannot  see  how  I  can  do  otherwise, 
for  a  fellow  must  live,  and  then  there  are  also  others  depending 
upon  me.  However,  I  shall  once  and  a  while  make  it  a  point  to  sit 
down  and  deliberately  not  write  for  publication.  .  .  . 

'*.  .  .  Have  begun  to  isolate  myself  from  my  friends — a  few 
at  a  time.  But  those  I  have  managed  to  dispense  with  are  the 
easy  ones.  I  can't  see  my  way  clear  to  the  others  except  by  run- 
ning away.  But  instead  of  the  desert  I  '11  take  to  sea.  Many  who 
know  me,  ask  why  I,  with  my  knowledge  of  the  sea,  do  not  write 
some  sea  fiction.  But  you  see  I  have  been  away  from  it  so  long 
that  I  have  lost  touch.  I  must  first  get  back  and  saturate  myself 
with  its  atmosphere.    Then  perhaps  I  may  do  something  good.  .  .  . 

*'.  .  .  Viewing  this  world  through  the  eyes  of  science  I  can 
see  no  reason  at  all  why  a  person  should  be  the  slightest  bit  pessi- 
mistic.   Why,  it's  all  good,  considering  man's  relation  to  it.  .  .  . 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  309 

P.S. — Did  I  inform  you  that  I  am  once  more  an  uncle.  It  was 
born  nearly  a  month  ago.  [This  was  Eliza  Shepard's  only  child, 
Irving,  before  mentioned.] 

'*Oct.  3,  1899. 
"Dear  Cloudesley: — 

**.  .  .  Last  Sunday  I  went  off  with  a  very  nice  young  lady  on 
a  bicycle  trip  up  to  Mill  Valley,  among  the  redwoods  at  the  base 
of  Mt.  Tamalpais.  To  do  this  we  had  to  go  to  'Frisco  and  take 
the  ferry  to  Sausalito,  and  from  thence  to  destination  via  pedals. 
Any  number  of  lively  young  'Frisco  people  take  the  same  outing 
on  Sundays,  except  that  they  do  not  ordinarily  or  extraordinarily 
go  on  bikes.  They  patronize  the  railroad.  Well,  on  the  back  trip 
to  'Frisco,  a  bunch  of  them  took  the  deck  and  raised  hell  generally, 
to  the  shocking  of  many  of  the  more  sedate  passengers.  Am  happy 
to  state,  however,  that  the  girl  I  was  with,  while  the  kingdoms  of 
the  earth  could  not  have  lured  her  into  getting  up  and  doing  like- 
wise, at  least  highly  enjoyed  the  performance.  All  of  which  is 
neither  here  nor  there.  But  for  myself,  I  was  attacked  by  all  kinds 
of  feelings.  Therein  you  and  I  differ — dissipation  is  alluring  to 
me.  Why,  my  longing  was  intense  to  jump  in  and  join  them  after 
the  fashion  of  my  wild  young  days,  and  go  on  after  we  arrived  in 
'Frisco  and  make  the  night  of  it  which  I  knew  they  were  going  to 
make.    Alluring?    I  guess  yes. 

**And  then  again,  I  could  feel  how  I  had  grown  away  from  so 
much  of  that — lost  touch.  I  knew  if  I  should  happen  to  join  them, 
how  strangely  out  of  place  it  would  seem  to  me — duck-out-of -water 
sort  of  feeling.  This  made  me  sad;  for,  while  I  cultivate  new 
classes,  I  hate  to  be  out  of  grip  with  the  old.  But  say,  it  would  n  't 
take  me  long  to  get  my  hand  in  again.    Just  a  case  of  lost  practice. 

**.  .  .  Have  been  going  on  chess  drunks  of  late.  Did  you  ever 
yield  to  the  toils  of  the  game? — toils  in  more  ways  than  one.  It's 
a  most  fascinating  game,  and  one  which  has  devoured  well  nigh 
as  many  of  my  hours  as  cards.  However,  I've  done  very  little 
chess  in  the  last  year  or  so,  and  this  is  merely  a  temporary  relapse. 

**Have  also  been  feasting  my  soul  witli  some  of  the  new  books: 
Kipling  galore,  Bullen's  'Sea  Idyls,'  Grant  Allen's  'Adventure  of 
Miss   Gayly,*   and   among   others,    Beatrice    Harraden^s   *Fowl- 


310      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

At  this  period  Jack  London  put  into  practice  his  thou- 
sand-words-a-day  stint,  which  he  maintained  for  the  rest 
of  his  life : 

**Am  now  doing  a  thousand  words  per  day,  six  days  per  week. 
Last  week  I  finished  1100  words  ahead  of  the  required  amount. 
To-day  (Tuesday),  I  am  172  ahead  of  my  stint.  I  have  made  it  a 
rule  to  make  up  next  day  what  I  fall  behind ;  but  when  I  run  ahead, 
to  not  permit  it  to  count  on  the  following  day.  I  am  sure  a  man 
can  turn  out  more,  and  much  better  in  the  long  run,  working  this 
way,  than  if  he  works  by  fits  and  starts.  .  .  . 

"How  time  flies!  Here  is  Christmas  at  hand,  and  Paris  ap- 
proaching— ah!  I  wonder  if  the  gods  will  smile  so  that  I  may  go/* 

**  October  24,  1899. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: — 

** Everything  in  confusion,  visitors  still  here.  So  you're  a  chess 
player.  And  it 's  the  one  form  of  dissipation  which  has  any  attrac- 
tion for  you.  As  I  can  hardly  look  upon  it  in  that  light  concerning 
myself,  I  can  but  conclude  that  you  are  by  far  the  better  player. 
Why,  I  have  never  met  a  good  player — spent  all  my  time  teaching 
beginners,  and  you  know  nothing  is  worse  for  chess  than  that. 
And  besides,  I  have  never  had  the  time  to  devote  to  it.  For  a  year 
at  a  stretch  I  never  see  a  board,  and  then,  for  a  few  short  weeks  I 
happen  to  mildly  indulge.  As  I  have  not  taken  the  time  to  learn 
properly,  so  I  cannot  play  an  intensive  game;  instead,  I  play 
viciously,  not  more  than  four  moves  ahead  at  the  best,  and  endeavor 
to  break  up  combinations  as  fast  as  my  opponent  forms  them — 
that  is,  first,  if  they  are  threatening;  and  second,  if  the  slightest 
and  most  insignificant  gain  will  accrue  to  myself,  such  as  the 
getting  of  another  piece  of  mine  in  position  by  a  trade,  or  by 
double-banking  my  opponent's  pawns,  or  preventing  his  castling 
by  forcing  him  to  move  his  king  in  a  trade.  For  the  sake  of  this 
latter,  when  the  gambit  goes  my  way,  I  always  trade  queens.  But 
a  heavy  player,  once  growing  accustomed  to  my  play,  doesn't  do 
a  thing  to  me.    So  be  it.    I  shall  never  learn  chess. 

"Last  article  published  by  me,  had,  among  other  typographical 
errors,  *  Something  fresh  for  the  jaded  care  of  the  world,'  instead 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  311 

of  'something  fresh  for  the  jaded  ear  of  the  world.'    On  second 
thought  it  might  have  been  worse. 

'  *  Think  you  could  train  yourself  into  becoming  a  hermit  T  For 
me  that  would  be  far  harder  than  to  train  myself  to  become  a  sui- 
cide. I  like  to  rub  against  my  kind,  with  a  gregarious  instinct  far 
stronger  than  in  most  men.    A  hermitage — synonym  for  hell. 

**.  .  .  Lucrative  mediocrity!  I  know,  if  I  escape  drink,  that  I 
shall  be  surely  driven  to  it.  By  God !  if  I  have  to  dedicate  my  life 
to  it,  I  shall  sell  work  to  Frank  A.  Munsey.  1*11  buck  up  against 
them  just  as  long  as  I  can  push  a  pen  or  they  can  retain  a  MS. 
reader  about  the  premises.    Just  on  general  principles,  you  know. 

**.  .  .  Am  reading  Stevenson's  'Virginibus  Puerisque'  just 
now.  Find  in  this  mail  his  'Inland  Voyage.*  Return  it  when  you 
have  finished,  as  I  wish  to  pass  it  along.  Have  read  it  myself.  Get 
such  books  for  *Bull  Durham*  tobacco  tags.  Have  sent  for  his 
'Silverado  Squatters* — don*t  think  much  of  it  from  previous  read- 
ing, but  it  was  a  long  time  ago,  and  I  did  it  too  hurriedly,  I'm 
afraid.  .  .  . 

"So  you  try  experiments  in  letter  writing.  I  never  do  nor  never 
have.  Haven't  the  slightest  idea  what  I'm  going  to  say  when  I 
sit  down — just  hammer  it  out  as  fast  as  I  can.  And  right  well 
am  I  pleased  when  I  have  finished  the  hateful  task.  I  wouldn't 
do  it  at  all,  no  more  than  I  would  work,  were  it  not  for  the  com- 
pensation. As  for  you,  I  get  more  originality  in  your  letters  than 
from  all  my  rest  put  together — rather  jerky  and  jagged  but  re- 
freshing and  interesting.    Believe  me,  I'm  not  fishing  for  a  loan. 

**.  .  .  Have  been  reading  Jacobs*  'More  Cargoes*.  .  .  .  Also 
have  been  going  through  Kendricks  Bangs*  'The  Dreamers*  and 
'The  Bicyclers  and  Other  Farces.*  He*s  clever  and  humorous,  in 
a  mild  sort  of  way. 

"Have  been  digging  at  ' Norman *8  Eastern  Question,*  prepara- 
tory to  a  certain  economic  dissertative  article  I  intend  writing — 
Asia  touches  one  of  the  phases  I  wish  to  deal  with.  Besides,  I  have 
g^ne  through  Curzon's  similar  work,  and  wish  to  take  up  soon 
Beresford's  'Break-up  of  China.*  Am  going  through  Drummond 
on  evolution,  Hudson  on  psychology,  and  reviewing  Macaulay  and 
De  Quincey  in  the  course  of  English  in  Minto  which  I  am  giving 
to  a  friend — the  photographer.  She's  well  up  in  the  higher  Math., 
etc.,  but  not  in  general  culture— coaches  in  the  exact  sciences  for 


312      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

would-be  university  students,   etc.     Say,   that   reviewing  does  a 
fellow  good.    I  had  no  idea  how  lazy  I  had  gotten. 

**  Society  will  never  injure  me — ^the  world  calls  too  loudly  for 
that.'* 

*^Oct.  31,  1899. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: — 

**.  .  .  So  you  deem  the  world  as  fair  a  synonj^m  for  hell  as  I 
do  hermitage.  Can't  see  it.  There  are  some  redeeming  features. 
As  long  as  there  is  one  good  woman  in  it,  it  will  not  hold.  Why,  I 
remember,  once,  when  for  several  weeks  I  meditated  profoundly 
on  the  policy  of  shuffling  off.  Seemed  the  clouds  would  never 
break.  But  at  last  they  did,  and  I  doubt  if  you  could  imagine  the 
cause  of  my  sweetened  mood.  A  memory  of  a  day,  of  an  hour — 
nay,  a  few  paltry  minutes — came  back  to  me,  of  a  time  almost  lost 
in  the  dim  past.  I  remembered — what?  A  woman's  foot.  We 
were  by  the  sea.  In  a  dare,  we  went  wading :  had  to  stick  our  feet 
in  the  hot  sand  till  they  dried;  and  it  was  those  few  moments 
which  came  back  to  me,  dripping  with  *  sweetness  and  light.*  Hell? 
Nay,  not  so  long  as  one  woman's  foot  remains  above  ground. 

** Please  don't  thing  I'm  in  love.    Simply  sentiment.    Don't  get 
that  way  often. 

*  *  Well,  some  time  since,  I  started  in  to  write  a  twenty-five  hun- 
dred word  article  on  *  Housekeeping  in  the  Klondike.*  [This  was 
published  in  Harper's  Bazaar ^  on  September  15,  1900.]  In  choice 
of  theme  I  had  been  forced  to  narrow,  being  aware  of  my  miserable 
predilection.  And  lo,  before  I  had  got  into  full  swing,  I  found  that 
the  whole  article  could  be  comfortably  taken  up  in  a  discussion  of 
bread-making.  And,  still  narrowing,  it  was  soon  apparent  that  this 
should  be  divided,  one  single  subhead  to  be  discussed,  viz.:  sour- 
dough bread-making.  And  so  it  goes.  Never  did  a  person  need 
the  gift  of  selection  more  than  I. 

**.  .  .  Have  just  completed  Horace  VachelPs  'The  Procession 
of  Life'  .  .  .  quite  interesting,  but  not  of  the  first  water.  .  .  .  And 
any  way,  did  you  ever  read  that  boyhood  classic,  'Phaeton  Rogers'? 
Rossiter  Johnson,  who  edits  the  Whispering  Gallery  of  the  Over- 
land, is  the  author.  .  .  . 

**My  Atlantic  stoiy  will  come  out,  I  believe,  in  the  January 
number.  Received  a  check  for  one  hundred  and  twenty  dollars 
yesterday  for  it,  with  a  year's  subscription  thrown  in.    They  are 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  313 

very  slow,  but  very  painstaking.  They  even  questioned  the  pro- 
priety of  using  my  given  name — unconventional.  But  they  came 
around  all  right. 

**Have  heard  nothing  more  concerning  my  collection.  They 
do  take  their  time  about  it.  Nothing  from  the  Cosmopolitan  prize 
essay  either. 

**How  do  you  like  my  new  machine?  Haven  t  got  used  to  it 
yet.  Came  to-day.  When  I  get  married,  guess  I  '11  have  to  marry 
a  typewriter  girl.    I  do  most  heartily  hate  the  job. 

**So  the  poor  little  Boers  have  risen  in  their  might.  God  bless 
them!  I  can  admire  their  pluck,  while  at  the  same  time  laughing 
at  their  absurdity.  There  be  higher  things  than  formal  logic  or 
formal  ethics.  When  a  detached,  antiquated  fragment  of  a  race 
attempts  to  buck  that  race,  a  spectacle  is  presented  at  once  pitiful 
and  impotent.  Pools,  to  think  that  man  is  the  object  of  his  own 
volition,  inasmuch  that  a  few  of  him  may  oppose  the  many  in  a 
movement  which  does  not  spring  from  the  individual  but  from  the 
race,  and  which  received  its  inception  before  even  they  had  differ- 
entiated from  the  parent  branch!" 

**  November  11,  1899. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: — 

**You  say:  *This  is  the  beginning  of  the  end — you  11  see — and 
within  ten  years  the  British  Empire  will  have  followed  its  prede- 
cessors, the  Greek,  the  Roman,  and  the  French.*  Well,  well,  well. 
I'd  like  to  talk  with  you  for  a  few  moments.  It's  simply  impossible 
to  take  it  up  on  paper.  The  day  England  goes  under,  that  day  sees 
sealed  the  doom  of  the  United  States.  It 's  the  Anglo-Saxon  people 
against  the  world,  and  economics  at  the  foundation  of  the  whole 
business;  but  said  economics  only  a  manifestation  of  the  blood  dif- 
ferentiations which  have  come  down  from  the  hoary  past. 

**This  movement,  dimly  felt  and  working  in  strange  ways,  is 
not  to  be  stopped  in  a  day,  or  by  a  lesser  people,  or  by  a  bunch  of 
the  same  which  have  become  anachronisms.  The  Boors  are  ana- 
chronisms. There  is  no  place  for  tlicm  in  the  whirl  of  the  world 
unless  they  whirl  with  it. 

**You  say,  if  subjugated  they  will  still  be  Boers.  Do  you  re- 
member the  Norman  invasion  of  England!  IIow  long  the  Saxons 
held  strictly  apart?    And  how  in  the  end,  the  Saxon,  as  a  Saxon, 


314      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

vanished  from  the  face  of  the  earth?  Took  several  centuries,  but 
it  was  accomplished. 

'*...!  believe  Bret  Harte  wrote  a  story  of  a  natural  fool  who 
got  along  nicely  till  he  struck  it  rich.  I'm  hard  at  it.  Am  just 
finishing  an  ambitious  Klondike  yarn  which  is  a  failure,  and  before 
the  twenty-fifth  of  this  month  have  to  write  and  read  up  for  two 
essays  and  prepare  for  a  speech  before  the  Oakland  Section. 
Haven't  addressed  an  audience  for  three  years;  it'll  seem  strange. 

**.  .  .  As  to  your  suggestion  regarding  the  finish  of  *To  the 
Man  on  Trail' :  I  had  never  been  satisfied  with  that  ending,  though 
too  lazy  to  even  think  for  an  instant  of  attempting  to  better  it. 
Your  ending  could  not  be  bettered,  and  I  shall  hasten  to  take 
advantage  of  it.  Many  thanks  for  same.  It  will  then  leave  one 
with  a  pleasant  taste  in  the  mouth.  The  alliterative  effect  you 
mention  strikes  my  gaudy  ear ;  I  shall  certainly  use  it.  I  want  you 
to  read  my  *  Odessey  of  the  North '  when  it  comes  out.  ...  *  * 

"Nov.  21,  1899. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: — 

**Hard  at  it — mostly  history  and  economics.  And  yet  I  don't 
work  a  tithe  of  what  you  work.  Why  should  you  work  seventeen 
hours  a  day?  As  regards  your  writing  you  positively  should  not 
do  more  than  six — four  were  better.  But  any  excess  of  six  cannot 
be  good  stuff.  .  .  . 

**.  .  .  I  never  pity  anybody  but  myself.    Life  is  too  short. 

**The  Overland  declined  my  offer  on  specious  grounds.  Twenty- 
five  dollars  was  stiff  under  the  circumstances.  However,  I  have 
placed  a  yarn  with  them  to  come  out  in  the  Christmas  number. 
[*'The  Wisdom  of  the  Trail."]  O  they're  great  people,  of  great 
heart :  but  heart  and  finance  do  not  usually  go  together.  .  .  . 

**.  .  .  Very  few  American  educated  people  have  little  else  but 
rancor  for  England — a  rancor  which  is  bred  by  the  school  histories 
and  the  school  traditions.  All  of  which  is  utterly  wrong.  I  have 
to  laugh  when  you  call  Kipling  a  narrow,  hidebound,  childishly 
pettish,  mean  little  man.  .  .  .  Any  masculine  who  delights  in  tak- 
ing down  a  woman's  back  hair  will  find  a  warm  welcome  in  my 
heart. 

**.  .  .  Find,  with  *  Editor,'  when  it  comes  along,  some  more 
proofs  of  yours  truly,  taken  down  by  the  sounding  sea.    Also  one 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  315 

of  the  young  woman  who  sometimes  accompanies  me  in  my  far 
from  conventional  rambles.  Last  Sunday,  threatening  rain,  we 
wandered  off  into  the  hills,  cooked  our  dinner  (broiled  steak,  baked 
sweet  potatoes,  coffee,  etc.,  crab,  French  bread,  and  a  patty  of 
dairy  butter),  and  were  a  couple  of  gipsies.  To-morrow  we  may 
jump  on  our  wheels  and  ride  off  forty  or  fifty  miles.  And  yester- 
day we  may  have  taken  in  the  opera  and  dined  fashionably.  Never 
the  same,  except  the  camera,  which  same  I  am  slowly  mastering. 
**Yes;  I  read  *A  New  Magdalen'  when  I  was  about  twelve,  and 
then  shocked  a  very  nice  young  lady  by  starting  to  discuss  it  with 
her." 

Continuing  the  discussion  that  runs  throughout  the  cor- 
respondence, and  which  I  must  cut,  he  argues : 

"When  England  is  so  decadent  as  to  lose  her  colonies,  then 
England  falls.  When  England  falls  the  United  States  will  be 
shaken  to  its  foundations,  and  the  chances  are  one  hundred  to  one 
that  it  ever  recovers  again.  Why,  England  is  our  greatest  pur- 
chaser, and  our  greatest  maker  of  markets,  and  the  only  nation 
which  is  not  deep  down  hostile  to  us.  Germany,  France,  Austria 
and  Russia  can  supply  the  world  with  all  that  the  world  needs,  if 
they  could  only  get  a  chance  by  having  England  and  the  United 
States  eliminated  from  the  proposition.  And  once  one  were  elim- 
inated the  ruin  of  the  other  were  easy.  But  England  is  not  going 
to  fall.  It  is  not  possible.  To  court  such  a  possibility  is  to  court 
destruction  for  the  English  speaking  people.  We  are  the  salt  of 
the  earth,  and  it  is  because  we  have  it  in  us  to  frankly  say  so  that 
we  really  are  so.  No  hemming  or  hawing;  we  state  the  bald  fact. 
It  is  for  the  world  to  take  or  leave.  Take  it  may,  but  it  shall  always 
leave  us.  .  .  . 

*  * .  .  .  So  ?  Why,  the  United  States  never  had  but  one  fight  in 
its  history;  that  was  when  it  fought  with  itself.  England  never 
bothered  her.  Read  up  history  and  you  will  find  that  England's 
hands  were  full  of  other  things,  and  preferring  other  matters,  she 
let  the  colonies  slip  away.  Do  you  really  think  we  whipped  the 
whole  of  England  in  the  Revolution?  Or  in  1812,  when  her  hands 
were  full  with  Napoleon,  and  she  was  fighting  in  every  quarter  of 
the  globe?     Mexico  was  play.     But  the  civil  war  was  a  war,  a 


316      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

death  grapple.    And  all  hail  to  the  South  for  the  fight  it  put  up 
against  stiff  odds. 

"You  little  know  Canada.  Why  don't  those  other  European 
countries,  standing  by  themselves,  fall?  Because,  they  are  but 
ostensibly  alone.  In  reality  they  stand  together — whenever  it 
comes  to  bucking  the  Anglo-Saxon. 

Dropping  to  the  personal,  he  announces : 

**If  cash  comes  with  fame,  come  fame;  if  cash  comes  without 
fame,  come  cash.'' 

**Dec.  5,  1899. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: — 

**  First  letter- writing  I  have  done  for  quite  a  while.  .  .  .  Have 
not  had  an  evening  at  home  for  nigh  on  to  two  weeks,  what  with 
suppers,  speaking,  functions,  and  last  but  not  least,  FOOTBALL. 
Did  you  see  what  we  did  to  Stanford?  In  case  that  benighted 
region  in  which  you  reside  has  not  yet  received  the  score,  let  me 
have  the  privilege  of  blazoning  it  forth.  Thirty  to  nothing,  Berke- 
ley. 

**It  was  magnificent,  to  sit  under  the  blue  and  gold  and  see  the 
Berkeley  giants  wade  through  the  Cardinals,  and  especially  so 
when  one  looks  back  to  the  times  he  sat  and  watched  the  Stanford- 
ites  pile  up  the  score  and  hammer  our  line  into  jelly.  Do  you  care 
for  football  ?  In  case  you  do  not,  I  shall  not  permit  my  enthusiasm 
to  bore  you  further. 

**.  .  .  Heaven  save  us  from  our  friends!  Last  Sunday  evening 
I  spoke  before  the  San  Francisco  Section.  Unknown  to  me,  and 
on  the  strength  of  divers  newspaper  puffs  which  recently  have 
appeared,  they  posted  San  Francisco,  and  also  perpetrated  the 
enclosed  hand  bill.  I  knew  nothing  about  it  till  just  the  moment 
before  I  was  to  go  on  the  platform.  Can  I  sue  them  for  libel?  [I 
find  the  hand  bill  in  Jack's  scrapbook  for  1899-1900,  advertising 
his  name  in  blatant  type, '  *  The  Distinguished  Magazine  Writer, ' '  a 
lecture  in  Union  Square  Hall,  421  Post  Street,  Sunday  Ev'g,  Dec. 
3rd,  1899.] 

**.  .  .  Your  criticism  of  my  *  Editor'  article  is  exactly  my  own 
criticism.  We  could  not  disagree  on  that  if  we  tried.  By  the  way, 
there  were  1750  words  in  it.    The  *  Editor'  was  billed  to  pay  liber- 


THE  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  CORRESPONDENCE  317 

ally,  and  they  told  me  on  acceptance,  promptly.  It  was  published 
last  October,  I  received  for  it  five  dollars  which  came  to  hand  day 
before  yesterday. 

**0  Lord!   Good-by.»' 

**Dec.  12,  1899. 
"Dear  Cloudesley — 

"...  You  mistake,  I  do  not  believe  in  the  universal  brother- 
hood of  man.  I  think  I  have  said  so  before.  I  believe  my  race 
is  the  salt  of  the  earth.  I  am  a  scientific  socialist,  not  a  Utopian, 
an  economic  man  as  opposed  to  an  imaginative  man.  The  latter 
is  becoming  an  anachronism. 

"Nay,  nay,  bankruptcy  is  not  an  ideal  state,  at  least  for  me.  It's 
too  horrible  for  words.  Give  me  the  millions  and  I'll  take  the 
responsibilities. 

"Later  on  I  shall  forward  you  an  article  of  mine  on  the  'Ques- 
tion of  the  Maximum,'  which  contains  within  it,  though  not  the 
main  theme,  the  economic  basis  for  imperialism  or  expansion.  This, 
I  know,  is  directly  opposed  to  the  current  ethics.  But  it  is  the 
one  which  will  dominate  the  current  ethics. '* 


CHAPTER  XIX 

INTRODUCING   ANNA    STEUNSKY,    AND    JACK's   LETTERS    TO    HER; 
ALSO  FURTHER  CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  LETTERS 

JUST  about  this  time  Jack  London  *s  orbit  crossed  that 
of  Anna  Strunsky.  Anna  was  a  Stanford  University 
student — a  round,  brown  slip  of  a  girl,  a  Russian  Jewess, 
no  older  than  the  little  women  of  his  precocious  boyhood, 
for  she  was  barely  seventeen.  A  glowing,  flaming  creature 
she  was,  intellectual,  brilliant  and  friendly,  with  a  deep  and 
lasting  loyalty  that  we  were  all  to  learn.  She  was  so  differ- 
ent from  anything  he  had  ever  known  of  woman — neither 
lily-pallid  nor  boldly  passionate ;  but  wide-hearted  like  all 
her  family,  and  deliciously,  naively  frank.  She  met  one 
so  wondrous-comradely.  Every  one  loved  Anna,  women  as 
well  as  men ;  no  one  could  resist  the  drawing  power  of  her, 
she  the  Much-Desired.  Who  was  Jack,  to  hold  aloof  from 
the  warmth  of  her  presence  ?  Who,  indeed !  As  naturally 
as  breathing,  their  friendship  wajj:ed,  and  they  could  not 
but  regard  their  need  of  each  other  in  the  big  world  that  is 
lovely  to  souls  like  theirs,  stainless  of  deceit  toward  each 
other.  But  it  was  their  mental  and  spiritual  companionship 
that  most  counted,  and  that  endured. 

Rose,  Annans  younger  sister,  was  likewise  uncommonly 
brilliant  for  her  years — no  less  remarkable  than  Anna: 
** There's  Rose,''  Jack  once  said  to  me, — ** She's  as  won- 
derful, in  her  way,  as  Anna.  Watch  Rose."  Rose  has  in- 
deed been  worth  watching,  from  her  early  work  to  her 
extraordinary  book  on  Abraham  Lincoln,  her  translation 
of  Tolstoi's  *' Journals,"  and  Gorky's  '^My  Confession." 

The  whole  Strunsky  family,  with  its  arms-around  hos- 

318 


INTRODUCING  ANNA  STRUNSKY  319 

pitality,  its  long  table  always  laid  for  a  problematical  num- 
ber of  interesting  guests  (for  no  dull  one  ever  drew  chair 
to  its  abundance) — the  whole  Strunsky  brood  stamped  its 
intelligence  and  its  lovableness  and  its  charm  upon  Jack 
London  until  he  came  in  after  years  to  call  it  his  Love 
Family.  Once  in  a  letter  to  me,  he  said:  **They  are  fine 
splendid  people  to  know.  They  are  individuals,  not  a  mess. 
And  they  stand  for  high  things,  and  are  good  to  know." 

Anna  Strunsky,  co-author  with  Jack  of  **The  Kempton- 
Wace  Letters,'*  (and  since,  of  *'Violette  of  Pere  La 
Chaise,'*)  loved  mate  of  a  distinguished  husband,  William 
English  Walling,  and  mother  of  four  glorious  children, 
wrote  me  from  her  home  in  Greenwich,  Connecticut,  under 
date  of  January  17,  1919 : 

**  Dearest  Charmian: 

''This  is  perhaps  a  pretty  complete  statement  of  the  psychical 
aspect  of  our  friendship.  I  have  nothing  but  love  and  gratitude 
for  him,  and  that  he  has  lived  at  all  and  I  have  known  him  is  a 
miracle  of  happiness,  a  miracle  of  miracles.  ...  If  there  is  any- 
thing more  that  suggests  itself,  please  ask.  .  .  .  Your  loving  sister, 
always, 

''Anna.*' 

What  she  sends  me  I  give  in  advance  of  the  letters  writ- 
ten her  by  Jack,  which  she  has  as  freely  contributed  to  my 
picture  of  her  friend :  ^ 

"Jack  and  I  met  for  the  first  time  at  a  lecture  by  Austin  Lewis, 
I  believe,  in  the  fall  of  1899  at  the  old  Turk  Street  Temple.  It  was 
either  Cameron  King  or  Strawn-Hamilton  who  introduced  us. 
Herman  Whitaker  had  'discovered*  Hamilton  and  had  made  him 
acquainted  with  Jack,  and  Hamilton  and  Cameron  were  intimate 
friends. 

"It  is  owing  to  a  kind  of  spiritual  secret  diplomacy  that  the 
details  of  oui*  meeting  are  vague  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  importance 
of  the  moment.  The  essentials,  however,  are  stamped  on  my  mind. 
He  and  I  gravitated  towards  the  platform  to  congratulate  the 
speaker.     A  whispered  'Do  you  want  to  meet  himT*  from  either 


320  ^HE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Strawn-Hamilton  or  Cameron — ^*he  is  Jack  London,  a  Comrade 
who  has  been  speaking  in  the  street  in  Oakland.  He  has  been  to 
Klondike  and  writes  short  stories  for  a  living/  We  shook  hands, 
and  remained  talking  to  each  other.  I  had  a  feeling  of  wonderful 
happiness.  To  me  it  was  as  if  I  were  meeting  in  th^ir  youth, 
Lasalle,  Karl  Marx  or  Byron,  so  instantly  did  I  feel  that  I  was 
in  the  presence  of  a  historical  character.  Why?  I  cannot  say, 
except  perhaps  because  it  was  the  truth  and  he  did  belong  to  the 
undying  few.  This  certainty  with  which  he  inspired  me  was  the 
vital  subjective  fact  about  our  meeting. 

''Objectively,  I  confronted  a  young  man  of  about  twenty-two, 
and  saw  a  pale  face  illumined  by  large,  blue  eyes  fringed  with  dark 
lashes,  and  a  beautiful  mouth  which,  opening  in  its  ready  laugh, 
revealed  an  absence  of  front  teeth,  adding  to  the  boyishness  of  his 
appearance.  The  brow,  the  nose,  the  contour  of  the  cheeks,  the 
massive  throat,  were  Greek.  His  form  gave  an  impression  of  grace 
and  athletic  strength,  though  he  was  a  little  under  the  American, 
or  rather  Californian,  average  in  height.  He  was  dressed  in  gray, 
and  was  wearing  the  soft  white  shirt  and  collar  which  he  had 
already  adopted. 

''Then  began  our  friendship.  If  at  the  time,  to  the  inexperi- 
enced heart  of  our  youth,  it  seemed  tempestuous,  almost  terrible, 
storm-bound  as  it  was  by  our  intellectual  and  psychical  differ- 
ences, now  I  see  in  it  only  the  dearness  and  beauty  of  a  force  that 
outlasts  life,  a  world,  indeed,  without  end,  something  more  precious 
and  more  significant  to  both  of  us  than  we  could  then  understand. 
Those  differences — ^what  were  they  but  the  healthy  expression  of 
our  immaturity,  of  our  aspirations  toward  the  absolute  of  truth 
and  right  and  justice,  the  normal  expression,  perhaps,  of  the  man 
and  woman  equation  in  the  abstract  questions  concerning  life? 
The  differences  tortured  us  as  they  did  precisely  because  in  the 
great  essentials  we  were  at  one — but  this,  youth  could  not  know! 
Did  he  not  years  later  write  '  The  People  of  the  Abyss,  * '  The  Dream 
of  Debs,'  'The  Iron  Heel'?  How  then,  could  I  have  challenged 
his  Socialism?  Was  he  not  an  ardent  feminist  and  suffragist? 
Why  then,  did  I  suspect  him  of  thinking  women  the  inferiors  of 
men  ?  Did  he  not  finally  marry  with  love  and  for  love,  and  exem- 
plify in  his  own  life  the  need  of  love  that  men  and  women  have  in 
common,  the  greatest  miracle  of  all,  the  miracle  of  interdependence? 


1904.     JACK    LONDON.    IN    KOREA    ON     HIS    AUSTRALIAN    BARB-MARE. 

"BELLE" 


l'jur>.  JACK  LONDON  ON  "WASHOE  BAN"- 


w  A    vvoi.i      r>i:siDK 


INTRODUCING  ANNA  STRUNSKY  321 

Why,  then,  did  we  spend  twenty-two  months  writing  *The  Kemp- 
ton- Wace  Letters,  *  trying  to  convert  each  other  to  positions  which, 
at  bottom,  we  must  both  have  held! 

*' Individualized  as  his  personality  was  he  was  yet  symbolic. 
In  him  was  expressed  what  a  human  being  escaping  from  the 
Abyss  might  become.  Charles  Ferguson,  the  other  day,  spoke  of 
Jack  London  as  having  been  the  most  aristocratic  of  men.  If  to  be 
gifted  beyond  others,  stronger  than  others,  more  beautiful  in  per- 
son, warmer  of  heart  than  others  is  to  be  a  natural  aristocrat,  then 
this  super-democrat,  this  man  identified  with  the  People  and  with 
the  Class  War  was  one.  To  me  his  qualities  were  interesting  more 
because  they  showed  what  was  m  all  of  us  than  because  they  were 
exceptional.  He  was  a  genius  and  yet  that  was  only  to  be — the 
ordinary  human  being  extended.  To  know  him  was  immediately 
to  receive  an  accelerated  enthusiasm  about  everybody. 

**Our  friendship  can  be  described  as  a  struggle— constantly  I 
strained  to  reach  that  in  him  which  I  felt  he  was  'born  to  be.*  I 
looked  for  the  Social  Democrat,  the  Revolutionist,  the  moral  and 
romantic  idealist;  I  sought  the  Poet.  Exploring  his  personality 
was  like  exploring  mountains,  and  the  valleys  which  stretched 
between  troubled  my  heart.  They  did  not  seem  to  belong  to  the 
grandiose  character  he  was,  or  could,  by  an  effort  of  the  will, 
become.  He  was  a  Socialist,  but  he  wanted  to  beat  the  Capitalist 
at  his  own  game.  To  succeed  in  doing  this,  he  thought  was  in  itself 
a  service  to  the  Cause;  to  'show  them*  that  Socialists  were  not 
derelicts  and  failures  had  a  certain  propaganda  value.  So  he 
succeeded — became  a  kind  of  Napoleon  of  the  pen.  This  dream 
of  his,  even  when  projected  and  before  it  became  a  reality,  was 
repellant  to  me.  The  greatest  natures,  I  thought,  the  surest  Social 
Democrats,  would  be  incapable  of  harboring  it.  To  pile  up  wealth, 
or  personal  success — surely  anybody  who  was  a  beneficiary  of  the 
Old  Order  must  belong  to  it  to  some  extent  in  spirit  and  in  fact. 

*'So  it  was  that  our  ancient  quarrel,  and  many,  many  others 
took  their  rise  in  the  same  source — a  doubt,  not  as  to  himself — ^I 
never  doubted  the  beauty  and  the  warmth  and  the  purity  of  his 
own  nature — but  as  to  the  ideas  and  the  principles  which  he  invited 
to  guide  his  life.  They  were  not  worthy  of  him,  I  thought;  they 
belittled  hira  and  eventually  they  might  eat  away  his  strength  and 
grandeur.  .  .  . 


322      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

**...!  have  felt  so  much  for  Jack  London  because  I  saw  in  him 
potential  martyrs  and  heroes.  ...  He  was  symbolic  of  the  Move- 
ment and  its  struggle  and  its  sorrow;  he  was  the  dawn  of  the 
future,  and  in  his  beauty  was  the  pristine  beauty  and  greatness 
of  the  race.  So  I  said  when  I  first  beheld  him ;  so  I  say  now,  after 
his  death.  .  .  .** 

Herewith  are  her  friend's  first  impression  of  Anna 
Stmnsky : 

"Jack  London, 

*'962  East  16th  St., 
''Oakland,  Calif., 
''Dec.  19,  1899. 
"My  dear  Miss  Strunsky: — 

*  *  Seems  as  if  I  have  known  you  for  an  age — ^you  and  your  Mr. 
Browning.  I  shall  certainly  have  to  reread  him,  in  the  hope  after 
all  these  years  of  obtaining  a  fuller  understanding. 

"What  did  I  start  to  write  you  about,  anyway?  Oh!  First, 
that  toasting  the  old  year  out  affair — does  it  take  place  on  the  last 
Friday  or  Thursday  of  the  month ;  and  secondly — well,  it  does  n  't 
matter.    I  have  forgotten. 

"Please  don't  carry  a  wrong  impression  of  my  feelings  regard- 
ing Hamilton.  Because  I  happen  to  condemn  his  deficiencies  is 
no  reason  that  I  do  not  appreciate  his  good  qualities,  nor  that  I 
should  not  love  him.  Indeed  I  do.  Do  you  remember  how  I  said 
I  ran  down  the  street  after  him  on  a  circus  day,  our  engagements, 
etc.?  My  feelings  and  personal  liking  swayed  me  there;  but  in 
summing  up  the  man  I  set  such  things  to  one  side  and  perform  the 
operation  with  the  cold-bloodedness  of  the  economic  man.  I  hope 
you  will  understand.  My  regard  for  him  is  such  that  were  I  to 
accumulate  a  treasure  I  think  I  would  advertise  for  him  in  the 
agony  columns  throughout  the  United  States  and  bring  him  to  me, 
give  him  a  home,  a  monthly  allowance,  and  let  him  live  out  his 
life  whatsoever  way  he  willed. 

"You  said  at  parting  that  you  also  were  a  literary  aspirant.  I 
may  be  able  to  help  you,  perhaps — not  in  the  higher  criticism  but 
in  the  more  prosaic  but  none  the  less  essential  work  of  submitting 
MS.  Through  much  travail  I  have  learned  the  customs  of  the 
'silent  sullen  peoples  who  run  the  magazines.'    Their  rates,  avail- 


INTRODUCING  ANNA  STRUNSKY  323 

ability,  acceptability,  etc.  Should  you  stand  in  need  of  anything 
in  this  line  (economic  man),  believe  me  sincerely  at  your  service. 

**0f  course,  I  do  not  know  what  lines  you  deem  yourself  best 
fitted  for:  however,  as  I  sat  there  listening  to  you,  I  seemed  to  sum 
you  up  somewhat  in  this  way :  A  woman  to  whom  it  is  given  to  feel 
the  deeps  and  the  heights  of  emotion  in  an  extraordinary  degree; 
who  can  grasp  the  intensity  of  transcendantal  feeling,  the  dramatic 
force  of  situation,  as  few  women,  or  men  either,  can.  But,  this 
question  at  once  arose :  Has  she  expression  t  By  this,  I  mean  sim- 
ply the  literary  technique.  And  again,  supposing  that  she  has  not, 
has  she  the  *dig*,  the  quality  of  application,  so  that  she  might 
attain  it. 

**In  a  nut-shell — you  have  the  material,  which  is  your  own  soul, 
for  a  career :  have  you  the  requisite  action  to  hew  your  way  to  it  T  *  * 

*'Dec.  21,  1899. 
**Dear  Miss  Strunsky: — 

"Surely  am  I  a  barbarian,  lacking  in  cunning  of  speech  and 
deftness  of  touch.  Perhaps  I  am  only  a  Philistine.  Mayhap  the 
economic  man  incarnate.  At  least  blundering  and  rough-shod, 
lacking  even  that  expression  which  should  properly  voice  my 
thoughts.  I  call  for  a  trial  by  jury.  I  throw  myself  on  the  mercy 
of  the  Court.    Nay,  after  all  is  said  and  done,  I  plead  not  guilty. 

**  'Somehow  it  is  a  new  note  to  me,  that  of  being  seen  as  ** aim- 
less, helpless,  hopeless,*'  and  I  am  uneasy  under  it  all.' 

*'I  rarely  remember  what  I  say  in  letters,  sometimes  retaining 
only  vague  recollections  of  what  I  do  not  say;  but  in  the  present 
case  I  am  sure  I  said  nothing  like  the  above.  I  speculated  on  you 
as  impartially  as  had  you  been  a  hod-carrier,  a  Hottentot,  or  a 
Christ.  It  was  a  first  speculation ;  it  dealt  with  but  one  portion  of 
your  being.  And  as  I  could  not  divorce  Christ  or  the  Hottentot 
from  the  rest  of  humanity  as  having  nothing  in  common  with  it, 
80  I  could  not  divest  you  of  the  weaknesses  which  I  know  your 
fellows  to  suffer  from.  But  such  weaknesses  are  not  to  be  classed 
under  your  three-fold  caption,  'aimless,  helpless,  hopeless.*  I 
granted  aim.  I  then  asked  myself  whether  you  had  the  qualities 
by  which  to  realize  it.  I  did  not  answer  that  question,  for  verily 
I  did  not  nor  do  I  know.  I  was  even  more  generous,  I  granted  the 
basic  qualities,  all-necessary  for  attainment,  and  only  questioned 


324      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

the  existence  of  the  medium  by  which  they  could  be  made  to  meet 
with  their  proper  end.  And  that  question  I  did  not  answer  (to 
myself),  for  I  did  not  know,  nor  do  I  know. 

"This  is  my  case.    I  call  for  your  verdict. 

**  Somehow  I  am  like  a  fish  out  of  water.  I  take  to  conven- 
tionality uneasily,  rebelliously.  I  am  used  to  saying  what  I  think, 
neither  more  nor  less.  Soft  equivocation  is  no  part  of  me.  As 
had  I  spoken  to  a  man  who  came  out  of  nowhere,  shared  my  bed 
and  board  for  a  night,  and  passed  on,  so  did  I  speak  to  you.  Life 
is  very  short.  The  melancholy  of  materialism  can  never  be  better 
expressed  than  by  Fitzgerald *s  *0  make  haste.*  One  should  have 
no  time  to  dally.  And  further,  should  you  know  me,  understand 
this:  I,  too,  was  a  dreamer,  on  a  farm,  nay,  a  California  ranch. 
But  early,  at  only  nine,  the  hard  tiand  of  the  world  was  laid  upon 
me.  It  was  never  relaxed.  It  has  left  me  sentiment,  but  destroyed 
sentimentalism.  It  has  made  me  practical,  so  that  I  am  known  as 
harsh,  stern,  uncompromising.  It  has  taught  me  that  reason  is 
mightier  than  imagination;  that  the  scientific  man  is  superior  to 
the  emotional  man.  It  has  also  given  me  a  truer  and  a  deeper 
romance  of  things,  an  idealism  which  is  an  inner  sanctuary  and 
which  must  be  resolutely  throttled  in  dealing  with  my  kind,  but 
which  yet  remains  within  the  Holy  of  Holies,  like  an  oracle,  to  be 
cherished  always  but  to  be  made  manifest  or  be  consulted  not  on 
every  occasion  I  go  to  market.  To  do  this  latter  would  bring  upon 
me  the  ridicule  of  my  fellows  and  make  me  a  failure ;  to  sum  up, 
simply  the  eternal  fitness  of  things : 

**A11  of  which  goes  to  show  that  people  are  prone  to  misunder- 
stand me.    May  I  have  the  privilege  of  not  so  classing  you? 

**Nay,  I  did  not  walk  down  the  street  after  Hamilton — I  ran. 
And  I  had  a  heavy  overcoat,  and  I  was  very  warm  and  breathless. 
The  emotional  man  in  me  had  his  will,  and  I  was  ridiculous. 

*  *  I  shall  be  over  Saturday  night.  If  you  draw  back  upon  your- 
self, what  have  I  left  ?  Take  me  this  way :  a  stray  guest,  a  bird  of 
passage,  splashing  with  salt-rimed  wings  through  a  brief  moment 
of  your  life — a  rude  and  blundering  bird,  used  to  large  airs  and 
great  spaces,  unaccustomed  to  the  amenities  of  confined  existence. 
An  unwelcome  visitor,  to  be  tolerated  only  because  of  the  sacred 
law  of  food  and  blanket. 

**Very  sincerely," 


INTRODUCING  ANNA  STRUNSKY  325 

**Dec.  29,  1899. 
**My  dear  Miss  Strunsky: — 

**.  .  .  Expression?  I  think  you  have  it,  if  this  last  letter  may 
be  any  criterion.  How  have  I  felt  since  I  received  it  ?  How  shall 
I  say?  At  any  rate,  know  this:  I  do  agree,  unqualifiedly,  with 
your  diagnosis  of  where  I  missed  and  how.  If  I  recollect  aright,  it 
was  my  first  and  last  attempt  at  a  psychological  study.  I  say  that 
I  had  much  before  me  yet  to  gain  before  I  should  put  my  hand  to 
such  work.  I  glanced  over  several  pages  just  before  sending,  noted 
the  frightful  diction  and  did  not  dare  go  on  to  the  meat  of  it.  I 
knew,  I  felt  that  there  was  so  much  which  was  wrong  with  it,  that 
the  ending  was  inadequate,  etc.,  and  that  was  all.  But  you  have 
given  me  clearer  vision,  far  clearer  vision.  For  my  vague  feelings 
of  what  was  wrong,  you  have  given  me  the  why.  It  is  you  who 
are  the  missionary.  .  ,  .  My  extenuation  is  my  youth  and  inexperi- 
ence. ...  It  really  was  false-winged,  you  see,  that  flight  of  mine. 
Not  only  have  you  shown  me  my  main  flaw,  but  you  have  exposed 
a  second — the  lack  of  artistic  selection. 

**And  above  all,  you  have  conveyed  to  me  my  lack  of  spiritual- 
ity, idealized  spirituality — I  know  not  if  I  use  the  terms  correctly. 
Don 't  you  understand  ?  I  came  to  you  like  a  parched  soul  out  of 
the  wilderness,  thirsting  for  I  knew  not  what.  The  highest  and 
the  best  had  been  stamped  out  of  me.  You  knew  my  life,  typified, 
maybe,  by  the  hastily  drawn  picture  of  the  forecastle.  I  was 
troubled.  Groping  after  shadows,  mocking,  disbelieving,  giving 
my  own  heart  the  lie  oftentimes,  doubting  that  which  very  doubt 
made  me  believe.  And  for  all,  I  was  a-thirst.  Stiff-necked,  I 
flaunted  my  physical  basis,  hoping  that  the  clear  water  might  gush 
forth.  But  not  then,  for  there  I  played  the  barbarian.  Still,  from 
the  little  I  have  seen  of  you  my  lips  have  been  moistened,  my  head 
lifted.  Do  you  remember  *It  was  my  duty  to  have  loved  the  high- 
est; it  was  my  pleasure  had  I  known?'  Pray  do  not  think  me 
hysterical.  In  the  bright  light  of  day  I  might  flush  at  my  weak- 
ness, but  in  the  darkness  I  let  it  pass. 

"Only,  I  do  hope  we  shall  be  friends. 

**.  .  .  I  see  this  *ju8t  a  line'  has  grown.  Please  do  not  answer 
until  after  your  examinations.  Know  that  I  pray  for  the  best  pos- 
sible best.  And  please  let  me  know  the  outcome,  for  I  shall  be  as 
anxious  almost  as  yourself Very  sincerely,'* 


326      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Either  Jack  was  economizing  on  ink,  or  on  energy,  or 
improving  his  chirography,  or  using  a  finer  pen-point ;  for 
his  signatures  early  in  1900  present  a  reduced  appearance. 
Evidently,  from  these  letters,  he  is  in  a  low  state  of  cheer 
and  funds  and  is  putting  pressure  on  himself,  since  on 
January  22, 1900,  still  dating  from  962  East  16th  Street,  he 
writes  to  Cloudesley  Johns: 

**Have  pawned  my  wheel,  bought  stamps,  and  got  things  in 
running  order  again.  .  .  .  Have  to  get  in  and  dig  now — have 
jumped  my  stint  to  1500  words  per  diem  till  I  get  out  of  the  hole. ' ' 
And  on  the  30th:  *'Am  hard  at  it.  Have  not  missed  a  day  in 
which  I  have  turned  out  at  least  1500  words,  and  sometimes  as 
high  as  2000.  How's  that?  And  at  the  same  time  I  have  broken 
no  engagements,  gone  on  with  my  studying,  and  corrected  daily 
from  16  to  48  pages  of  proofsheets.  Sometimes  forty-eight  hours 
pass  without  my  even  stepping  foot  on  the  ground  or  seeing  more 
of  out-doors  than  the  front  porch  when  I  go  to  get  the  evening 
paper.  Hurrah  for  hell.  ...  So  you  fell!  Sensible  lad!  The 
damn  dollars  do  carry  some  weight  after  all.  I  am  frankly  and 
brutally  consistent  about  money ;  you  are  neither,  nor  are  you  con- 
sistent. .  .  .** 

Nine  days  earlier  he  had  written  to  Anna  Strunsky,  at 
Stanford : 

*'Dear  Miss  Strunsky: —  i 

*'0  Pshaw! 
**Dear  Anna: — 

** There!  Let's  get  our  friendship  down  to  a  comfortable  basis. 
The  superscription,  *  Miss  Strunsky, '  is  as  disagreeable  as  the  put- 
ting on  of  a  white  collar,  and  both  are  equally  detestable.  .  .  . 
Now  I  feel  comfortable.  Nobody  ever  *Mr.  Londons'  me,  so  every 
time  I  opened  a  letter  of  yours  I  felt  a  starched  collar  draw  round 
my  neck.  Pray  permit  me  softer  neck-gear  for  the  remainder  of 
our  correspondence.  ...  I  did  not  read'  your  last  till  Friday 
morning,  and  the  day  and  evening  were  taken  up.  But  at  last  I 
am  free.  My  visitors  are  gone,  the  one  back  to  his  desert  hermitage, 
and  the  other  to  his  own  country.    And  I  have  much  work  to  make 


INTRODUCING  ANNA  STRUNSKY  327 

up.  Do  you  know,  I  have  the  fatal  faculty  of  making  friends,  and 
lack  the  blessed  trait  of  being  able  to  quarrel  with  them.  And 
they  are  constantly  turning  up.  My  home  is  the  Mecca  of  every 
returned  Klondiker,  sailor,  or  soldier  of  fortune  I  ever  met.  Some 
day  I  shall  build  an  establishment,  invite  them  all,  and  turn  them 
loose  upon  each  other.  Such  a  mingling  of  castes  and  creeds  and 
characters  could  not  be  duplicated.  The  destruction  would  be 
great.  .  .  . 

**Find  inclosed,  review  of  Mary  Austin's  book.  Had  I  not 
known  you  I  could  not  have  understood  the  little  which  I  do. 
Somehow  we  must  ever  build  upon  the  concrete.  To  illustrate :  do 
you  notice  the  same  in  excerpt  from  her,  beginning,  'I  thought  of 
tempests  and  shipwrecks.'  How  I  would  like  to  know  the  girl,  to 
see  her,  to  talk  with  her,  to  do  a  little  toward  cherishing  her  imag- 
ination. I  sometimes  weep  at  the  grave  of  mine.  It  was  sown  on 
arid  soil,  gave  vague  promises  of  budding,  but  was  crushed  out  by 
the  harshness  of  things — a  mixed  metaphor,  I  believe.  .  .  . 

**Ho  !  ho !  I  have  just  returned  from  the  window.  Turmoil  and 
strife  called  me  from  the  machine,  and  behold !  My  nephew,  into 
whom  it  is  my  wish  to  inoculate  some  of  the  saltiness  of  the  earth, 
had  closed  in  combat  with  an  ancient  enemy  in  the  form  of  a 
truculent  Irish  boy.  There  they  were,  hard  at  it,  boxing  gloves 
of  course,  and  it  certainly  did  me  good  to  see  the  way  in  which  he 
stood  up  to  it.  Only,  alas,  I  see  I  shall  have  to  soon  give  him 
instructions,  especially  in  defense — all  powder  and  flash  and  snappy 
in  attach,  but  forgetful  of  guarding  himself.  *For  life  is  strife,* 
and  a  physical  coward  the  most  unutterable  of  abominations. 

**Tell  me  what  you  think  of  MS.  It  was  the  work  of  my  golden 
youth.  When  I  look  upon  it  I  feel  very  old.  It  has  knocked  from 
pillar  to  post  and  reposed  in  all  manner  of  places.  When  my  soul 
waxes  riotous,  I  bring  it  forth,  and  lo  1 1  am  again  a  lamb.  It  cures 
all  ills  of  the  age  and  is  a  sovereign  remedy  for  self-conceit.  'Mis- 
take' is  writ  broad  in  fiery  letters.  The  influences  at  work  in  me, 
from  Zangwill  to  Marx,  are  obvious.  I  would  have  portrayed 
types  and  ideals  of  which  I  know  nothing,  and  so,  trusted  myself 
to  false  wings.  You  showed  me  your  earliest  printed  production 
last  night;  reciprocating.  I  show  you  one  written  at  the  time  I 
first  knew  Hamilton.  I  felt  I  had  something  there,  but  I  certainly 
missed  it.  .  .  .  Tell  me  the  weak  points,  not  of  course  in  diction. 


328      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

etc.  Tell  me  what  rings  false  to  you.  And  be  unsparing,  else 
shall  I  have  to  class  you  with  the  rest  of  my  friends,  and  it  is  not 
complimentary  to  them  if  they  only  knew  it.  .  .  .'* 

Here,  in  form  of  query,  one  comes  upon  his  first  enuncia- 
tion of  a  civil  policy  which  he  often  repeated  as  the  years 
went  by : 

**Feb.  10,  1900. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: 

*'.  .  ,  What  do  you  think  about  marriage  being  made  more  diffi- 
cult, and  divorce  correspondingly  easy? 

"I  have  had  quite  good  success  with  McClure's.  You  remem- 
ber my  mailing  that  story  of  a  minister  who  apostasizes?  And  the 
vile  sinner  who  did  not?  McClure's  accepted  it  if  I  would  agree 
to  the  cutting  of  the  opening  and  the  elimination  of  certain  swear- 
words. Of  course  I  agreed,  as  it  was  an  affair  of  6000  words.  Two 
days  after  that  came  an  acceptance,  from  McClure's,  of  'The  Ques- 
tion of  the  Maximum' — that  socialistic  essay  I  read  to  you.  What 
do  you  think  of  that  for  a  conservative  house  ?  I  mean  conservative 
politically.  .  .  .  They  also  wanted  to  see  more  of  my  fiction,  wanted 
to  have  me  submit  a  long  story  if  I  had  one,  and  if  I  had  a  col- 
lection of  short  stories  they  wanted  to  examine  them  for  publica- 
tion. 

**Have  finished  *The  Son  of  the  Wolf  proof  sheets — 251  pages 
of  print  in  it. 

**.  .  .  *I  have  told  you  that  I  consider  absolute  pauperism  al- 
most as  objectionable  as  wealth.'  Now,  say,  I  wonder  if  you  mean 
it?  Of  course  you  are  inconsistent.  Of  course  you  sacrificed 
(serially)  your  name  and  workmanship  by  changing  the  story. 
And  further,  you  did  it  for  money.  You  can't  defend  yourself, 
you  know  you  can't.  Why  not  come  out  and  be  brutally  frank 
about  it  like  I  am?  You  are  doing  the  very  same  thing  when  you 
write  hack-work.  Press  or  Journal  and  Black  Cat  prize  stories — • 
money,  that's  all.  Simmer  yourself  down  and  sum  yourself  up  in 
a  square  way  for  just  once.  Be  consistent,  even  though  you  be 
vile  as  I  in  the  matter  of  dollars  and  cents. 

**.  .  .  Have  lost  steerage  way  in  the  matter  of  writing.  Have 
done  twenty-two  hundred  words  in  five  days,  and  gone  out  every 
night,  and  feel  as  though  I  can  never  write  again.    Isn  't  it  fright- 


INTRODUCING  ANNA  STRUNSKY  329 

ful!  0  Lord!  Who  wouldn't  sell  a  farm  and  go  to  writing  I 
Say,  I  think  I  have  stuck  Munsey^s  with  a  thirty-two  hundred  word 
essay.  I  wonder  if  it  can  be  possible.  *Wave'  has  not  ponied  up 
yet.'' 

And  he  tenders  a  bit  of  futile  prophesy: 

**Have  evolved  new  ideas  about  warfare,  or  rather,  assimilated 
them.  If  my  article  is  published  soon,  upon  that  subject,  I  shall 
send  it  to  you.  Anyway,  to  make  it  short,  war  as  a  direct  attain- 
ment of  an  end,  is  no  longer  possible.  The  world  has  seen  its  last 
decisive  battle.  Economics,  not  force,  will  decide  future  wars. 
Of  course  all  this  is  postulated  between  first-class  powers,  or  first- 
class  soldiers;  not  frontier  squabbles.  Nor  would  I  classify  the 
fighting  in  the  Transvaal  as  a  squabble.  Unless  there  is  a  grave 
blunder,  and  unless  the  British  do  not  too  heavily  reinforce,  it 
will  be  found  that  neither  British  nor  Boers  can  advance.  Which 
ever  side  advances,  advances  to  its  own  destruction." 

Miss  Strunsky  had  ** enticed"  him  into  abrogating  a 
**pet  aversion" — the  reading  of  a  magazine  serial — being 
Mr.  J.  M.  Barriers  **Tonuny  and  Grizel."  **I  found  I  could 
not  lay  it  down,"  he  confesses  to  Cloudesley,  **so  I  am 
stuck  to  the  job  for  a  year." 

Then  come  a  few  remarks  upon  lost  manuscripts: 

"Your  'Call'  and  *Wave'  rackets  remind  me  of  what  happened 
to  me  recently.  Last  fall  I  lost  a  forty-six  hundred  word  story 
with  Collier's  Weekly.  I  wrote  them,  after  due  time,  and  they 
sent  me  a  full-page  letter  explaining  that  it  had  never  reached  them, 
and  that  they  had  no  record  of  it.  To  show  them  I  still  had  confi- 
dence, I  later  on  sent  them  another.  It  too  became  overdue  and 
I  trailed  it.  And  lo  and  behold,  the  other  day  arrived  both  MSS. 
The  first  one  I  had  long  since  retyped. 

'*My  dear  fellow,  had  I  not  been  *an  animal  with  a  logical 
nature'  I  should  not  be  here  to-day.  It  is  only  because  I  was  so 
that  I  did  not  perish  or  stagnate  by  the  wayside.  I  have  been 
called  stern,  cold,  cruel,  unyielding,  etc.,  and  why!  Because  I  did 
not  wish  to  stop  off  at  their  particular  station  and  remain  for  the 
rest  of  my  days.    Money!    Money  will  give  me  all  things,  or  at 


330      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

least  more  of  all  things  than  I  could  otherwise  possess.  It  may  even 
take  me  over  to  the  other  side  of  the  world  to  meet  my  affinity; 
while  without  it  I  might  mismate  at  home  and  live  miserable  till 
the  game  was  played  out. 

**Got  an  acceptance  from  Youth's  Companion  the  other  day — 
qualified — if  I  would  make  the  opening  a  little  longer.  .  .  .  You 
remember  the  '  Wave '  ?  I  sent  them  yesterday  a  brief  note,  enclos- 
ing with  it  half  a  dozen  pawn  checks  and  a  two-cent  stamp.  I  am 
wondering  what  they  will  do.** 

**Feb.  17,  1900. 
"Dear  Cloudesley: — 

''Thanks  for  Julian  Ralph's  *  Picture  of  New  War  Problems.' 
Find  it  herewith  returned.  If  it  has  interested  you,  I  am  sure  my 
article  will,  for  I  treat  the  machinery  of  war  at  length,  and  then  go 
into  the  economic  and  political  aspects.  ...  I  am  intending  to 
write  an  essay  entitled  'They  That  Rise  by  the  Sword'  shortly. 
And  just  you  wait  till  I  come  out  with  my  'Salt  of  the  Earth.' 

"So,  when  you  are  doing  your  best  work  you  only  do  about 
four  or  five  hundred  a  day.  Good.  Most  good.  I  hope  you  will 
live  up  to  it.  I  insist  that  good  work  cannot  be  done  at  the  rate 
of  three  or  four  thousand  a  day.  Good  work  is  not  strung  out 
from  the  inkwell.  It  is  built  like  a  wall,  every  brick  carefully 
selected,  etc.,  etc. 

"...  Ruskin,  at  the  height  of  his  fame,  and  turning  out  his 
best  work  in  the  Cornhill,  had  the  series  of  essays  stopped  in  the 
middle  by  Thackeray  because  they  were  daring.  And  daring,  mark 
you,  not  for  their  attacks  on  religion,  but  for  their  attacks  on  the 
prevailing  school  of  political  economy.  The  same  Thackeray  re- 
fused one  of  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning's  best  poems  because  it 
was  risque.  ...  I'm  afraid  Thackeray  was  a  snob,  a  cad,  and  a 
whole  lot  of  other  things  which  he  in  turn  has  so  successfully 
impaled  for  the  regard  of  the  British  reading  public.'* 

In  a  letter  dated  March  1  after  a  dissertation  upon  an 
article  by  William  H.  Maple,  **Does  Matter  Think  T*  Jack 
concludes  with: 

"Why,  the  man  positively  reeks  of  Herbert  Spencer  interpreted 
by  Prof.  Haeckel.    Not  that  I  am  impugning  his  article ;  far  from 


INTRODUCING  ANNA  STRUNSKY  331 

it.  But  he  has  simply  put  into  his  own  words  what  he  has  learned 
from  them,  and  he  has  done  it  well.  Spencer  was  not  openly,  that 
is,  didactically  favorable  to  a  material  basis  for  thought,  mind, 
soul,  etc.,  but  John  Fiske  has  done  many  queer  gymnastics  in  order 
to  reconcile  Spencer,  whose  work  he  worships,  to  his  own  beliefs 
in  immortality  and  God.  But  he  doesn*t  succeed  very  well.  He 
jumps  on  Haeckel,  with  both  feet,  but  in  my  modest  opinion, 
Haeckel's  position  is  as  yet  unassailable. 

"Am  working  busily  away;  have  to  finish  a  McClure's  story, 
an  Atlantic  story,  and  my  speech  before  the  Oakland  Section  for 
the  eleventh  of  this  month.  Then  I  positively  must  write  a  Black 
Cat  story.  As  yet  haven't  even  worked  out  a  plot,  or  idea.  Was 
going  to  send  them  ray  *Man  ^vith  the  Gash,*  but  McClure's  ac- 
cepted it.  It  was  the  MS.  which  I  recently  told  you  of — lost  at 
Collier's  Weekly,  etc.,  and  returned  after  I  had  taken  a  duplicate 
from  the  original  longhand.  Been  refused  by  all  sorts  of  publi- 
cations and  now  McClure*s  are  to  publish  it  in  the  magazine.  They 
paid  me  well.  The  two  stories  and  essay  which  they  accepted  aggre- 
gated fifteen  thousand  words,  for  which  they  sent  me  three  hun- 
dred dollars — twenty  dollars  per  thousand.  Best  pay  I  have  yet 
received.  Why  certes,  if  they  wish  to  buy  me,  body  and  soul,  they 
are  welcome — if  they  pay  the  price.  I  am  writing  for  money ;  if  I 
can  procure  fame,  that  means  more  money.  More  money  means 
more  life  to  me.  I  shall  always  hate  the  task  of  getting  money; 
every  time  I  sit  down  to  write  it  is  with  great  disgust.  I'd  sooner 
be  out  in  the  open  wandering  around  most  any  old  place.  So  the 
habit  of  money-getting  will  never  become  one  of  my  vices.  But  the 
habit  of  money  spending,  ah  God !  I  shall  always  be  its  victim.  I 
received  the  three  hundred  last  Monday.  I  have  now  about  four 
dollars  in  pocket,  have  not  moved,  don't  see  how  I  can  financially; 
owe  a  few  debts  yet,  etc.    How's  that  for  about  three  days! 

**.  .  .  If  a  man,  in  controversy,  becomes  undignified,  he  cer- 
tainly is  beneath  your  notice,  and  you  likewise  lose  your  dignity  if 
you  do  notice  him.  And  surely,  if  he  remains  dignified,  you  are 
the  last  in  the  world  to  become  undignified.  Life  is  strife,  but  it 
also  happens  to  stand  for  certain  amenities.'* 

**.  .  .  Sold  Youth's  Companion  a  four  thousand  word  story 
which  they  say  is  the  best  I  have  yet  sent  them;  that  makes  two 
since  you  were  up. ' ' 


332      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

About  this  juncture,  shortly  after  the  first  of  March, 
I  made  the  acquaintance  of  this  vivid  character,  so  para- 
doxical to  the  chance  observer,  but  whom  I  have  failed  to 
find  paradoxical.  In  the  next  letter,  dated  March  10,  1900, 
Jack  mentions  our  meeting,  which  I  have  treated  in  detail 
in  the  Prologue  of  this  book. 

**Dear  Cloudesley: — 

**.  .  .  Honestly,  though,  rubbing  with  the  world  will  not  harm 
you  if  you  take  the  rubs  aright.  Not  only  wild  and  woolly  rubbmg, 
but  intellectual  rubbing.  The  most  healthful  experience  in  the 
world  for  you  who  are  rather  versatile  and  universal,  would  be 
bumping  into  specialists  who  would  handle  you  without  gloves. 
Such  has  been  for  me  the  best  education  in  the  world,  and  I  look 
for  it  more  and  more.  Man  must  have  better  men  to  measure  him- 
self against,  else  his  advance  will  be  nil,  or  if  at  all,  one-sided  and 
whimsical.    The  paced  rider  makes  better  speed  than  the  unpaced. 

**I  can  sympathize  with  you  in  your  disgust  for  Harold.  [A 
town.]  A  year  of  it  would  drive  me  mad,  judging  from  the  pic- 
tures. Outside  of  your  own  work  what  intellectual  life  can  you 
have?  You  are  thrown  back  upon  yourself.  Too  apt  to  become 
self -centered ;  to  measure  other  things  by  yourself  than  to  measure 
yourself  by  other  things.  .  .  .  Man  is  gregarious,  and  never  more 
so  when  intellectual  companions  are  harder  to  find  than  mere 
species  companions. 

**...!  am  only  averaging  about  350  words  per  day,  now,  and 
can't  increase  the  speed  to  save  me;  but,  it's  either  very  good 
work,  or  else  it  is  trash ;  in  either  case  I  am  losing  nothing,  for  I 
am  measuring  myself  and  learning  things  which  will  bring  returns 
some  future  day.''  [Here  follows  the  reference  to  his  call  at  my 
home.] 

''March  15,  1910. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: — 

'*Your  Wave  episode  reminds  me  of  my  Journal  one.  I  have 
sold  2000  words  for  one  dollar  and  a  half;  but  the  work  was  bad 
and  I  would  do  the  same  again.  But  I  can't  exactly  see  it  when 
I  am  offered  three  fifty  for  2200  words  of  very  good  work.  I 
wonder  what  such  people  think  a  fellow  lives  on. 


INTRODUCING  ANNA  STRUNSKY  333 

**.  .  .  To  be  well  fitted  for  the  tragedy  of  existence  (intellec- 
tual existence)  one  must  have  a  working  philosophy,  a  synthesis 
of  things.  Do  you  write,  and  talk,  and  build  upon  a  foundation 
which  you  know  is  securely  laid?  Or  do  you  not  rather  build  with 
a  hazy  idea  of  *to  hell  with  the  foundation?'  In  token  of  this: 
What  significance  do  the  following  generalities  have  for  you :  Mat- 
ter is  indestructible ;  motion  is  continuous ;  Force  is  persistent ;  the 
relations  among  forces  are  persistent ;  the  transformation  of  forces 
is  the  equivalence  of  forces ;  etc.,  etc.  ?  And  if  you  do  find  in  these 
generalities  some  significance  relating  to  the  foundation  (way 
down)  of  your  philosophy  of  life,  what  general  single  idea  of  the 
Cosmos  do  they  (which  are  relative  manifestations  of  the  absolute), 
convey  to  you  ?  How  may  you,  therefore,  without  having  mastered 
this  idea  or  law  (they  are  all  laws),  put  down  the  very  basic  stone 
of  your  foundation?  Have  you  ever  thought  that  all  life,  all  the 
universe  of  which  you  may  in  any  way  have  knowledge  of,  bows 
to  a  law  of  continuous  redistribution  of  matter?  Have  you  read 
or  thought  that  there  is  a  dynamic  principle,  true  of  the  meta- 
morphosis of  the  universe,  of  the  metamorphoses  of  the  details  of 
the  universe,  which  will  express  these  ever-changing  relations? 
Nobody  can  tell  you  what  this  dynamic  principle  is,  or  why;  but 
you  may  learn  how  it  works.  Do  you  know  what  this  principle  is? 
If  you  do,  have  you  studied  it,  ay,  carefully  and  painstakingly? 
And  if  you  have  not  done  these  things,  which  have  naught  to  do 
with  creeds,  or  dogmas,  with  politics  or  economics,  with  race  preju- 
dices or  passions ;  but  which  are  the  principles  upon  which  they  all 
work,  to  which  they  all  answer  because  of  law;  if  you  have  not, 
then  can  you  say  that  you  have  a  firm  foundation  for  your  philos- 
ophy of  life?  .  .  . 

**.  .  .  'Screaming  nonsense' — my  article  on  war.  You  amuse 
me.  Permit  me  to  demolish  you.  What  do  you  know  of  the 
Mauser  rifles  which  are  not  as  yet  even  in  use  in  South  Africa? 
They  have  only  recently  been  tested  in  Holland.  Let  me  demolish 
you  out  of  your  own  mouth.  Can  you  conceive  of  a  man  pointing, 
without  removing  from  shoulder,  a  gun  in  any  given  direction  for 
one  second,  or  moving  it,  during  that  second  at  an  approximately 
same  elevation  for  a  second?  (this  isn't  sharpshooting,  but  re- 
pelling a  rush  attack  of  a  body  of  men).  Also,  can  you  conceive 
that  man  is  capable  of  pressing  a  finger  steadily  (no  clicking,  no 


334      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

removing  or  ejecting  of  shells  on  his  part)  upon  a  trigger  for  one 
second?  And  can  you  conceive  a  man  capable  of  inventing  a 
device,  which,  under  steady  pressure,  will  deliver  six  blows  suffi- 
ciently hea\'y  to  explode  by  impact  six  caps  set  in  the  ends  of  six 
cartridges?  If  you  cannot  conceive  these  things,  then  I  do  sin- 
cerely pity  you;  it  would  be  then  the  fault  of  your  ancestors. 

**Did  you  think  that  it  was  necessary  for  a  sharpshooter  to 
shoot  so  rapidly  as  all  that?  Did  you  think  I  was  fool  enough  to 
think  so?  Cloudesley!  Cloudesley!  You  say  that  you  firmly 
believe  that  any  position  which  can  be  approached  at  doublequick 
can  be  carried  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet  by  a  body  twice  the 
strer^h  of  the  defenders.  Cold  steel,  mind  you.  Do  you  happen 
to  know  that  Hiram  Maxim  writes  his  name  with  a  Maxim  gun 
upon  a  target  at  two  thousand  yards  ?    Cold  steel ! 

**You  misunderstand  the  whole  trend  of  my  article,  which 
meant  first  the  struggle  between  first-class  soldiers  of  the  first-class 
European  powers,  and  said  powers  are  on  about  an  equal  war-foot- 
ing. Secondly,  my  aim  was  to  show,  that  war  being  so  impossible, 
that  men  would  not  go  up  against  each  other  to  be  exterminated, 
but  that  a  deadlock  would  happen  instead.  Thus  bringing  in  the 
economic  factor.  Because  I  stated  that  warfare  was  so  deadly,  I 
did  not  state  that  it  would  be  applied.  Rather  would  the  deadlock 
occur.    Read  my  article  again.    You  missed  the  whole  drift  of  it. 

**Here  comes  Whitaker,  I  have  to  speak  over  in  Alameda  in  an 
hour,  so  must  quit. 

*'...!  expect  to  have  a  try  at  the  'Black  Cat  in  a  couple  of 
days,  if  only  the  damned  plot  will  come.  Am  too  busy  now  to  think 
upon  it.** 

It  is  noteworthy  that  in  the  article  referred  to  above, 
**The  Impossibility  of  War,"  Jack  London  actually  foretold 
the  method  of  warfare  that  obtained  in  the  Great  War 
fourteen  years  thereafter : 

**  Soldiers  will  be  compelled  to  creep  forward,  burying  them- 
selves in  the  earth  like  moles.  Future  wars  must  be  long.  No 
more  open  fields;  no  more  decisive  victories;  but  a  succession  of 
sieges,  fought  over  and  through  successive  lines  of  widely-extending 
fortifications.    The  defeated  army — supposing  it  can  be  defeated — 


INTRODUCING  ANNA  STRUNSKY  335 

will  retire  slowly,  entrenching  itself  step  by  step,  and  most  likely 
with  steam  entrenching  machines.**  And  he  went  on  to  emphasize 
the  greater  deadliness  of  artillery  owing  to  **the  use  of  range-find- 
ers, chemical  instead  of  mechanical  mixtures  of  powder,  high  ex- 
plosives, increase  of  range,  and  rapid  fire.** 

To  Anna  Strunsky,  March  15,  1900,  whom  he  had  sent 
a  box  of  his  early  MSS : 

**Dear  Anna: — 

"Regarding  box  .  .  .  please  remember  that  I  have  disclosed 
myself  in  my  nakedness — all  those  vain  efforts  and  passionate 
strivings  are  so  many  weaknesses  of  mine  which  I  put  into  your 
possession.  Why,  the  grammar  is  often  frightful,  and  always  bad, 
while  artistically,  the  whole  boxful  is  atrocious.  Now  don't  say 
I  am  piling  it  on.  If  I  did  not  realize  and  condemn  those  faults  I 
would  be  unable  to  try  to  do  better.  But — why,  I  think  in  sending 
that  box  to  you  I  did  the  bravest  thing  I  ever  did  in  my  life. 

* '  Say,  do  you  know  I  am  getting  nervous  and  soft  as  a  woman. 
I  *ve  got  to  get  out  again  and  stretch  my  wings  or  I  shall  become  a 
worthless  wreck.  I  am  getting  timid,  do  you  hear?  Timid!  It 
must  stop.  Enclosed  letter  I  received  to-day,  and  it  brought  a 
contrast  to  me  of  my  then  'unfailing  nerve'  and  my  present  ner- 
vousness and  timidity.  Return  it,  as  I  suppose  I  shall  have  to 
answer  it  some  day. 

"...  I  have  to  speak  in  Alameda  to-night — 'Question  of  the 
Maximum.*  Might  as  well  work  it  for  all  there  is  in  it,  before  it 
is  published.     [In  "War  of  the  Classes.*'] 

"Am  thinking  about  moving — getting  cramped  in  my  present 
quarters;  but  0  the  turmoil  and  confusion  and  time  lost  during 
such  an  operation ! 

"Freda  and  Mrs.  Eppingwell  [Characters  in  short  story  'Scorn 
of  Women']  have  fought  it  out,  and  I  have  just  reached  the  climax 
of  the  scene  with  Floyd  Vanderlip  in  Freda's  cabin.  I  did  not 
treat  it  in  the  way  I  suggested.  Instead  of  her  wasting  a  sacredly 
shameful  experience  upon  a  man  of  his  stamp,  I  had  her  appeal  to 
him  sensuously  (I  think  I  handled  it  all  right).  So  the  conclusion 
of  the  story  is  only  about  a  day  away  from  now.  Then  hurrah  for 
the  East — if  McClure  accepts  it,  it  will  mean  about  one  hundred 


336      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

and  eighty  dollars.  He  (McClure)  sent  me  a  photograph,  large 
and  framed,  yesterday,  and  when  I  could  find  no  free  place  upon 
my  walls  to  hang  it,  I  decided  to  perambulate.  Almost  wish  a  fire 
would  come  along  and  burn  me  out.  It  would  be  quicker,  you 
know. 

**...!  am  cursed  with  friends.  I  have  grown  accustomed  to 
their  clamoring  for  my  company,  and  unconsciously  feel  that  my 
presence  (to  them)  is  desirable.  This  mood  is  dangerously  apt  to 
become  chronic.  Need  I  say  it  so  manifested  itself  Saturday  night  ? 
And  need  I  say  that  your  company  has  ever  been  a  great  delight  to 
me?  That  I  would  not  have  sought  it  had  I  not  desired  it?  That 
(like  you  have  said  of  yourself),  when  you  no  longer  interest  me 
I  shall  no  longer  be  with  you?  Need  I  say  these  things  to  prove 
my  candor? 

**As  to  the  box.  Please  take  good  care  of  the  contents.  And 
don't  mix  them  up,  please.  I  haven't  written  any  poetry  for 
months.  Those  you  see  are  my  experiments  .  .  .  and  though  they 
be  failures  I  have  not  surrendered.  When  I  am  financially  secure, 
some  day,  I  shall  continue  with  them — unless  I  have  prostituted 
myself  beyond  redemption. 

**  To-day  I  am  just  learning  to  write  all  over  again.  When  you 
can  display  as  many  failures,  and  have  yet  achieved  nothing,  then 
it  is  time  for  you  to  say  that  you  cannot  write.  You  have  no  right 
to  say  that  now.  And  if  you  do  say  so,  then  you  are  a  coward. 
Better  not  begin  unless  you  are  not  afraid  to  work,  work,  work,  to 
work  early  and  late,  unremittingly  and  always. 

**.  .  .  Do  you  show  them  to  no  one.  Like  the  leper,  I  have 
exposed  my  sores;  be  gentle  with  me,  and  merciful  in  your  judg- 
ment. And  remember,  they  are  for  your  encouragement.  Anna, 
you  have  a  good  brain,  also  magnificent  emotional  qualities,  and 
insofar  you  are  favored  above  women  in  possession.  But  carry 
Strawn-Hamilton  before  you.  No  system,  no  application.  But 
carry  also  Mr.  Bamford's  quoted  warning  from  Watson's  *Hymn 
to  the  Sea.*  Don't  apply  what  you  have,  wrongly.  Don't  beat 
yourself  away  vainly,  etc.  This  was  not  the  lecture  I  intended 
giving  you ;  that  was  on  other  lines. 

**But  Anna,  don't  let  the  world  lose  you;  for  insomuch  that  it 
does  lose  you,  insomuch  you  have  sinned." 


1 '.»"»»        .]  \(   W     1  «  '\l  "  iN 


INTRODUCING  ANNA  STRUNSKY  337 

**962  East  16th  St.,  March  24,  1910. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: — 

*  *  Am  pulling  out  on  my  wheel  for  San  Jose ;  so  pardon  rush. 

"I,  at  the  eleventh  hour,  from  a  chance  newspaper  clipping, 
caught  the  motif  for  a  Black  Cat  yam.  Behold,  it  is  finished  and 
off.  How's  this  for  a  title?  *The  Minions  of  Midas 'T  .  .  .5000 
words  in  length.  [* Moon-Pace'  collection.]  I  did  not  write  it 
for  a  first,  second  or  third  prize,  but  for  one  of  the  minor  ones.  I 
knew  what  motif  was  necessary  for  a  first  prize  Black  Cat  story, 
but  I  could  not  invent  such  a  motif. 

*'.  .  .  Shall  be  back  next  Tuesday  27th.'' 


CHAPTER  XX 

MABBIAGE   TO    ELIZABETH    MADDERN ;    MORE   LETTERS 

**1130  East  15th  St., 
**  Oakland,  Calif., 
**  April  3,  1900. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: — 

**  Thanks  for  the  stamps.  And  by  the  way,  before  I  get  on  to 
more  serious  things,  let  me  speak  of  'The  Son  of  the  Wolf.'  For 
fear  you  invest  in  a  copy  if  I  don't  I  want  to  tell  you  that  I  shall 
send  you  one  as  soon  as  they  come  to  hand.  There  is  only  one 
advance  copy  on  the  Coast,  and  I  haven't  seen  that  one  yet.  They 
say  it  is  all  right. 

**You  must  be  amused,  lest  you  die.  Here  goes.  You  will 
observe  that  I  have  moved.  Good !  Next  Saturday  I  shall  be  mar- 
ried.   Better?  Eh?    Will  send  announcement  of  the  funeral  later. 

**Jack  London." 

Mr.  Johns's  acknowledgment  of  the  foregoing  was 
laconic  in  the  extreme,  consisting  of  a  sacred  name  of  two 
words  with  an  initial  between,  followed  by  an  exclamation 
point.  The  same  mail  had  brought  to  my  Aunt,  Mrs.  Eames, 
the  letter  quoted  in  the  Prologue.  In  her  hands  was  the  one 
advance  copy  of  **The  Son  of  the  Wolf,*'  to  which  Jack 
refers  above. 

Briefly,  it  seems  to  have  come  about  in  this  way :  Pressed 
for  space  in  the  small  cottage,  especially  in  the  10  by  10 
den  which  seized  as  work-room,  bedroom  for  himself  and 
any  chance  guest,  and  for  living-room  as  well.  Jack  at 
last  found  means  to  make  a  change  and  move  his  mother 
and  nephew  and  himself  to  a  nice  two-story  house  at  1130 
East   Fifteenth   Street,   flanked   by   a  neat   garden.     In 

338 


MARRIAGE  TO  BESSIE  MADDERN  339 

it  were  seven  rooms,  including  a  large  bay-windowed  parlor, 
and  an  upstairs  study  13  by  15  feet.  And  joy  upon  joy, 
an  attic  where  Jack  could  store  his  accumulating  *^gear.** 

Jack  and  Elizabeth  Maddem  had  been  exchanging  in- 
struction in  English  and  *'math''  in  the  Fifteenth  Street 
dwelling  and  the  young  woman  had  joined  with  Eliza  in 
fixing  up  Jack^s  new  den.  His  idea  of  adding  a  member 
to  the  household  was  born  of  the  moment.  He  lay  on  his 
back  in  the  middle  of  the  floor,  lost  in  a  book,  while  sister 
and  friend  put  his  small  but  swelling  library  on  some  shelves 
he  had  had  thrown  together  by  a  carpenter.  Eliza,  hap- 
pening to  glance  aside,  saw  him  turn  over  on  his  elbows, 
and,  supporting  his  head  on  his  hands,  regard  Miss  Mad- 
dem fixedly  as  she  moved  about.  His  eyes  filled  with 
visions,  and  he  dropped  his  face  and  lay  still  for  a  long 
time.  Eliza,  with  a  pang,  sensed  what  had  come  to  him, 
but  held  her  peace.  Looking  back  upon  it,  he  wrote :  *  *  I 
was  convinced  absolutely  that  I  knew  the  last  word  about 
love  and  life.'' 

That  evening,  by  force  of  argument.  Jack  convinced 
the  girl  of  the  wisdom  of  a  union  such  as  he  proposed,  or 
at  least  gained  her  consent,  and  next  morning  dropped  into 
his  sister's  house: 

**I  am  going  to  be  married,'*  he  said  without  preamble. 
Eliza,  as  mask-like  of  face  and  feelings  as  ever  he  could 
be,  replied,  *  *  Good !  I  'm  glad  of  it ! ' '  and  undertook,  at  her 
brother's  request,  to  break  the  news  to  his  mother.  Flora 
London,  who  had  been  basking  in  the  dream  of  this  large, 
new,  clean  house  where  she  would  be  mistress,  was  not 
enthusiastic  at  the  idea  of  being  superseded.  Jack's  cozy 
little  plan  did  not  work  out  so  automatically  as  he  had 
hoped;  three  months  after  the  return  of  the  bride  from 
honeymoon  to  home  all  decorated  with  flowers  by  Eliza, 
that  same  sister-in-law,  again  at  Jack's  plea,  superintended 
another  removal,  namely  of  Flora  London  and  Johnnie 
Miller,  into  a  cottage  on  Sixteenth  Street,  almost  behind 


340      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Jack's  home.  Eliza  appears  to  have  avoided  all  inter- 
ference and  only  consented  to  step  in  from  time  to  time 
when  Jack's  feminine  affairs  tangled  to  the  imminence  of 
his  great  disgust.  Little  was  said  upon  these  occasions  be- 
tween brother  and  sister.  One  look  at  his  gray  face,  a  word 
or  two  from  the  tightened  bow  of  his  lips  concerning  the 
nature  of  his  need,  and  Eliza,  without  undue  antagonizing 
of  the  others,  set  about  regulating  matters  as  fairly  as 
possible. 

While  one  delves  for  further  enlightenment  upon  Jack 
London's  sanction  for  this  abrupt  and  loveless  union,  it 
may  well  be  surmised  that  his  feeling  for  Anna  Strunsky 
played  its  part.  Up  to  now,  and  beyond,  his  head  deter- 
mined the  way  of  his  life,  for  the  day  had  not  come  when 
the  big,  ripe,  man-heart  of  him  overturned  the  fanes  he  had 
so  carefully  erected,  and  caused  him  to  volunteer  that 
**Love  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world."  As  for  Anna, 
the  very  dart  and  smart  of  their  intellectual  comradery 
rendered  her  an  unrest.  His  plans  for  the  future  were  so 
nicely  ordered  toward  a  systematic  schedule  of  writing — 
to  the  aim  of  successful  living,  to  be  sure — that  he  could  not 
consider  the  feverish  temperamental  life  that  was  likely  to 
be  if  he  joined  his  with  Anna's.  How  much  the  very  fear 
of  being  drawn  into  such  a  situation  entered  into  his  sud- 
den resolve  to  take  no  chances  on  that  side,  and  to  marry, 
as  he  did  marry,  we  shall  never  know. 

Cloudesley  Johns,  upon  receipt  of  the  printed  announce- 
ment, wrote  Jack: 

*^  Harold,  Cal.,  April  12,  1900. 
**Dear  Jack: — 

*'May  I  defer  my  congratulations  of  you  and  Mrs.  Jack  for  ten 
years?  Then  I  shall  hope  to  tender  them — Thursday,  April  7th, 
1910.     Don't  forget:  try  to  expect  them. 

*  *  Your  mind  will  be  much  occupied  for  a  time  with  your  change 
of  residence  and  condition,  and  mine  is  hibernating  at  present,  so 


MARRIAGE  TO  BESSIE  MADDERN  341 

I  would  suggest  that  you  take  up  my  last  letter,  and  reply  to  it, — 
say  June  1st. 

**I  heartily  wish  you  both  permanent  satisfaction. 

"Cloudesley  Johns." 


**1130  East  15th  St.,  April  16,  1900. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: — 

**Why  certainly  you  may  defer  congratulations  till  April  7, 
1910.  Permit  me  to  felicitate  you  upon  your  last  letter  bar  this 
one  I  am  answering.  We  all  had  a  good  laugh  over  it  and  enjoyed 
it  immensely.  I  was  away  on  the  little  wedding  trip  when  it 
arrived,  and  my  sister  (you  met  her),  looked  at  it  and  said  she'd 
give  ten  dollars  to  see  what  you  had  to  say.    And  it  was  worth  it. 

**No,  I'll  not  answer  it.    Am  not  laconic  enough. 

"...  Got  settled  down  to  work  to-day,  and  did  the  first  thou- 
sand words  in  three  weeks,  and  hereafter  the  old  rate  must  con- 
tinue. Say,  a  year  ago  I  wrote  a  two  thousand  word  skit  or  stori- 
ette called  *  Their  Alcove.  *  First,  second,  and  third  raters  refused 
out  of  hand.  Sent  it  to  the  Women*s  Home  Companion,  and  with- 
out a  word  of  warning,  and  in  quick  time,  came  back  an  accept- 
ance accompanied  by  a  twenty  dollar  check.  Most  took  my  breath 
away. ' ' 

''May  2,  1900. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: — 

" .  .  .  No ;  at  the  moment  I  get  a  good  phrase  I  am  not  thinking 
of  how  much  it  will  fetch  in  the  market,  but  when  I  sit  down  to 
write  I  am ;  and  all  the  time  I  am  writing,  deep  down,  underneath 
the  whole  business,  is  that  same  commercial  spirit.  I  don't  think  I 
would  write  very  much  if  I  didn't  have  to.*' 

Also  on  May  2,  Jack  wrote  to  Anna : 

"How  sorry  I  am.  Friday  I  am  chairman  at  the  Ruskin  Club 
dinner  and  cannot  possibly  escape.  Thursday  I  speak  in  'Frisco, 
and  Saturday  am  bound  out  to  dinner.  .  .  .  However,  may  I  put 
you  down  for  afternoon  and  dinner  on  Wednesday,  May  9th  T 

"How  enthusiastic  your  letters  always  make  me  feel.  Makes 
it  seem  as  though  some  new  energy  had  been  projected  into  the 


342      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

world  and  that  I  cannot  fail  gathering  part  of  it  to  myself.  No; 
God  does  not  punish  confidence;  but  he  grinds  between  the  upper 
and  the  nether  millstone  all  those  of  little  faith  and  little  heart, 
and  he  grinds  them  very  fine.  Of  course  you  will  succeed — if  you 
will  work — and  certainly  you  seem  to  suffer  from  a  superabundance 
of  energy.  Apply  this  energy,  rightly  and  steadily,  and  the  world 
will  open  its  arms  to  you.  You  are  all  right ;  the  world  is  all  right ; 
the  question  is:  will  you  have  the  patience  to  gain  the  ear  of  the 
world.  You  will  have  to  shout  loud,  for  the  world  is  rather  deaf, 
and  you  may  have  to  shout  long.  But  the  world  sometimes  opens 
its  ears  at  the  first  call.    May  it  be  thus  with  you. 

**Jack.'' 

In  a  letter  of  June  3,  he  mentioned  having  received  a 
letter  from  Charles  Warren  Stoddard.  The  correspondence 
between  these  two  prospered  for  years,  during  which  the 
older  man  addressed  Jack  *  *  Dear  Son,  * '  and  Jack  responded 
with  **Dear  Dad.''  They  never  met.  In  this  same  letter  of 
June  3  to  Mr.  Johns,  Jack  goes  on: 

**Have  sold  a  couple  of  hundred  more  dollars  worth  of  good 
stuff  to  McClure^s — at  least  I  think  it  is  good — 'The  Grit  of 
Women'  [published  August,  1900]  and  'The  Law  of  Life'  [pub- 
lished March,  1901,  both  stories  in  McClure's,  and  later  collected  in 
volumes  'The  God  of  His  Fathers'  and  'Children  of  the  Frost,' 
respectively.] 

"Got  the  proof  sheets  of  a  'S.  F.  Examiner'  story  in  and  am 
correcting  them  .  ,  .  'Which  Makes  Men  Kemember.'  [Published 
June  24,  1900,  under  title  'Uri  Bram's  God.'] 

"...  So!  I  am  married,  and  I  cannot  start  to  Paris  in  July, 
dough  or  no  dough — ^that's  why  I  got  married. 

"But  none  the  less  I  heartily  envy  you  your  trip.  I  think 
maybe  I'll  take  a  vacation  on  the  road  this  summer  just  for  ducks 
and  to  gather  material,  or  rather,  to  freshen  up  what  I  have  long 
since  accreted — how  would  you  judge  of  my  use  of  that  last  word? 

''Smart  Set?  I  may  go  in  for  one  of  the  lesser  prizes.  Can't 
tell  yet.  Outing  has  asked  a  bunch  of  Northland  stories  of  me 
and  I  am  busy  hammering  away  at  them  just  now." 


MARRIAGE  TO  BESSIE  MADDERN  343 

In  the  next  letter,  June  16,  he  winds  up  advice  to  writers : 

*  * .  .  .  Pour  all  yourself  into  your  work  until  your  work  becomes 
you,  but  nowhere  let  yourself  be  apparent.  When,  in  the  'Ebb 
Tide,'  the  schooner  is  at  the  pearl  island,  and  the  missionary 
pearler  meets  those  three  desperate  men  and  puts  his  will  against 
theirs  for  life  or  death,  does  the  reader  think  Stevenson  ?  .  .  .  Nay, 
nay.  Afterwards,  when  all  is  over,  he  recollects,  and  wonders  and 
loves  Stevenson — but  at  the  time?  Not  he  .  .  .  study  your  Be- 
loved's 'Ebb  Tide.'  .  .  .  Study  your  detestable  Kipling.  Study 
them  and  see  how  they  eliminate  themselves  and  create  things  that 
live,  and  breathe,  and  grip  men,  and  cause  reading  lamps  to  burn 
overtime.  Atmosphere  stands  always  for  the  elimination  of  the 
artist,  that  is  to  say,  the  atmosphere  is  the  artist.  .  .  . 

"...  Think  it  over  and  see  if  you  catch  what  I  am  driving  at. 
Of  course,  if  you  intend  fiction,  then  write  fiction  from  the  highest 
standpoint  of  fiction.  .  .  .  Put  in  life,  and  movement — and  for 
God 's  sake  no  creaking.  Damn  you !  Forget  you !  And  then  the 
world  will  remember  you.  .  .  .  Pour  all  yourself  into  your  work 
until  your  work  becomes  you,  but  nowhere  let  yourself  be  ap- 
parent. ' ' 

Upon  a  long-coveted  day  when,  debts  cleared  and 
cash  left  in  pocket,  for  once  square  with  the  world,  Jack 
strolled  along  Oakland's  Broadway,  it  occurred  to  him  that 
he  could  actually  step  into  any  of  the  familiar  shops  and 
purchase  things  that  had  burned  in  his  desire  since  he 
could  remember.  Smiling  to  himself,  he  stopped  before  one 
window  after  another  until  he  came  to  halt  beside  some 
small  boys  gloating  and  whispering  before  a  candy  store 
display.  And  suddenly  an  emptiness  gnawed  in  him — some- 
thing had  gone  out  of  his  life.  It  was  too  late — desire 
had  fled  upon  tired  wings,  and  there  was  nothing  that  he, 
with  silver  at  last  heavy  in  his  pocket  of  excellent  cloth, 
cared  to  buy.  It  came  with  a  shock.  From  the  pocket  he 
withdrew  a  hand  bulging  with  loose  change  and  bestowed 
it  upon  the  little  boys,  with  a  catch  in  his  throat  almost 
marveling  at  the  eagerness  in  their  faces — which  turned 


344      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

into  something  akin  to  suspicion,  for  a  man  must  be  crazy 
to  shell  out  so  much  money  at  one  time.  And  Jack  passed 
on  sadly  enough,  doubtlessly  a  trifle  sorry  for  himself. 
** There  wasn't  a  thing  I  wanted  any  more,"  he  told  his 
sister.    *'It  had  come  too  late." 

Jack  and  his  wife  take  a  holiday  at  the  seashore,  at 
Santa  Cruz,  upon  return  from  which  he  writes : 

**July  23,  1900. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: — 

**Back  from  vacation  at  lastl  And  hard  at  it.  This  is  thirty- 
fifth  letter.    Ye  Gods! 

"Did  I  tell  you  McClure  has  bought  me  (as  you  would  call  it), 
but  as  I  would  say,  has  agreed  to  advance  me  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  per  month  for  five  months  in  order  that  I  may  try  my 
hand  at  a  novel  ?  Well,  it  is  so,  and  I  start  in  shortly,  though  filled 
with  dismay  in  anticipation. 

**Did  you  read  that  storiette  of  mine  *  Semper  Idem;  Semper 
Fidelis'?  About  fifteen  hundred  words,  dealing  with  a  man  who 
cut  his  throat,  bungled  it,  was  cautioned  by  the  doctor  at  the  hos- 
pital as  to  how  he  might  bungle  it,  and  who  went  out,  profited  by 
the  advice,  and  did  it  successfully?  Well,  I  have  sent  it  every- 
where. At  last  I  sent  it  to  Black  Cat.  I  would  have  sold  it  for  a 
dollar.  But  the  Black  Cat  gave  me  a  sort  of  poor  mouth,  said  it 
had  hospital  stuff  to  last  it  two  years,  etc.,  and  that  under  the 
circumstances  it  could  only  offer  me  fifty  dollars  for  it !  Say !  Most 
took  my  breath  away.  A  fifteen  hundred  word  sketch,  *  The  Husky, ' 
I  refused  to  sell  some  time  ago  for  $3.50,  and  Harper^s  Weekly 
bought  it  for  twenty  dollars.  Say,  those  hang  fire  MSS.  seem  the 
best  after  all.*' 

The  next  letter,  dated  July  31, 1900,  is  to  Anna  Strunsky : 

*  *  Comrades !  and  surely  it  seems  so.  For  all  the  petty  surface 
turmoil  which  marked  our  coming  to  know  each  other,  really,  deep 
down,  there  was  no  confusion  at  all.  Did  you  not  notice  it?  To 
me,  while  I  said,  'You  do  not  understand,'  I  none  the  less  felt  the 
happiness  of  satisfaction — how  shall  I  say?  felt,  rather,  that  there 
was  no  inner  conflict ;  that  we  were  attuned,  somehow ;  that  a  real 


MARRIAGE  TO  BESSIE  MADDERN  345 

unity  underlaid  everything.  The  ship,  new-launched,  rushes  to 
the  sea;  the  sliding-ways  rebel  in  weakling  creaks  and  groans; 
but  sea  and  ship  hear  them  not :  So  with  us  when  we  rushed  into 
each  other's  lives — we,  the  real  we,  were  undisturbed.  Comrades! 
Ay,  world  without  end! 

**And  now,  comrade  mine,  how  long  are  those  Shakespeare 
papers  to  keep  you  from  *  Consciousness  of  Kindt*  You  know  how 
anxiously  I  wait  the  outcome,  and  how  much  you  have  improved. 
And  Anna,  read  your  classics,  but  don't  forget  to  read  that  which 
is  of  to-day,  the  new-bom  literary  art.  You  must  get  the  modern 
touch ;  form  must  be  considered ;  and  while  art  is  eternal,  form  is 
born  of  the  generations.  And  0,  Anna,  if  you  will  only  put  your 
flashing  soul  with  its  protean  moods  on  paper!  What  you  need  is 
the  form,  or,  in  other  words,  the  expression.  Get  this  and  the 
world  is  at  your  feet. 

**And  when  are  we  to  read  *The  Flight  of  the  Duchess'?  And 
when  are  you  coming  overt" 

*'Sept.  9/00. 
*'Dear  Cloudesley: — 

**  So  am  I  up  against  it — and  just  got  started  against  it.  Am 
winding  up  the  first  chapter  of  novel  [*A  Daughter  of  the  Snows']. 
Since  it  is  my  first  attempt,  I  have  chosen  a  simple  subject  and 
shall  simply  endeavor  to  make  it  true,  artistic,  and  interesting. 
But  afterward,  when  I  have  learned  better  how  to  handle  a  sus- 
tained effort,  I  shall  choose  a  greater  subject.    I  wish  I  were  done. 

**.  .  .  There  are  a  number  of  Le  Gallienne's  quatrains  which  I 
like  better  than  corresponding  quatrains  of  Fitzgerald's.  Perhaps 
the  literary  mentors  will  not  bear  me  out  in  this,  but  none  the  less, 
so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  it  is  so.  .  .  . 

*'Am  beginning  to  take  exercise  once  again.  Indian  clubs, 
jumping,  etc.,  every  day,  wheelrides  every  day,  and  baths  three 
or  four  times  per  week — swimming  I  mean.  Am  just  back  from 
practising  in  diving,  and  am  stiff  and  sore  with  practising  front 
and  back  somersaults.  .  .  .  Expect  to  take  up  fencing  later  on, 
and  the  gloves,  and  shooting.  It  is  Voltaire,  I  believe,  who  said: 
'  The  body  of  an  athlete  and  the  soul  of  a  sage ;  that  is  happiness.  * 
I  am  trying  to  assimilate  Spencer's  philosophy  just  now,  so  there 
is  a  chance  that  I  may  yet  attain  to  happiness.'' 


346      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Meanwhile,  Jack  and  Anna  had  formulated  the  project 
of  writing  in  collaboration,  to  thresh  out  their  opposing 
ideas  by  means  of  a  correspondence  as  between  two  men, 
upon  the  subject  of  Love. 

To  Mr.  Johns,  Oct.  17,  1900,  Jack  mentions  this  work : 

** Didn't  I  explain  my  volume  of  letters?  Well,  it's  this  way: 
A  young  Russian  Jewess  of  'Frisco  and  myself  have  often  quar- 
reled over  our  conceptions  of  love.  She  happens  to  be  a  genius. 
She  is  also  a  materialist  by  philosophy,  and  an  idealist  by  innate 
preference,  and  is  constantly  being  forced  to  twist  all  the  facts  of 
the  Tuiiverse  in  order  to  reconcile  herself  with  herself.  So,  finally, 
we  decided  that  the  only  way  to  argue  the  question  out  would  be 
by  letter.  Then  we  wondered  if  a  collection  of  such  letters  should 
happen  to  be  worth  publishing.  Then  we  assumed  characters,  threw 
in  a  real  objective  love  element,  and  started  to  work.  Of  course, 
don't  know  yet  how  it  will  turn  out.  We're  both  doing  some  very 
good  work — in  spots ;  but  we  are  agreed,  in  case  they  merit  it,  to 
go  over  when  we  are  done. ' ' 

*'Nov.  27th. 
"Dear  Anna: — 

"I  have  been  sitting  here  crying,  like  a  big  baby.  I  have  just 
finished  reading  *Jude  the  Obscure.'  Perhaps  it  is  not  as  great  as 
'  Tess, '  but  in  a  way  it  is  greater.  When  are  you  coming  over  that 
I  may  lend  it  to  youf  With  two  such  books  to  his  name  Hardy 
should  die  content.  Well  may  he  look  upon  his  work  and  call  it 
good. 

*'Jack." 

To  Mr.  Johns,  Dec.  10, 1900 : 

**You  can't  get  away  from  the  materialistic  conception  of  his- 
tory. .  .  .  Ideas  do  not  rule,  never  have  ruled;  where  they  have 
appeared  to  rule,  it  was  merely  because  economic  or  material  con- 
ditions were  such  as  to  have  first  generated  the  ideas,  and  sec- 
ondly, to  have  been  in  harmony  with  the  working  of  them." 

And  Dec.  22: 

**Yes,  after  much  delay,  I  captured  Cosmopolitan  prize.  I  flat- 
ter myself  that  I  am  one  of  the  rare  socialists  who  have  ever  sue- 


MARRIAGE  TO  BESSIE  MADDERN  347 

ceeded  in  making  money  out  of  their  socialism.  Apropos  of  this, 
I  send  you  copy  of  a  letter  received  day  before  yesterday  from 
Brisbane  Walker.  Of  course  I  shall  not  accept  it.  I  do  not  wish 
to  be  bound.  Which  same  you  do  think  I  am.  Not  so.  McClure's 
have  not  bound  me,  nor  will  they.  [This  refers  to  the  offer  of  an 
editorship.]  I  want  to  be  free,  to  write  of  what  delights  me,  when- 
soever and  wheresoever  it  delights  me.  No  ofiBce  work  for  me;  no 
routine;  no  doing  this  set  task  and  that  set  task.  No  man  over 
me.  I  think  McClure's  have  recognized  this,  and  will  treat  me 
accordingly.  Aside  from  pecuniary  considerations,  I  think  they 
are  the  best  publishers,  or  magazine  editors,  in  their  personal  deal- 
ings, that  I  have  run  across. 

"Speaking  of  illustrations,  did  you  see  how  beautifully  Ainslie^s 
did  by  my  story  in  December  number?  Incidentally,  without 
asking  my  permission,  here  and  there  they  succeeded  in  cutting 
out  fully  five  hundred  words,  which  I  shall  reinsert  when  published 
in  book  form.  I  suppose  the  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  they 
paid  for  it  was  considered  sufficient  justification  for  mangling.'* 

On  the  day  after  Christmas,  be  wrote  to  Anna : 

** Comrade  Mine: — 

**Thus  it  was  I  intended  addressing  you  a  Christmas  greeting, 
saying,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  for  you,  the  finest  thing  in  the  world. 
But  it  was  impossible.  For  a  week  I  have  been  suffering  from  the 
blues,  during  which  time  I  have  not  done  a  stroke  of  work.  Am 
writing  this  with  cold  fingers,  at  six  in  the  morning — going  for  a 
day  on  the  water,  fishing,  shooting,  etc.,  to  see  if  there  are  any 
curative  forces  left  in  the  universe. 

**Ah,  we  refuse  not  to  speak,  and  yet  we  speak  brokenly  and 
stumblinglyl  True,  too  true.  The  paradox  of  social  existence, 
to  be  truthful,  we  lie ;  to  live  true,  we  live  untruthfully.  The  social 
wisdom  is  a  thing  of  great  worth — to  the  mass.  For  the  few  it  is 
a  torment,  upon  it  they  are  crucified — not  for  their  salvation,  but 
for  the  salvation  of  the  mass.  I  grow,  sometimes,  almost  to  hate 
the  mass,  to  sneer  at  dreams  of  reform.  To  be  superior  to  the 
mass  is  to  be  the  slave  of  the  mass.  The  mass  knows  no  slavery. 
It  is  the  task  master. 

"But  how  does  this  concern  you  and  met    Ah,  does  it  not  con- 


348      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

cern  us?  We  may  refuse  not  to  speak,  yet  we  speak  brokenly  and 
stumblingly — because  of  the  mass.  The  tyranny  of  the  crowd,  as 
I  suppose  Gerald  Stanley  Lee  would  put  it.  As  for  me,  just  when 
freedom  seems  opening  up  to  me,  I  feel  the  bands  tightening  and 
the  riveting  of  the  gyves.  I  remember,  now,  when  I  was  free. 
When  there  was  no  restraint,  and  I  did  what  the  heart  willed. 
Yes,  one  restraint,  the  Law;  but  when  one  willed,  one  could  fight 
the  law,  and  break  or  be  broken.  But  now,  one's  hands  are  tied, 
one  may  not  fight,  but  only  yield  and  bow  the  neck.  After  all, 
the  sailor  on  the  sea  and  the  worker  in  the  shop  are  not  so  bur- 
dened. To  break  or  be  broken,  there  they  stand.  But  to  be  broken 
while  not  daring  to  break,  there's  the  rub. 

**I  could  almost  advocate  a  return  to  nature  this  dark  morning. 
A  happiness  to  me? — added  unto  me? — why,  you  have  been  a 
delight  to  me,  dear,  and  a  glory.  Need  I  add,  a  trouble?  For  the 
things  we  love  are  the  things  which  hurt  us  as  well  as  the  things 
we  hurt.  Ah,  believe  me,  believe  me.  *I  have  not  winced  or  cried 
aloud.'  The  things  unsaid  are  the  greatest.  Surely,  sitting  here, 
gathering  data,  classifying,  arranging ;  writing  stories  for  boys  with 
moral  purposes  insidiously  inserted;  hammering  away  at  a  thou- 
sand words  a  day ;  growing  genuinely  excited  over  biological  objec- 
tions; thrusting  a  bit  of  fun  at  you  and  raising  a  laugh,  when  it 
should  have  been  a  sob — surely  all  this  is  not  all.  What  you  have 
been  to  me?  I  am  not  great  enough  or  brave  enough  to  say.  This 
false  thing,  which  the  world  would  call  my  conscience,  will  not 
permit  me.  But  it  is  not  mine:  it  is  the  social  conscience,  the 
world's  which  goes  with  the  world's  leg-bar  chain.  A  white  beau- 
tiful friendship  ? — between  a  man  and  a  woman  ? — ^the  world  cannot 
imagine  such  a  thing,  would  deem  it  inconceivable  as  infinity  or 
non-infinity." 


CHAPTER  XXI 

letters:  cloudesley  johns  and  anna  strunsky 

LETTERS  opening  the  year  1901,  hint  at  Jack's  general 
state  of  inner  consciousness,  his  worldly  condition, 
and  sentiments  on  the  consummation  of  fatherhood,  so 
dearly  desired  from  merest  boyhood. 

*'1130  East  15th  St.,  Jan.  5/01. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: — 

"...  I  have  written  probably  one  hundred  and  ten  thousand 
this  [past]  year,  against  your  ninety -odd;  but  I  think  that  I  loafed 
or  did  other  things  less,  and  that  each  thousand  took  me  longer 
than  each  of  your  thousands  did  you. 

*  *  To  tell  you  the  truth,  Cloudesley,  I  have  n  *t  had  any  decent 
work  published  recently — work  which  I  would  care  to  have  you 
read — socialistic  essay  excepted,  and  that  I  was  unable  to  get  a 
whack  at  in  the  proofsheets. 

**.  .  .  Christmas  is  just  past.  Further  a  friend  has  taken  up 
writing  with  seven  children  and  an  undeveloped  ability,  which  said 
friend  I  have  been  helping  to  finance.  Another,  both  ankles  broken 
badly  some  time  since.  Then  my  mother,  to  whose  pension  I  add 
thirty  dollars  each  month,  got  back  in  her  debts  and  I  have  just 
finished  straightening  her  out.  And  my  Mammie  Jennie  (negro 
foster  mother)  came  down  upon  me  for  December  quarterly  pay- 
ment of  interest  on  mortgage,  and  delinquent  taxes.  Furthermore, 
within  a  week  I  expect  my  wife  to  be  confined.  .  .  .  January  check 
non  est,  and  I  have  been  going  along  on  borrowed  money  since 
before  Christmas.** 

**  Sunday  Morning,  Jan.  6/01. 
**Dear  Anna: — 

**I  had  intended  writing  you  yesterday,  asking  you  to  come 
over  Monday  evening  and  go  with  me  to  that  equal  suffragist  club 

840 


350      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

before  which  Whitaker  was  to  read.  Then  Tuesday  I  could  have 
taken  your  picture.  But  I  had  forgotten  Mrs.  Gowell's  lec- 
tures. .  .  .  Also  found  out  that  Monday  was  not  the  night  and 
that  we  would  have  our  regular  boxing  bout. 

"So  Saturday,  but  come  early  ...  so  that  I  may  take  advan- 
tage of  the  sun.  This,  then,  be  the  qualification :  if  I  do  not  tele- 
phone you  otherwise.  Possibly  ere  that  time,  the  boy — I  do  pray 
for  a  boy — shall  have  arrived.  In  which  case,  you  must  come.  So 
Saturday,  early.  .  .  .  My  birthday.  A  quarter  of  a  century  of 
breath.    I  feel  very  old. 

*  *  Of  the  New  Comer,  I  thank  you  for  what  you  say.  It  will  be 
in  itself  a  dear  consummation.  Then  must  come  the  patient  deter- 
mining. And,  O  Anna,  it  must  be  make  or  break.  No  whining 
puny  breed.  It  must  be  great  and  strong.  Or — ^the  penalty  must 
be  paid.    By  it,  by  me;  one  or  the  other.    So  be. 

* '  I  shall  be  glad  to  go  in  for  the  Ibsen  circle.  I  need  more  of 
that  in  my  life.'' 

**Feb.  4/01. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: — 

*  *  Not  dead,  but  rushed  as  usual.  Have  got  down  to  my  regular 
five  hours  and  a  half  sleep  again  and  running  by  the  clock.  Am 
just  answering  a  whole  stack  of  letters. 

^^  Well,  there 's  no  accounting  for  things.  I  did  so  ardently  long 
to  be  a  father,  that  it  seemed  impossible  that  such  a  happiness 
should  be  mine.  But  it  is.  And  a  damn  fine,  healthy  youngster. 
"Weighed  nine  and  a  half  pounds  at  birth,  which  they  say  is  good 
for  a  girl.  Up  to  date  has  shown  a  good  stomach  and  lack  of  ail- 
ments, for  it  does  nothing  but  eat  and  sleep,  or  lie  awake  for  a 
straight  hour  without  a  whimper.  Intend  to  call  her  *  Joan.'  Tell 
me  how  you  like  it,  what  associations  it  calls  up. 

**.  .  .  As  regards  *  bumming  by  force  from  peoples  inhabiting 
lands  we  cannot  thrive  in  ? '  Does  not  our  modern  slavery  serve  to 
deteriorate  us,  affecting  our  own  government  ?  While  counting  the 
profit  you  must  not  ignore  the  loss.  ...  Do  you  not  realize  that 
whatever  is  *is  right  and  wise.'  Certainly  it  may  be  made  wiser 
and  more  right  in  the  natural  course  of  evolution  (and  then  again 
it  mayn't),  but  the  point  is  that  it  is  the  best  possible  under  the 
circumstances.     Given  so  much  matter,  and  so  much  force,  and 


CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  AND  ANNA  STRUNSKY  351 

beginning  at  the  beginning  of  things  as  regards  this  our  world,  do 
you  not  know  that  it  could  not  have  worked  out  in  any  other  way, 
nay,  not  in  the  least  jot  or  tittle  could  it  have  been  other  than  it 
was.    We  may  make  it  better ;  and  then  again  we  may  not. 

**A8  Dr.  Ross  somewhere  says:  *  Evolution  is  no  kindly  mother 
to  us.  We  do  not  know  what  moment  it  may  turn  against  us  and 
destroy  us.'  Don't  you  see;  I  speak  not  of  the  things  that  should 
be;  nor  of  the  things  I  should  like  to  be;  but  I  do  speak  of  the 
things  that  are  and  will  be.  I  should  like  to  have  socialism ;  yet  I 
know  that  socialism  is  not  the  very  next  step ;  I  know  that  capital- 
ism must  live  its  life  first.  That  the  world  must  be  exploited  to 
the  utmost  first ;  that  first  must  intervene  a  struggle  for  life  among 
the  nations,  severer,  intenser,  more  widespread,  than  ever  before. 
I  should  much  more  prefer  to  wake  to-morrow  in  a  smoothly-run- 
ning socialistic  state;  but  I  know  I  shall  not;  I  know  it  cannot 
come  that  way.  I  know  that  a  child  must  go  through  its  child's 
sicknesses  ere  it  becomes  a  man.  So,  always,  remember  that  I 
speak  of  the  things  that  are ;  not  of  the  things  that  should  be. 

**Find  enclosed  Cosmopolitan  letters.  I  stood  off  first  one  and 
wrote  to  McClure's.  They  have  agreed  to  go  on  with  me,  giving  me 
utter  freedom.  So  you  see,  at  least  they  have  not  bought  me  body 
and  soul.  Honestly,  they  are  the  most  human  editors  I  ever  dealt 
with.  When  I  think  about  them,  it  is  more  as  very  dear  friends, 
than  people  I  am  doing  business  with.  However,  in  refusing  Cos- 
mopolitan offer,  which  meant  giving  up  freedom,  I  think  I  have 
acted  for  the  best.    What  think  you?" 

'*Feb.  13/01. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: — 

**  Well,  I  am  on  the  home  stretch  of  the  novel,  and  it  is  a  failure. 
This  is  not  said  in  a  fit  of  the  blues,  but  from  calm  conviction. 
However,  on  the  other  hand,  I  have  learned  a  great  deal  concerning 
the  writing  of  novels.  On  this  one  which  I  have  attempted,  I 
could  write  three  books  of  equal  size  showing  wherein  I  failed,  and 
why,  and  laying  down  principles  violated,  etc.  0,  it's  been  a  great 
study.  I  shall  be  at  work  finishing  it  for  the  rest  of  the  month — 
you  know  I  always  finish  whatever  I  begin.  I  never  leave  a  thing 
in  such  a  state  that  in  the  time  to  come  haunting  thoughts  may 
creep  in — *If  I  only  had  gone  on,'  etc. 


352      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

**McClure's  are  getting  ready  to  bring  out  a  second  collection 
of  Klondike  stories — not  so  good  as  the  first,  however. 

**  March  I  shall  take  a  vacation,  and  April  I  intend  writing  my 
long-deferred  *Salt  of  the  Earth.'  .  .  . 

**I  see  you  laugh  at  me  and  my  optimistic  philosophy.  So  be. 
I  only  wish  you  would  study  up  the  materialistic  conception  of 
history,  then  you  would  understand  my  position.'' 

Again  Jack  moves  his  family,  this  time  to  an  ornate 
Italian  villa,  **La  Capriecioso,"  on  the  shores  of  Oakland's 
pleasure-pond,  Lake  Merritt,  designed  and  built  by  his 
good  friend  the  sculptor,  Felix  Peano : 

**1062  First  Avenue, 
**  Oakland,  Calif., 
'*  March  15/01. 
"Dear  Cloudesley: — 

**Note  by  address  that  I  have  moved.  Last  seen  of  old  house 
there  was  a  foot  and  a  half  of  water  under  it,  and  the  back  yard  a 
lake.  Am  much  more  finely  situated  now,  nearer  to  Oakland,  with 
finer  view,  surroundings,  air,  etc.,  etc.  Do  you  remember  Lake 
Merritt? — a  body  of  water  which  you  might  have  seen  from  the 
electric  cars  on  the  way  to  my  place  from  down  town.  I  am  located 
right  near  it,  and  believe,  with  a  sling  shot  from  the  roof  of  the 
house,  that  I  could  throw  a  stone  into  it. 

**  Shall  have  the  novel  done  in  ten  days,  now ^N.G.     [**No 

Good''].    But  I  know  I  shall  be  able  to  do  a  good  one  yet. 

**.  .  .  Mr.  Whitaker  is  selling  some  of  his  work,  now — Ainslie's, 
The  S.  S.  McClure,  Munsey's,  etc.,  etc.    He's  picking  up. 

*'Jack." 

'*  April  1/01. 
*'Dear  Cloudesley: — 

**The  novel  is  off  at  last,  and  right  glad  am  I  that  it  is.  .  .  . 

**I  send  herewith  a  letter  from  Town  Topics.  They  are  paying 
two  dollars  for  jokes  now,  and  if  you  have  any  it  wouldn't  be  a 
bad  idea  to  send  them  along.  I  do  not  know  much  about  joke 
writing,  but  I  wouldn't  send  jokes  in  a  bunch.  I  sent  fouv  triolets 
(the  only  four  I  ever  wrote),  to  Town  Topics.    They  took  one,  and 


CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  AND  ANNA  STRUNSKY    353 

sent  three  back.  Later  I  resent  one  of  the  triolets:  they  took  it. 
Later  I  resent  another :  they  took  it.  But  they  balked  on  the  fourth. 
**.  .  .  By  all  means  .  .  .  come  somewhere  and  live  in  the  cen- 
ter of  things.  In  this  day  one  cannot  isolate  one's  self  and  do  any- 
thing. Get  you  a  big  city  anywhere,  and  plunge  into  it  and  live 
and  meet  people  and  things.  If  you  believe  that  man  is  the  creature 
of  his  en\*tronment,  then  you  cannot  afford  to  remain  'way  off  there 
on  the  edge  of  things.*' 

**  April  3/01. 
**Dear  Anna: — 

"Did  I  say  that  the  human  might  be  filed  in  categories T  Well, 
and  if  I  did,  let  me  qualify — not  all  humans.  You  elude  me.  I 
cannot  place  you,  cannot  grasp  you.  I  may  boast  that  of  nine  out 
of  ten,  under  given  circumstances,  I  can  forecast  their  action ;  that 
of  nine  out  of  ten,  by  their  word,  or  action,  I  may  feel  the  pulse  of 
their  hearts.  But  the  tenth  I  despair.  It  is  beyond  me.  You  are 
that  tenth. 

**Were  ever  two  souls,  with  dumb  lips,  more  incongruously 
matched  I  We  may  feel  in  common — surely,  we  ofttimes  do — and 
when  we  do  not  feel  in  common,  yet  do  we  understand ;  and  yet  we 
have  no  common  tongue.  Spoken  words  do  not  come  to  us.  We 
are  unintelligible.     Gbd  must  laugh  at  the  mummery. 

**The  one  gleam  of  sanity  through  it  all  is  that  we  are  both 
large  temperamentally,  large  enough  to  often  misunderstand. 
True,  we  often  understand  but  in  vague  glimmering  ways,  by  dim 
perceptions,  like  ghosts,  which,  while  we  doubt,  haunt  us  with 
their  truth.  And  still,  I,  for  one,  dare  not  believe;  for  you  are 
that  tenth  which  I  may  not  forecast. 

**Am  I  unintelligible  nowT  I  do  not  know.  I  imagine  so.  I 
cannot  find  the  common  tongue. 

*  *  Largely  temperamentally — that  is  it.  It  is  the  one  thing  that 
brings  us  at  all  in  touch.  We  have,  flashed  through  us,  you  and  I, 
each  a  bit  of  the  universal,  and  so  we  draw  together.  And  yet  we 
are  so  different. 

* '  I  smile  at  you  when  you  grow  enthusiastic  T  It  is  a  forgivable 
smile — nay,  almost  an  envious  smile.  I  have  lived  twenty-five  years 
of  repression.  I  learned  not  to  be  enthusiastic.  It  is  a  hard  lesson 
to  forget.    I  begin  to  forgot,  but  it  is  so  little.    At  the  best,  before 


354      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

I  die,  I  cannot  hope  to  forget  all  or  most.  I  can  exult,  now  that  I 
am  learning,  in  little  things,  in  other  things ;  but  of  my  things,  and 
secret  things  double  mine,  I  cannot,  I  cannot.  Do  I  make  myself 
intelligible?  Do  you  hear  my  voice?  I  fear  not.  There  are 
poseurs.    I  am  the  most  successful  of  them  all. 

*'Jack." 

*' April  8/01. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: — 

*  *  I  am  sending  you  herewith  pictures  of  the  youngster  at  three 
weeks  and  two  months. 

"Every  man,  at  the  beginning  of  his  career  (whether  laying 
bricks  or  writing  books  or  anything  else),  has  two  choices.  He 
may  choose  immediate  happiness,  or  ultimate  happiness.  .  .  .  He 
who  chooses  ultimate  happiness,  and  has  the  ability,  and  works 
hard,  will  find  that  the  reward  for  effort  is  cumulative,  that  the 
interest  on  his  energy  invested  is  compounded.  The  artisan  who  is 
industrious,  steady,  reliant,  is  suddenly,  one  day,  advanced  to  a 
foremanship  with  increased  wages.  Now  is  that  advance  due  to 
what  he  did  that  day,  or  the  day  before  ?  Ah,  no,  it  is  due  to  the 
long  years  of  industry  and  steadiness.  The  same  with  the  reputa- 
tion of  a  business  man  or  artist.  The  thing  grows,  compounds. 
He  is  not  only  *paid  for  having  done  something  once  upon  a  time,* 
as  you  put  it,  but  he  has  been  paid  for  continuing  to  do  something 
through  quite  a  period  of  time.  .  .  . 

**0  no.  My  *  incentive'  is  not  the  *  assurance  of  being  able  some 
day  to  sell  any  sort  of  work  on  the  strength  of  a  name.'  Every 
year  we  have  writers,  old  writers,  crowded  out — men,  who  once 
had  names,  but  who  had  gained  them  wrongfully,  or  had  not  done 
the  work  necessary  to  maintain  them.  In  its  way,  the  struggle  for 
a  man  with  a  name,  to  maintain  the  standard  by  which  he  gained 
that  name,  is  as  severe  as  the  struggle  for  the  unknown  to  make  a 
name. 

**Jack  London.*' 

**Harold,  April  13,  190L 
**Dear  Jack: — 

*  * .  .  .  Thanks  for  photos :  my  mother  asked  a  while  ago  if  you 
had  sent  any  of  *the  small  one'  yet.    They  are  woefully  helpless 


CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  AND  ANNA  STRUNSKY    355 

and  stupid  things — human  infants — yet  it  is  wonderful  what  ex- 
pression they  sometimes  have.  That  of  Miss  London  at  two  months 
impresses  me  as  distinctly  weird,  as  if  she  were  perplexed  by  some 
weighty  problem.  I  believe  the  mystery  of  existence  agitates  the 
mind  at  even  so  early  a  stage  of  its  development  as  that. 

'*N.B.  I  think  your  machine  needs  boiling — ^try  brushing  the 
types  for  a  starter  though. 

**Cloude8ley  Johns.*' 

''April  19/01. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: — 

*'I  agree  with  you  in  some  of  your  criticism  of  'The  Law  of 
Life,  *  but  not  in  all.  For  instance,  *  What  was  that  ? '  Remember, 
the  words  occur,  not  in  the  writer 's  narrative — in  such  a  place  your 
criticism  would  hold  good.  But  the  words  do  occur  in  the  mind 
of  the  Indian.  He  thinks  them.  And  that  it  is  the  most  natural 
thing  in  the  world  for  a  person  to  so  think  when  something  un- 
known or  unusual  occurs,  you  cannot  deny. 

"...  Did  I  tell  you  ? — novel  is  accepted  to  be  brought  out  this 
fall.    In  the  meantime  immediate  serial  publication  is  being  sought. 

'  *  Have  to  go  read  a  poem  over  a  coffin  to  satisfy  the  whim  of  a 
man  who  was  quick  and  is  now  dead ;  so  so  long.  *  * 

Saturday  evening,  April  26,  1901,  he  lectured  in  For- 
rester's Hall,  Alameda,  at  corner  of  Santa  Clara  Avenue 
and  Park  Street,  upon  tramp  experiences. 

Home  July  12,  from  a  vacation  which  he  wrote  Cloudes- 
ley was  a  longer  absence  than  he  had  intended,  Jack  sends 
Anna  the  letter  quoted  below.  And  right  here  it  is  well 
to  insert  Jack  London's  own  words  on  his  outlook  toward 
newspaper  work :  "I  could  have  made  a  good  deal  at  news- 
paper work;  but  I  had  sufficient  sense  to  refuse  to  be  a 
slave  to  that  man-killing  machine,  for  such  I  hold  a  news- 
paper to  be  to  a  young  man  in  his  forming  period.  Not 
until  I  was  well  on  my  feet  as  a  magazine  writer  did  I 
do  much  work  for  newspapers." 


356      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

**July  24/01. 
*'My  Little  CoUaborator  :— 

"Yes,  and  the  Yellow  is  dead — at  least  for  some  little  time  to 
come.    For  all  I  know,  I  may  be  doing  prize  fights  next. 

**  Explanations  are  hardly  necessary  between  you  and  me,  but 
this  case  merits  one  I  think.  Didn^t  get  home  till  the  middle  of 
the  day,  Monday.  Went  to  see  my  mother,  sister,  etc.  Tuesday 
went  to  Santa  Cruz  to  speak.  Came  back  Wednesday  and  pitched 
into  work  on  back  correspondence.  All  the  time  intending  to  take 
up  reply  to  Dane  Kempton*s  last  and  surprise  you  with  it.  But 
the  Sunday  Examiner  rushed  me  Thursday  to  have  a  freak  story 
in  by  Friday  noon.  And  Thursday  also  the  Daily  Examiner  clam- 
ored to  see  me  instanter.  Put  daily  off,  finished  Sunday  work  on 
time,  and  on  Friday  also  went  to  see  Daily  Examiner.  They  pro- 
posed the  Schutzenfest  to  me.  Saturday  I  started  reply  to  Dane 
Kempton  and  paid  bills.  And  on  Sunday  took  up  the  Schutzenfest 
and  have  been  at  it  steadily  for  ten  days,  publishing  in  to-day's 
Examiner  the  last  of  that  work.  My  whole  life  has  stood  still  for 
ten  days.  During  that  time  I  have  done  nothing  else.  Why,  so 
exhausting  was  it  that  my  five  and  one-half  hours  would  not  suffice 
and  I  had  to  sleep  over  seven. 

**And  just  now,  to-day,  as  I  sat  down  to  send  you  greeting, 
along  comes  yours  to  me.  I  kind  of  looked  for  you  to  be  over 
to-day,  though  little  right  had  I  to,  and  I  have  now  given  up  that 
idea. 

**And  further,  I  find  I  must  do  something  for  McClure^s  at 
once,  or  they  will  be  shutting  off  on  me.  So  I  am  springing  at  once 
into  a  short  story,  which  will  be  finished  by  end  of  week,  and  then 
the  Letters.  You  know  I  have  striven  to  be  on  time,  so  forgive  me 
this  once.  Tell  you  what  111  do,  if  you  don't  expect  to  be  out — 
see  you  on  Friday  afternoon.  Won't  be  able  to  stop  to  dinner, 
though,  for  have  to  go  to  6  :30  supper.  [This  was  the  delightful 
'Six-Thirty  Club,'  of  San  Francisco.]  If  I  do  miss  the  supper,  will 
be  dropped  from  the  rolls,  for  it  will  have  been  my  third  consecu- 
tive absence. 

**  Haven't  finished  *  Aurora  Leigh'  yet,  but  it  is  fine,  greater,  I 
think,  than  Wordsworth's  ('Excursion'  is  it?)  from  the  little  you 
read  me  of  it." 


CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  AND  ANNA  STRUNSKY    357 

Early  October  finds  Jack  broken  with  S.  S.  McClure, 
and  again  moved,  this  time  a  little  higher  toward  the  west- 
em  hills,  with  a  long-envied  view  of  the  Golden  Gate  across 
the  Bay.  "With  each  change  of  residence,  he  had  a  new 
rubber-stamp  made  for  letter-heading: 

**Jack  London, 
**56  Bayo  Vista  Avenue, 

**  Oakland,  Calif., 
**  October  9/01. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: 

**Note  change  of  address.  Am  now  living  out  on  the  hills.  .  .  . 
And  how's  New  York!  Are  you  going  to  settle  down  to  writing 
for  the  winter?  I  nearly  shipped  across  on  a  cattle  boat  when  I 
was  on  the  road,  but  somehow  didn  *t. 

**Am  free  lance  again.  Have  just  finished  a  3700- word  defense 
of  Kipling  against  the  rising  tide  of  adverse  criticism.  Did  you 
see  the  attack  in  current  Cosmopolitan  f 

"...  Well,  haven't  much  news.  Am  hard  at  it.  That  series 
of  letters  with  Miss  Strunsky  is  three-fifths  through.  That  is  to 
say,  we  have  three-fifths  of  a  book  done.  Though  the  Lord  only 
knows  what  publisher  will  dare  tackle  it.  Also,  am  hammering 
away  at  a  series  of  Klondike  tales,  which  I  shall  assemble  under 
the  title  *The  Children  of  the  Frost.'  They  are  all  to  be  done 
from  the  Indian  approach,  you  know." 

Two  letters  unfold  the  first  intimation  that  Jack  Lon- 
don wanted  to  widen  his  field  by  getting  away  from  Alaska  : 

**Nov.  8/01. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: — 

**0f  course  the  painter  has  to  quit  painting  bears,  but  he  has 
first  to  gather  together  his  itinerary  and  select  his  route.  (Say,  is 
that  what  they  call  a  mixed  metaphor!) 

** Anyway,  it's  the  same  old  story.  A  man  does  one  thing  in  a 
passable  manner  and  the  dear  public  insists  on  his  continuing  to 
do  it  to  the  end  of  his  days.    0  the  humorists  who  try  to  be  serious ! 

**.  .  .  that  letter  series  Miss  Strunsky  and  I  are  writing!  Well, 
we\e  got  past  the  forty -thousand  mark  and  the  goal  is  in  sight. 


358      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Gee!  I  wonder  how  you'll  jump  upon  it.  My  contention  is  the 
same  as  I  heard  you  make  once:  That  propinquity  determines 
choice.  Yet  I  am  sure  you  will  be  after  my  scalp  before  you  finish 
it — ^that  is,  if  we  can  entice  a  publisher  into  getting  it  out. 

*'Whitaker  has  just  sold  a  story  to  Cosmopolitan.  Rah  for 
Whitaker !    0,  he 's  going  it  scientifically. 

"I  wouldn't  mind  being  with  you  next  spring  when  you  pull 
out  for  the  old  countries. 

**Co8grave  mentioned  having  several  interesting  conversations 
with  you,  and  that  he  expected  to  get  some  tramp  work  from  you. 
How  is  it  coming  on?" 

**Dec.  6/01. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: — 

**  Nothing  doing.  Am  hammering  away  in  seclusion,  trying  to 
get  out  of  Alaska.  Guess  I'll  succeed  in  accomplishing  it  in  a 
couple  of  years. 

**.  .  .  Wyckoff  is  not  a  tramp  authority.  He  doesn't  under- 
stand the  real  tramp.  Josiah  Flynt  is  the  tramp  authority. 
Wyckoff  only  knows  the  workingman,  the  stake-man,  and  the 
bindle-stiff.  The  prof esh  are  unknown  to  him.  Wyckoff  is  a  gay- 
cat.    That  was  his  rating  when  he  wandered  over  the  States. 

*  *  Well,  good  luck  on  the  way  to  Cuba !  Wish  I  were  with  you. 
I  am  rotting  here  in  town.  Really,  I  can  feel  the  bourgeois  fear 
crawling  up  and  up  and  twining  around  me.  If  I  don't  get  out 
soon  I  shall  be  emasculated.  The  city  folk  are  a  poor  folk  anyway. 
To  hell  with  them." 

Upon  a  not  much  later  date,  Jack  London  wrote:  ** Al- 
though primarily  of  the  city,  I  like  to  be  near  it  rather  than 
in  it.  The  country,  though,  is  the  best,  the  only  natural 
life.'' 

At  the  time  he  expressed  the  foregoing,  I  also  find  this : 
**I  think  the  best  work  I  have  done  is  in  the  *  League  of  the 
Old  Men,'  ['* Children  of  the  Frost"  collection]  and  parts 
of  *The  Kempton-Wace  Letters.'  Other  people  don't  like 
the  former.  They  prefer  brighter  and  more  cheerful  things. 
Perhaps  I  shall  feel  like  that,  too,  when  the  days  of  my 
youth  are  behind  me. ' '    But  he  never  changed,  always  con- 


CLOUDESLEY  JOHNS  AND  ANNA  STRUNSKY    359 

sidering  *'The  League  of  the  Old  Men*'  his  finest  story. 
Concerning  the  ' ' Kempton-Wace  Letters,'*  note  the  follow- 
ing two  communications,  undated,  to  Anna  Strunsky: 

**Dear  Anna: — 

**Your  letter  is  a  splendid,  a  delicately  splendid  addition  to  the 
book.    I  am  anxious  to  see  it  in  type.    I  want  to  see  it  shape  up. 

**Your  letter  impelled  me  to  work,  and  find  here  my  attempt  at 
rewriting  my  first  letter.  I  have  been  two  whole  days  on  it,  and 
working  hard.  From  the  trouble  I  have  had  with  it,  and  from  its 
original  horribleness,  I  now  know  that  I  shall  have  to  write  it  a 
third  time  (at  the  general  revision),  ere  it  is  worth  looking  at. 
However,  I  send  it  for  what  it  is  worth.  How  bad  my  first  letters 
were  I  never  dreamed.    I  know  now. 

*  *  You  will  notice  that  I  have  devoted  little  space  to  Hester,  and 
more  space  to  other  and  unimportant  things.  I  have  described  her 
mental  characteristics,  her  intellectual  constitution,  that  which 
appeals  to  the  non-loving  Herbert  Wace.  For  the  reader  I  have 
already  opened  the  breach  between  you  (Dane  Kempton)  and  me. 
When  the  book  opens  we  are  both  aware  of  the  slipping  away, 
vaguely  aware;  one  certain  function  of  the  book  will  be  to  differ- 
entiate us  so  that  the  breach  becomes  sharply  defined.  I  change 
my  landlord  to  my  friend  Gwynne.  I  shall  develop  a  love  experi- 
ence for  him,  which  shall  culminate  in  one  of  the  inserted  letters — 
naturally  the  love  experience  will  be  evidence  on  my  side  of  the 
contention.  *  * 

**Dear  Anna: 

**Find  here  letter  No.  2.  And  I  must  plead  guilty  to  the  same 
feeling  which  you  were  under  when  you  wrote  me.  I  don't  know 
what  to  make  of  it.  Seem  all  at  sea.  Feel  that  I  am  all  wrong, 
that  I  am  not  building  characters  as  I  should,  or  even  writing  let- 
ters as  they  should  be  written.  But  I  suppose  the  whole  thing  will 
grow,  in  time.  Anyway,  it's  a  good  method  for  getting  a  fair  con- 
ception of  one's  limitations. 

*'What  do  you  think  of  my  making  a  poet  of  Hester?  Should 
it  be  poet  or  poetess?  I  detest  poetess.  Is  there  such  a  word  as 
'lyricist'?  There  is  the  word  *  lyrist',  meaning  the  same  thing,  but 
I  do  not  like  it.    Do  you  catch  my  new  school  possibly  to  be  founded 


360      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

by  Hester! — Poetry  of  a  Machine  Age.  I  may  exploit  it  in  later 
letters.  Do  you,  Dane  Kempton,  behold  that  I  have  not  told  you 
anything  about  Hester  physically?  I  don't  like  the  wind  up,  the 
treatment  of  the  minor  conflict.  It  seemed  as  though  I  begged  the 
question,  and  yet  I  couldn  't  conceive  a  way  of  arguing  it  out.  To 
me  it  seems  almost  unarguable.  I  do  not  know.  Perhaps  not. 
Can't  tell. 

**.  .  .  And  please  criticize  unsparingly,  especially  in  errors  of 
taste." 

In  an  article  written  after  Jack  London's  death,  Mrs. 
Walling  said,  referring  to  the  period  when  they  were  col- 
laborating: 

*'He  held  that  love  is  only  a  trap  set  by  nature  for  the  indi- 
vidual. One  must  not  marry  for  love  but  for  certain  qualities 
discerned  by  the  mind.  This  he  argued  in  *The  Kempton- Wace 
Letters'  brilliantly  and  passionately;  so  passionately  as  to  again 
make  one  suspect  that  he  was  not  as  certain  of  his  position  as  he 
claimed  to  be.'* 


CHAPTER  XXn 
1902 — PIEDMONT — 27th  yeab 

RETURNING  at  Christmas,  1901,  from  a  fifteen-months 
visit  in  the  eastern  states,  broken  by  several  weeks 
of  Europe,  at  my  Aunt's  suggestion  I  went  to  call  at  the 
Bayo  Vista  Avenue  home  of  the  Londons,  but  found  no  one 
at  home.  Wlien  I  did  renew  acquaintance,  that  spring  of 
1902,  it  was  in  the  old  Worcester  bungalow  at  Piedmont, 
set  on  a  breezy  high-hill  slope  amid  pine  and  swaying 
eucalyptus,  with  a  rich  spread  of  golden  poppy-field  slanting 
toward  the  westering  sun,  across  the  blue  bay  to  the  bluer 
sea,  George  Sterling,  the  poet,  had  called  Jack's  attention 
to  this  neglected,  picturesque  spot  beyond  his  own  home, 
and  it  came  nearer  to  Jack  London's  ideal  than  any  house 
he  ever  dwelt  in. 

The  squat,  weathered  thatch  of  shingle  sheltered  a  large- 
beamed  living  hall,  a  small  dining  room,  and  three  or  four 
bedchambers,  in  one  of  which  Jack  eventually  combined  his 
sleeping-  with  working-quarters.  Kitchen,  laundry,  and 
servants'  rooms  rambled  like  aimless  if  charming  after- 
thoughts, with  scant  mercy  to  impatient  feet,  up-step  and 
down,  to  the  dismay  of  mistress  and  nursemaids  and  cook, 
of  which  assistants,  whenever  obtainable,  there  were,  at 
one  time  or  another,  from  one  to  three. 

The  long-deserted  premises  lacked  certain  modern 
touches,  and  Eliza  was  called  in  to  oversee  the  rohabilition. 
A  pretty  box  of  a  cottage  in  the  grounds  was  furnished 
for  Jack's  mother,  the  which,  after  voluble  objection,  she 
had  at  length  consented  to  occupy.  By  now  Flora  Lon- 
don had  grown  as  averse  to  pulling  up  stakes  as  ever  she 
had  welcomed  such  diversion  in  a  by-gone  day. 

361 


362      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

While  on  Bayo  Vista  Avenue,  Jack  had  pursued  the 
custom  of  receiving  all  and  sundry  callers  upon  one  after- 
noon and  evening  a  week,  with  welcome  to  dinner.  Other 
days  he  must  be  uninterrupted.  This  was  the  untheatrical 
practicality  of  his  dream — ** keeping  my  house  in  order/' 
All  things,  work  and  play,  should  be  subject  to  an  efficient 
discipline.  **I  am  a  disciple  of  regular  work,''  he  had  to 
say,  **and  never  wait  for  an  inspiration.  Temperamentally 
I  am  not  only  careless  and  irregular,  but  melancholy ;  still 
I  have  fought  both  down.  The  discipline  I  had  as  a  sailor 
had  full  effect  on  me.  Perhaps  my  old  sea  days  are  also 
responsible  for  the  regularity  and  limitations  of  my  sleep. 
Five  and  a  half  hours  is  the  precise  average  I  allow  myself, 
and  no  circumstance  has  yet  arisen  in  my  life  that  could 
keep  me  awake  when  the  time  comes  to  *  turn  in. '  ' ' 

As  for  the  domestic  wear  and  tear  involved  to  insure 
his  one  half-day  of  relaxation  out  of  six  or  seven  (he  did 
not  always  rest  on  Sundays,  and  one  day  a  week  he  de- 
voted to  helping  a  brother  writer,  since  successful,  and  now 
deceased),  he  would  cry: 

**If  there  are  not  enough  servants,  get  more;  your 
credit  is  good.  Our  slim  days  are  passing.  Go  ahead — 
get  all  that  are  needful  to  put  a  good  hospitable  meal  on 
my  table  on  my  Wednesdays!*' 

Those  Wednesday  afternoons  and  evenings  will  never 
fade  to_the  lucky  souls  privileged  to  share  in  them,  filled 
as  they  were  with  merriest  and  noisest  of  jollity  and  sport; 
card-games — whist,  poker,  pedro,  *^blaok-jack;''  rapid-fire 
of  wits.  And  there  was  no  lack  of  music — piano  and  sing- 
ing, ringing  voices — and  poetry.  Arthur  Symons,  Le  Gal- 
lienne,  Swinburne,  the  Eosettis,  Fitzgerald,  Bierce,  Hen- 
ley— these  and  many  others  were  read  aloud  around  the  long 
oaken  table,  or  lolling  about  the  roomy  veranda  where 
swung  the  hammock.  Now  it  would  be  George  Sterling's 
hushed  recitation,  or  Jack's  vibrant  tone,  or  Anna's  mellow, 
golden  throat — all  the  others  hanging  tremulous  on  the 


PIEDMONT  363 

music  of  speech  from  these  receptive  ones  who  could  not 
wait  to  make  known  their  beloved  of  the  poets.  Blessing 
it  was  to  sit  under  the  involuntary  young  teachers  of  good 
and  gracious  ways  of  the  spirit. 

Frolicking  outdoors  and  in,  the  company  assisted  their 
sparkling-eyed  gay  host,  his  formidably  wise  head  ^^  sun- 
ning over  with  curls,*'  in  the  flying  of  huge  box  kites  from 
stationary  reels  set  about  the  acre  or  so  of  garden  both 
tended  and  wild-poppied.  Or  sparred  lustily  with  the 
gloves,  or  fenced  with  him  or  with  the  rising  story-writer 
Herman  Whitaker,  who  was  Jack's  English-pupil  and  in- 
cidentally his  fencing  instructor.  Or  with  one  another.  Or 
rolled  clamoring  downhill  in  the  tall  grasses  bloomed  thickly 
amongst  by  the  great,  flaunting-orange  poppies. 

On  working-days,  for  his  conditioning  Jack  would  in- 
veigle anyone  he  could  into  a  boxing-bout — even  the  little 
nurse-maids  in  their  early  teens  had  a  rare  chance  to  learn 
scientific  self-defense  with  the  well-padded  gynmasium 
gloves.  For  in  sport,  as  in  everything  else,  Jack  London  ad- 
hered to  the  scientific  approach.  It  was  always  an  irk  to  him 
when  hasty  young  male  opponents  lost  their  heads  at  his  in- 
sistent, repetitive  light-tapping  on  some  persistently  un- 
guarded spot,  and  took  to  ** slugging''  in  hot  blood.  In  such 
case  Jack  necessarily  defended  himself  with  an  occasional 
judicious  **slug"  of  his  own,  until  the  other  should  learn 
the  error  of  his  ways.  But  more  often  he  simply  stalled 
and  let  the  heated  fighter  absorb  the  disconcerting  lesson 
of  being  hurt  only  by  his  own  headstrongness. 

Indoors,  in  the  large  room  that  was  the  apple  of  his 
eye,  games  were  played  of  intellectual  as  well  as  hilarious 
**  rough-house  "  varieties,  in  which  all  joined,  boys  and  girls, 
men  and  women  and  children;  and  no  one  could  surpass 
the  joyous  roar  of  Jack's  fresh  boyish  lungs,  nor  out-invent 
him  in  bedevilment  and  sporting  feats.  Then  suddenly 
he  might  shout,  **0h,  wait — I've  got  to  read  you  something! 
Have  you  seen  W.  W.  Jacobs'  *Many  Cargoes'  and  *More 


364      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Cargoes!'  You've  simply  got  to  listen  to  'In  Borrowed 
Plumes.'  "  Thereupon,  light-stepping  with  his  blithe  walk 
from  fetching  the  book,  he  would  settle  deep  into  the  yam, 
perhaps  propped  on  the  floor  with  cushions,  and  repeatedly 
break  down  until  he  rolled  and  wept  in  a  near-hysteria  of 
uncontrollable  mirth  over  the  psychology  of  Jacobs 's  out- 
raged skipper. 

Romping,  they  were  all  one  to  Jack  in  this  hearty  crowd, 
the  president  of  a  great  eastern  publishing  house,  or  say 
Sterling's  several  young  and  beautiful  sisters,  and  the 
brilliant  Partington  sisters  and  brothers  from  San  Fran- 
cisco. They  had  to  *Hake  their  medicine,"  Jack  vowed, 
and  they  knew  he  despised  a  coward.  The  only  difference 
he  made  with  the  girls  was  that  he  avoided  being  truly 
rough,  except  in  such  desperate  encounters  when  they  might 
overbear  him  by  conspiracy  or  numbers  or  both.  As,  for 
instance,  during  a  camping  week  in  the  farther  hills,  when 
these  resourceful  maidens,  returning  from  a  rattlesnake 
hunt  one  warm  afternoon,  sewed  him  napping  in  a  ham- 
mock and  built  beneath  him  a  crackling  bonfire;  or  when, 
after  a  succession  of  clever  indignities  heaped  upon  him  by 
their  teeming  trickery,  he  let  them  have  a  large  panful  of 
well-dressed  salad  of  ripe  red  tomatoes,  slung  precisely 
chest-high  in  a  sanguinary  line  the  length  of  a  picnic-table. 
After  which  perforce  he  took  swift  heels  to  the  loftiest 
reaches  of  the  landscape,  pursued  by  a  mad  avenging  mob 
of  petticoats.  Well  I  remember  a  day  when  Joaquin  Miller 
strayed  in  upon  us  from  his  own  home,  **The  Hights,"  not 
far  away,  and  found  Jack  breathing  hard  and  at  wary  dis- 
tance from  the  exhausted  feminine  element  of  the  camp. 
Some  of  the  girls,  as  outcome  of  a  blackberry  *  *  scrap, ' '  in 
which  the  August  dust  had  also  been  used  as  ammunition, 
looked  much  like  the  day-after  upon  a  battlefield.  * '  I  wish 
you  would  go  and  tidy  your  hair,  young  woman,"  Mr. 
Miller  said  to  myself,  who,  though  not  one  of  the  opposing 
factions,  had  accidentally  intercepted  a  pailful  of  flying 


PIEDMONT  365 

water.  But  presently,  everything  had  quieted  down,  and 
the  Poet  of  the  Sierras,  high-booted,  hoary-bearded,  serene, 
was  reciting  his  own  verses  at  our  unanimous  request. 
Still  can  I  see  Jack's  drooped  eyes,  violet  behind  the  long 
lashes,  and  hear  the  musical  voice  of  the  poet : 

'*Many  to-morrows,  my  love,  my  dove, 
Only  one  to-day,  to-day." 

Again,  all  frolic  ceased.  Jack  could  be  so  still,  so 
low-toned  with  sudden  access  of  beauty,  or  the  sharing  of 
beauty ;  as  when,  it  may  be,  he  would  lead  a  friend  into  the 
rosy  gloom  of  his  redwood  living-hall,  that  the  glory  of 
a  single  poppy,  or  two,  or  three  poppies  in  a  stem-slender 
vase,  might  be  viewed  against  a  window  where  a  late  sunray 
touched  to  burnished,  palpitant  gold  the  sumptuous  petals. 
Many  an  one,  thus  favored,  took  to  heart  the  unforgetable 
lesson  in  simplicity  of  detail,  just  as  Jack  had  profited 
in  Japan  even  with  so  youthful  observation. 

But  in  the  many  times  I  rode  my  chestnut  mare  to  Pied- 
mont that  year,  dropping  in  at  one  home  or  another  where 
*  *  The  Crowd ' '  forgathered  in  the  best  times  they  were  ever 
to  know,  or  at  the  picnic  revels  sometimes  held  Sunday  af- 
ternoons, or  sailed  of  a  Sunday  aboard  some  hired  yacht 
like  the  Jessie  E.,  or  Jack's  own  little  sloop  Spray, 
never  once  did  I  see  or  hear  aught  that  was  not  all  good, 
and  clean,  and  wholesome.  The  healthful  romping,  be  it 
ever  so  boisterous,  of  these  ** children  of  a  larger  growth,*' 
will  never  be  misunderstood  by  the  true  hearts  that  still 
beat  high  at  thought  of  those  bright  California  days  and 
nights — when  care  and  spirit-ache  were  haply  laid  aside, 
days  and  nights  *'gone,  alas,  like  our  youth,  too  soon."  In 
the  very  month  of  his  passing,  talking  with  one  who  had 
been  of  the  Crowd,  Jack  wound  up  with ;  **  Well,  we  were  a 
pretty  clean  buncli  all  'round." 

Nor  did  I  notice  much  drinking,  though  Jack,  with 
that  hospitableness  which  was  one  of  his  strongest  passions, 


366      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

had  stored  a  moderate  supply  of  wines,  beer,  and  whiskey 
behind  the  redwood-paneled  doors  of  a  built-in  wall  cab- 
inet to  one  side  the  yawning  fireplace;  to  say  nothing  of 
ginger  ale  and  sodas  and  mineral  waters.  I  think  he 
would  have  loved  great  banquets  in  that  roomy  apartment, 
or  at  least  a  table  resembling  the  Strunskys',  always  ready 
laid  with  abundance  for  the  chance  wayfarer.  Perhaps 
Jack  most  strikingly  embodied  his  magnificent  ideal  of 
entertainment  in  that  succession  of  word-pictures  painted 
in  *  *  The  Wit  of  Porportuk, '  ^  the  last  story  in  the  collection 
**Lost  Face."  Limitless,  uncalculated  hospitality,  as  at- 
tained in  later  years — but  this  belongs  to  another  page. 

I  can  see  Jack  London  now,  glass  in  hand,  elbow  lip- 
high,  the  freedom  of  the  blue  ocean  in  his  deep  sailor-eyes, 
joining  departing  guests  each  with  stirrup-cup  of  what- 
soever beverage  raised  for  the  pledging,  his  bright  face 
and  hair,  played  over  by  the  firelight,  standing  out  clearly 
from  the  dull-red  paneling.  Who,  that  knew  him  even 
slightly  in  those  days,  but  can  conjure  a  vision  of  him  in  one 
or  another  of  his  endless  phases?  Anna  Strunsky  Walling 
has  given  an  authentic  impression  of  him : 

**I  see  him  in  pictures,  steering  his  bicycle  with  one  hand  and 
with  the  other  clasping  a  great  bunch  of  yellow  roses  which  he  had 
just  gathered  out  of  his  own  garden,  a  cap  moved  back  on  his  thick 
brown  hair,  the  large  blue  eyes  with  their  long  lashes  looking  out 
star-like  upon  the  world — an  indescribably  virile  and  beautiful  boy, 
the  wisdom  of  his  expression  somehow  belying  his  mouth. 

**I  see  him  lying  face-down  among  the  poppies,  or  following 
with  his  eyes  his  kites  soaring  against  the  high  blue  of  the  Cali- 
fornia skies,  past  the  tops  of  the  giant  eucalyptus  which  he  so 
dearly  loved. 

'*I  see  him  becalmed,  on  the  Spray,  the  moon  rising  behind 
us,  and  hear  him  rehearse  his  generalizations  made  from  his  studies 
in  the  watches  of  the  night  before  of  Spencer  and  Darwin.  His 
personality  invested  his  every  movement  and  every  detail  of  his 
life  with  an  alluring  charm.    One  took  his  genius  for  granted,  even 


PIEDMONT  367 

in  those  early  years  when  he  was  struggling  with  all  his  unequaled 
energies  to  impress  himself  upon  the  world.'* 

And  yet,  and  yet,  with  his  dream  in  effect,  at  least  in  its 
ordered  intention,  tied  to  the  mate  he  had  chosen,  father- 
hood in  his  hungry  grasp  at  last,  at  last,  and  the  deepest 
love  in  him  for  the  tiny  daughter  A\ith  face  so  wistfully  like 
his  own — the  Boy-Man  was  not  happy.  Some  few  of  the 
merrymaking  friends  and  neighbors  may  have  suspected 
that  his  scheme  of  life  had  failed  of  triumphant  joyousness ; 
but  he  spoke  no  word  to  them,  nor  looked  the  sorrow  that 
was  his.  Only  to  Anna  and  to  Cloudesley  did  he  let  go  ever 
so  little  the  leash  he  put  upon  his  tongue,  and  hint  the  bar- 
renness of  his  soul  for  even  the  year  last  past.  As  Anna 
said  of  him  at  that  time : 

*'His  standard  of  life  was  high.  He  for  one  would  have  the 
happiness  of  power,  of  genius,  of  love,  and  the  vast  comforts  and 
ease  of  wealth.  Napoleon  and  Nietzsche  had  a  part  in  him,  but 
Nietzschean  philosophy  became  transmuted  into  Socialism — ^the 
movement  of  his  time — and  it  was  by  the  force  of  his  Napoleonic 
temperament  that  he  conceived  the  idea  of  incredible  success,  and 
had  the  will  to  achieve  it.  Sensitive  and  emotional  as  his  nature 
was,  he  forbade  himself  any  deviation  from  the  course  that  would 
lead  him  to  his  goal.  He  systematized  his  life.  Such  colossal 
wiergy,  and  yet  he  could  not  trust  himself !  He  lived  by  rule.  Law, 
Order  and  Restraint  was  the  creed  of  this  vital,  passionate  youth." 

The  first  of  Jack's  1902  letters  is  to  Anna  Strunsky, 
written  on  January  5 : 

**  Your  greeting  came  good  to  me.  And  then  there  was  the  dear 
little  token  for  Joan.  And  it  all  impresses  me  with  how  much  I 
am  and  always  shall  be  in  your  debt.  .  .  . 

**You  look  back  on  a  tumultuous  and  bankrupt  year;  and  so  I. 
And  for  me  the  New  Year  begins  full  of  worries,  harassments,  and 
disappointments.    So  youT    I  wonder. 

* '  I  look  back  and  remember,  at  one  in  the  morning,  the  faces  I 


368      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

saw  go  wan  and  wistful — do  you  remember!  or  didn*t  you  notice? 
and  I  wonder  what  all  the  ferment  is  about. 

**I  dined  yesterday,  on  canvasback  and  terrapin,  with  cham- 
pagne sparkling  and  all  manner  of  wonderful  drinks  I  had  never 
before  tasted  warming  me  heart  and  brain,  and  I  remembered  the 
sordid  orgies  and  carouses  of  my  youth.  We  were  ill-clad,  ill- 
mannered  beasts,  and  the  drink  was  cheap  and  poor  and  nauseating. 
And  then  I  dreamed  dreams,  and  pulled  myself  up  out  of  the  slime 
to  canvasback  and  terrapin  and  champagne,  and  learned  that  it 
was  solely  a  difference  of  degree  which  art  introduced  into  the 
fermenting.  .  .  . 

** Sordid  necessities:  For  me  Yorick  has  not  lived  in  vain.  I 
am  grateful  to  him  for  the  phrase.  Am  I  incoherent?  It  seems 
very  clear  to  me. 

*' And  now  to  facts.  Bessie  wants  me  to  ask  you,  if,  on  January 
12th,  we  can  stop  all  night,  and  if  we  can  put  Joan  to  bed  also. 
You  see,  in  Piedmont  here,  we  have  to  leave  San  Francisco  an  hour 
earlier  than  we  used  to  on  account  of  the  street  cars.  And  Bessie 
cannot  bring  herself  to  be  away  from  Joan  a  whole  night.*' 

This  occasion  was  a  birthday  party  given  for  Jack  by 
the  Strnnsky  family,  on  January  12.  **The  Crowd'*  were 
all  there,  and  among  them  a  young  Norwegian  writer, 
Johannes  Eeimers,  whose  novel,  **The  Heights  of  Simplic- 
ity/' just  out,  he  presented  to  Jack.  This  man  became  one 
of  Jack's  close  friends,  and  in  time  one  of  his  favorite 
painters.  I  asked  Mr.  Reimers  the  other  day  concerning  the 
meeting  with  Jack  that  birthday  night  at  the  Strunskys '  on 
Sutter  Street : 

**Jack  looked  like  a  young,  ardent,  hopeful  fellow  brimful  of 
conviction.  He  instantly  inspired  me  with  his  open  comradeship. 
In  appearance? — oh,  I  should  say  he  struck  me  as  resembling  a 
powerful,  healthy  young  Scandinavian,  of  a  sea-roving  type.  I 
tried  to  get  him  into  conversation  about  contemporary  literature, 
and  was  impressed  with  an  apparent  bashfulness  in  him,  for  he 
seemed  quite  reticent  of  his  opinions.  And  when  we  said  good 
night,  he  asked  me  to  come  and  see  him  in  Piedmont — ^to  come  over 
and  have  lunch  when  there  was  to  be  nobody  else  there.    And  that's 


PIEDMONT  369 

the  way  our  friendship  began.  I  read  aloud  one  of  my  Overland 
Monthly  stories  to  him,  and  when  I  had  finished,  Jack  sat  quietly 
for  a  minute  or  two,  thinking ;  then  he  pointed :  *  Look  at  that  stack 
of  manuscripts  there?  Those  are  just  your  kind  of  stories,  and 
nobody  wants  to  buy  them. ' — Whenever  I  saw  him,  he  was  always 
the  center  of  a  group ;  people  flocked  to  his  vital  magnetism ;  every- 
one who  came  within  its  radius,  loved  him." 

The  day  after  his  letter  to  Anna,  whom  he  had  nick- 
named ** Protean,'*  and  who  honored  him  with  ** Sahib," 
in  unrelieved  despair  Jack  wrote  to  Cloudesley — January  6 : 

'*Dear  Cloudesley: 

**But  after  all,  what  squirming,  anywhere,  damned  or  other- 
wise, means  anything?  That's  the  question  I  am  always  prone  to 
put:  What's  this  chemical  ferment  called  life  all  about?  Small 
wonder  that  small  men  down  the  ages  have  conjured  gods  in  answer. 
A  little  god  is  a  snug  little  possession  and  explains  it  all.  But  how 
about  you  and  me,  who  have  no  god? 

**I  have  at  last  discovered  what  I  am.  I  am  a  materialistic 
monist,  and  there's  damn  little  satisfaction  in  it. 

*  *  I  am  at  work  on  a  short  story  that  no  self-respecting  bourgeois 
magazine  will  ever  have  anything  to  do  with.  In  conception  it  is 
really  one  of  your  stories.  It's  a  cracker  jack.  If  it's  ever  pub- 
lished I'll  let  you  know.  If  not,  we'll  wait  until  you  come  west 
again. 

"As  regards  'effete  respectability,'  I  haven't  any,  and  I  don't 
have  anything  to  do  with  any  who  have  .  .  .  except  magazines. 
Nevertheless  I  shall  be  impelled  to  strong  drink  if  something  excit- 
ing doesn't  happen  along  pretty  soon. 

* '  My  dear  boy,  nobody  can  help  himself  in  anything,  and  heaven 
helps  no  one.  Man  is  not  a  free  agent,  and  free  will  is  a  fallacy 
exploded  by  science  long  ago.  Here  is  what  we  are:— or,  better 
still,  I'll  give  you  Fisk's  definition:  'Philosophical  materialism 
holds  that  matter  and  the  motion  of  matter  make  up  the  sum  total 
of  existence,  and  that  what  we  know  as  psychical  phenomena  in 
man  and  other  animals  are  to  be  interpreted  in  an  ultimate  analysis 
as  simply  the  peculiar  aspect  which  is  assumed  by  certain  enor- 
mously complicated  motions  of  matter.'    This  is  what  we  are,  and 


370      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

we  move  along  the  line  of  least  resistance.  Whatever  we  do,  we  do 
because  it  is  easier  to  than  not  to.  No  man  ever  lived  who  didn't 
do  the  easiest  thing  (for  him). 

'  *  Or,  as  Pascal  puts  it :  *  In  the  just  and  the  unjust  we  find 
hardly  anything  which  does  not  change  its  character  in  changing 
its  climate.  Three  degrees  of  an  elevation  of  the  pole  reverses  the 
whole  jurisprudence.  A  meridian  is  decisive  of  truth ;  and  a  few 
years,  of  possession.  Fundamental  laws  change.  Right  has  its 
epochs.  A  pleasant  justice  which  a  river  or  a  mountain  limits. 
Truth  this  side  the  Pyrenees;  error  on  the  other.* 

**Nay,  nay.  We  are  what  we  are,  and  we  cannot  help  our- 
selves.   No  man  is  to  be  blamed,  and  no  man  praised. 

**Yes,  Cosgrave  wrote  me  instanter  about  the  Letters.  I'm 
afraid  they're  not  for  him.  They  would  be  utter  Greek.  Say, 
Cloudesley,  did  you  ever  reflect  on  the  yellow  magazinism  of  the 

magazines?    says  I  ought  not  to  write  for  the  Examiner. 

And  in  the  same  breath  he  says  he  will  take  what  I  write  if  I  write 
what  he  wants.  0  ye  gods!  Neither  the  Examiner  nor  Every- 
body's wants  masterpieces,  art,  and  where 's  the  difference  in  the 
sacrifice  on  my  part?  .  .  . 

**.  .  .  Well,  in  six  days  I  shall  be  twenty-six  years  old,  and  in 
nine  days  Joan  will  be  one  year  old.  ..." 

Here  are  excerpts  from  letters  to  Anna,  showing  his 
effort  to  bend  her  great  talent  to  disciplined  work  on  the 
Kempton-Wace  correspondence : 

*'I  have  been  in  despair  over  this  letter.  Four  days  I  have 
devoted  to  it.  .  .  .  Well,  well,  there  will  have  to  be  no  end  of 
revising  when  we  have  finished.  .  .  .  The  great  thing  after  all  is 
to  get  the  letters  shaped. 

' '  The  movement  of  this  is  too  rapid  and  sketchy.  It  is  too  much 
in  the  form  of  a  narrative,  and  narrative,  in  a  short  story,  is  only 
good  when  it  is  in  the  first  person.  The  subject  merits  greater 
length.    Make  longer  scenes,  dialogues,  between  them. 

"My  criticism  is,  in  short,  that  you  have  taken  a  splendid  sub- 
ject and  not  extracted  its  full  splendor.  You  have  mastery  of  it 
(the  subject),  full  mastery — ^you  understand;  yet  you  have  not  so 


PIEDMONT  371 

expressed  your  understanding  as  to  make  the  reader  under- 
stand. .  .  . 

**  Remember  this — confine  a  short  story  within  the  shortest  pos- 
sible time-limit — a  day,  an  hour,  if  possible — or,  if,  as  sometimes 
with  the  best  of  short  stories,  a  long  period  must  be  covered — 
months — merely  limit  or  sketch  (incidentally)  the  passage  of  time, 
and  tell  the  story  only  in  its  crucial  moments. 

**.  .  .  Now,  don't  think  me  egotistical  because  I  refer  you  to 
my  stories — I  have  them  at  the  ends  of  my  fingers,  so  I  save  time 
by  mentioning  them.    Take  down  and  open  *  Son  of  the  Wolf. 


>  »> 


On  January  18,  he  wrote: 

**You  are  getting  a  big  grip  on  the  written  word.  And  I  am 
whistling  over  my  work  at  the  way  the  Letters  are  coming  on.  We 
must  finish  them  on  this  lap.  I  begin  a  reply  to-day  to  your  last 
in  the  series.  But,  Oh  I  won*t  we  need  to  lick  those  first  letters  into 
shape ! 

"As  for  my  not  having  read  Stevenson's  letters — my  dear  child ! 
When  the  day  comes  that  I  have  achieved  a  fairly  fit  scientific 
foundation  and  a  bank  account  of  a  thousand  dollars,  then  come 
and  be  with  me  when  I  lie  on  my  back  all  day  long  and  read,  and 
read,  and  read,  and  read. 

**The  temptation  of  the  books — if  you  could  know!  And  I 
hammer  away  at  Spencer  and  hack-work — try  to  forget  the  joys  of 
the  things  unread." 

He  writes  to  Cloudesley  on  **Jan.  27/02*': 

"Dear  Cloudesley: 

**So  you've  been  oysteringt  And  at  a  beautiful  time  of  the 
year — November,  on  the  Atlantic  seaboard!  How  did  you  like  itt 
I  note  that  you  are  non-committal  on  your  postal. 

**A  line  from  Stoddard  [Charles  Warren],  telling  me  that  you 
had  dropped  in  on  him,  led  me  into  looking  for  your  arrival  in 
California  at  any  time.  When  are  you  coming  Westt  If  you  are 
not,  then  go  on  East,  but  don't  stop  in  that  man-killer  New  York. 
Mate  with  the  *wind  that  tramps  the  world,'  do  anything  except 
stay  in  that  *  fierce*  burg.  It  will  kill  anybody  with  guts,  even  you. 
' '  If  you  hit  California  you  must  drop  in  on  me  and  stop  for  a 


372      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

spell.  I  am  always  hard  up,  but  1*11  never  again  be  as  hard  up  as 
during  your  previous  visit.  You  see,  I  do  not  have  to  worry  about 
grub  from  day  to  day.  I  *m  doing  credit  on  a  larger  and  Napoleonic 
scale.  And  gee !  if  at  any  moment  I  should  die,  won  *t  I  be  ahead 
of  the  game!'* 

**Jack  London, 
*  *  Piedmont, 
**  Alameda  County,  Calif. 

**Feb.  23/02. 
"Dear  Cloudesley: — 

** Behold,  I  have  moved!  Wherefore  my  long  silence.  I  have 
been  very  busy.  Also,  I  went  to  see  a  man  hanged  yesterday.  It 
was  one  of  the  most  scientific  things  I  have  ever  seen.  From  the 
time  he  came  through  the  door  which  leads  from  the  death-chamber 
to  the  gallows-room,  to  the  time  he  was  dangling  at  the  end  of  the 
rope,  but  21  seconds  elapsed. 

**And  in  those  twenty-one  seconds  all  the  following  things  oc- 
curred :  He  walked  from  the  door  to  the  gallows,  ascended  a  flight 
of  thirteen  stairs  to  the  top  of  the  gallows,  walked  across  the  top 
of  the  gallows  to  the  trap,  took  his  position  upon  the  trap,  his  legs 
were  strapped,  the  noose  slipped  over  his  head,  drawn  tight  and 
the  knot  adjusted,  the  black  cap  pulled  down  over  his  face,  the  trap 
sprung,  his  neck  broken,  and  the  spinal  cord  severed — all  in  twenty- 
one  seconds,  so  simple  a  thing  is  life  and  so  easy  it  is  to  kill  a  man. 

**Why,  he  made  never  the  slightest  twitch.  It  took  fourteen 
and  one-half  minutes  for  the  heart  to  run  down,  but  he  was  not 
aware  of  it.  1/5  of  a  second  elapsed  between  the  springing  of  the 
trap  and  the  breaking  of  his  neck  and  severing  of  his  spinal  cord. 
So  far  as  he  was  concerned,  he  was  dead  at  the  end  of  that  one-fifth 
of  a  second.    He  killed  a  man  for  twenty -five  cents. 

"You  ask  what  else  beside  matter  moves.  How  about  force? 
Waves  of  light,  for  instance. 

"We'll  have  to  reserve  the  free  will  argument  till  God  brings 
us  together  again.    I  Ve  got  the  cinch  on  you. 

"Did  you  go  in  on  the  Black  Catf  I  went  in  for  a  couple  of 
stories,  though  I  have  little  hope  of  pulling  down  even  the  least 
prize.    I  imagine  I  can  sell  the  stuff  somewhere  else,  however. 

"Lord,  what  stacks  of  hack  I'm  turning  out !    Five  mouths  and 


PIEDMONT  373 

ten  feet,  and  sometimes  more,  so  one  hustles.    I  wonder  if  ever  I  '11 
get  clear  of  debt. 

**Am  beautifully  located  in  new  house.  We  have  a  big  living 
room,  every  inch  of  it,  floor  and  ceiling,  finished  in  redwood.  We 
could  put  the  floor  space  of  almost  four  cottages  (of  the  size  of 
the  one  you  can  remember)  into  this  one  living  room  alone.  The 
rest  of  the  house  is  finished  in  redwood,  too,  and  is  very,  very  com- 
fortable. We  have  also  the  cutest,  snuggest  little  cottage  right 
on  the  same  ground  with  us,  in  which  live  my  mother  and  my 
nephew.  Chicken  houses  and  yards  for  500  chickens.  Bam  for  a 
dozen  horses,  big  pigeon  houses,  laundry,  creamery,  etc.,  etc.  A 
most  famous  porch,  broad  and  long  and  cool,  a  big  clump  of  mag- 
nificent pines,  flowers  and  flowers  and  flowers  galore,  five  acres  of 
ground  sold  the  last  time  at  $2000  per  acre,  half  of  ground  in  bear- 
ing orchard  and  half  sprinkled  with  California  poppies;  we  are 
twenty-four  minutes  from  the  door  to  the  heart  of  Oakland  and 
an  hour  and  five  minutes  to  San  Francisco ;  our  nearest  neighbor 
is  a  block  away  (and  there  isn't  a  vacant  lot  within  a  mile),  our 
view  commands  all  of  San  Francisco  Bay  for  a  sweep  of  thirty  or 
forty  miles,  and  all  the  opposing  shores  such  as  San  Francisco, 
Marin  County  and  Mount  Tamalpais  (to  say  nothing  of  the  Golden 
Gate  and  the  Pacific  Ocean) — and  all  for  $35.00  per  month.  I 
couldn't  buy  the  place  for  $15,000.  And  some  day  I'll  have  to  be 
fired  out." 

But  on  March  14, 1902,  he  writes  to  Anna  from  the  Pied- 
mont eyrie,  showing  his  sincere  attitude  toward  debt : 

**I  find  myself  forced  to  get  up  at  four  o'clock  now,  in  order  to 
turn  out  my  day's  work.  And  of  course,  so  long  as  tradesmen 
bicker  and  landlords  clatter,  that  long  must  the  day's  work  be 
turned  out. 

**Also,  Joan  has  been  under  the  weather,  my  sister's  boy  on  the 
edge  of  dying  for  a  number  of  days,  my  other  sister  very  close  to 
death  herself,  and  the  many  and  varied  demands  have  consumed 
every  minute  of  my  time. 

"Do  run  over  and  see  us  when  you're  in  town.  We  are  nearly 
settled  now,  and  things  will  be  more  comfortable.  ...  It  will  be 
delightful  hero  this  Kiimmcr." 


374  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

A  week  later : 

"Many  happy  returns  of  the  year,  since  I  am  too  late  for  the 
day.  And  after  all,  it  is  the  year  that  must  count,  and  not  the 
day.    May  it  be  a  full  year. 

**And  may  it  be  an  empty  one,  too — empty  of  heartache,  and 
soul-silences,  and  the  many  trials  which  have  been  yours  in  the 
past  twelve  months. 

*'...!  look  out  across  the  bay  to  a  nook  in  the  Marin  shore 
where  I  know  San  Rafael  clusters,  and  I  wonder  how  it  fares  with 
you  and  how  you  are  doing. 

**I  would  suggest  .  .  .  that  you  gather  together  your  belong- 
ings, gipsy  fashion,  and  seek  a  change.  New  scenes,  new  inspira- 
tion. .  .  .  Also,  do  not  worry.  Things  are  not  worth  worrying 
over,  except  bills  and  rent.    Other  things  do  not  count. 

**.  .  .  And  say,  next  Sunday,  to-morrow,  what's  the  matter 
with  running  over  to  see  us?  Charmian  Kittredge,  charmingly 
different  from  the  average  kind,  is  liable  to  be  here.  Perhaps  you 
wLQ  like  her.  Also,  Jensen,  an  old  Klondike  friend  (the  sailor 
whose  letters  I  once  showed  you),  is  to  be  here.  Also,  possibly 
several  others  who  will  pitch  quoits,  and  fence,  and  what  not. 
Also,  I  am  scheduled,  in  the  company  of  Jim  and  George,  to  take 
hasheesh  as  a  matter  of  scientific  investigation.  ...  Do  come.*' 

The  ** scientific  investigation''  proved  a  very  unpleas- 
ant passage.  Jack  deliberately  buttered  a  piece  of  bread 
with  an  excessive  amount  of  the  drug,  and  the  overdosage 
counteracted  all  the  promised  joys  of  his  dreaming.  A 
horrible  nightmare  was  the  result,  and  much  nausea  to 
follow. 

A  fragment  of  a  letter  to  Anna : 

**In  the  last  twelve  days  I  have  done  over  eleven  thousand 
words,  and  that's  the  rate  I  have,  and  am  keeping  up.  *  Writer's 
cramp,'  you  know.  Do  run  over  and  see  us  some  day — any 
day.  .  .  .  The  rest  is  bound  to  do  you  good.  And  stop  all  night — 
we've  a  little  more  room  in  our  new  quarters. 

**And  0,  before  I  close,  Whitaker  has  sold  a  story  to  Harper's 
Monthly  for  one  hundred  dollars,  a  story  which  had  been  refused 
divers  times  by  lesser  publications. 


PIEDMONT  375 

**I  am  to  proceed  right  now  to  a  review  of  **Foma  Gordyeeff" 
for  Impressions.  Have  you  read  it  yet  ?  I  am  saving  it  for  you  to 
read  first  of  all  if  you  haven't.  It  is  a  wonderful  book.  I  wish  I 
could  allow  myself  the  freshness  of  a  whole  day  to  it  instead  of  go- 
ing at  it,  as  I  now  shall,  jaded  and  tired.'' 

To  Cloudesley,  from  Piedmont,  March  26,  1902: 

**Have  got  another  collection  of  stories  done,  'Children  of  the 
Frost,'  though  they  are  waiting  publication  at  various  magazines." 

To  Anna,  three  days  later : 

*  *  I  had  intended  to  write  you  a  good  long  letter  .  .  .  but  people 
have  come,  must  shave  now  or  never,  and  have  some  toning  to  do 
in  dark  room  ...  do  you  know,  leaving  out  the  letters  to  be  in- 
serted, we  have  now  50,000  done  on  the  book? 

**I  must  get  a  Letter  from  you  (Dane  Kempton)  saying  that 
you  are  coming  to  California,  and  also,  somewhere  in  your  Stan- 
ford Letters  a  limit  must  be  given  to  the  effect  of  our  meeting, 
which  meeting  I  should  imagine  must  precede  your  meeting  with 
Hester. 

*  *  What  ho !  now,  for  the  revision !  You  must  come  and  live  with 
us  during  the  momentous  period.  It's  glorious  here,  more  like  a 
poppy  dream  than  real  living.  .  .  .  Let  me  know  if  Letter  fits,  or 
if  another  is  needed. ' ' 

And  a  little  later: 

**I  have  just  finished  reading  your  last  Letter,  Dane  Kempton, 
preparatory  to  replying  to  it,  and  before  replying,  I  must  tell  you 
that  I  feel  the  Letters  will  go!  Oo!  Oo! 

*  *  Your  last  is  good,  is  great  I    You  do  get  your  position  stated 

better  than  I  had  thought  it  possible  it  could  be  stated.     Come 

to-morrow.     The  reply  will  await  you.     How  goes  the  novel!     I 

must  see  and  hear  of  it,  all  of  it.  ..,,.. 

Jack." 

In  tte  month  of  May,  Jack  suffered  some  newspaper 
notoriety  of  an  unexpected  and  to  him  unusual  sort.  It 
was  his  custom  to  run  accounts  at  the  tradesmen's,  pending 


376      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

the  receipt  of  checks  from  the  publishers,  which  were  often 
delayed,  sometimes  for  impatient  weeks.  A  grocery 
bill,  among  others,  was  still  unpaid  when  he  moved  to  Pied- 
mont, and  he  was  waiting  funds  with  which  to  liquidate 
all  outstanding  obligations  when  the  grocer,  sole  one  of  the 
debtors  to  voice  anxiety,  to  Jack^s  indignation  dunned  him 
over  the  telephone.  His  indignation  was  eloquently  ex- 
pounded, it  may  be  taken  for  granted,  the  while  he  ex- 
plained his  position  with  regard  to  the  delayed  check. 
When  the  man  persisted  in  refusal  to  deliver  bread  that 
day.  Jack,  now  thoroughly  aroused,  assured  him  that  the 
bill  would  be  paid  when  and  only  when  he,  Jack  London, 
thought  fit  and  proper.  And  furthermore,  if  the  grocery- 
man  made  any  undue  fuss,  or  complained,  as  threatened,  to 
carry  the  matter  up  to  the  Grocers'  Association — it  never 
would  be  paid.  The  dealer  promptly,  in  council  convened, 
did  precisely  what  he  was  warned  not  to  do;  and  Jack 
did  precisely  what  he  had  warned  he  would  do:  the  bill 
never  was  paid.  Evidently  the  Groceryman's  Association 
appreciated  his  contention,  or  did  not  wish  to  encourage 
the  onus  of  discourtesy  in  their  ranks,  for  they  failed  to 
back  up  the  complainant.  As  soon  as  Jack's  check  finally 
arrived,  he  settled  all  bills  except  this  one,  seeing  to  it  that 
word  of  the  same  reached  the  groceryman. 

**It's  the  only  bill  of  mine  that  I  ever  defaulted  on  in 
my  life, ' '  Jack  said  when  relating  the  affair,  *  *  except  $1.67, 
I  think  it  was,  I  owed  a  man  in  Oakland  at  the  time  I 
jumped  out  tramping.  And  IVe  never  been  happy  that 
I  couldn't  find  that  man  after  I  came  back,  try  as  I  would." 

At  the  beginning  of  this  incident  of  the  grocery  bill,  I 
said  that  Jack  *  ^  suffered ' '  notoriety.  It  was  only  a  way  of 
speaking.  I  do  not  know  that  he  suffered.  In  fact,  whether 
or  not  his  elation  extended  to  the  notoriety,  no  matter  how 
jocosely  stated  in  the  press,  in  this  affair  or  any  other  that 
made  him  conspicuous,  is  one  of  the  few  things  about  him 
which  I  have  never  fathomed  with  satisfaction  to  myself. 


PIEDMONT  377 

He  appeared  to  enjoy  any  kind  of  contest,  as  well  as  its  at- 
tendant fruits;  but  I  have  oftentimes  suspected — though 
never  divulging  this  to  him — a  bold  front  to  carry  on  a  bluff 
that  protested  an  underlying  shrinking. 

**  Piedmont,  June  7/02. 
**Dear  Anna: — 

**.  .  .  Bills  are  beginning  to  press,  and  I  am  behind  in  all  my 
work.  Just  now  I  am  hammering  out  juvenile  stuff — the  Fish 
Patrol  stories  for  the  Youth* s  Companion,  [Book  of  this  collection 
published  1905.]  The  proof  sheets  of  the  novel  are  giving  me  end- 
less trouble.  It  is  terrible  to  doctor  sick  things.  Last  night  was 
business  meeting  of  Ruskin.  In  morning  did  day's  juvenile  work. 
Expected  to  get  off  7  pages  of  proofs  in  afternoon  and  go  down 
town  on  business.  At  one  o'clock  I  started  in  on  proofs  (7  sheets), 
at  quarter  past  five  I  finished  them !  Every  batch  seems  the  worst 
till  the  next  batch  comes  along. 

**  Second  Tuesday  in  June,  June  10th,  is  night  you  are  billed 
for  the  lecture  at  528  27th  St.*' 

On  July  3,  he  writes  her: 

*  *  I  am  wondering  and  wonder  what  you  are  doing,  and  as  usual 
am  too  rushed  to  write.  For  three  months  I  have  been  steadily 
dropping  behind  in  all  my  work,  and  I  have  sworn  a  great  vow  to 
catch  up.  Yesterday  I  worked  eighteen  hours,  and  did  clean  up 
quite  a  lot — the  same,  the  day  before,  and  day  before  that,  etc. 

"Sahib.'' 

In  a  letter  to  Cloudesley,  who  was  still  in  New  York, 
of  date  July  12,  1902,  I  come  upon  Jack's  first  voicing  of 
his  fear  and  regret  concerning  the  gathering  of  too  much 
knowledge — ** opening  the  books '*  was  his  life-long  phrase: 

"You  must  have  been  ha\4ng  one  hell  of  a  time.  Aren't  you 
disgusted  with  metropolitan  life!  If  you  aren't  you  ought  to  be. 
I  am,  and  I  've  never  seen  it. 

**This  world  is  made  up  chiefly  of  fools.  Besides  the  fools  there 
are  the  others,  and  they  *re  fools,  too.    It  doesn't  matter  much 


378      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

which  class  you  and  I  belong  to,  while  the  best  we  can  do  is  not  to 
increase  our  foolishness.  One  of  the  ways  to  increase  our  foolish- 
ness is  to  live  in  cities  with  the  other  fools.  They,  in  turn,  would 
be  bigger  fools  if  they  should  try  to  live  the  way  you  and  I  ought 
to  live.    Wherefore,  you  may  remark  that  I  am  pessimistic. 

'*  Speaking  of  suicide,  hate  you  ever  noticed  that  a  man  is 
more  prone  to  conmiit  suicide  on  a  full  stomach  than  on  an  empty 
one?  It's  one  of  nature's  tricks  to  make  the  creature  live,  I  sup- 
pose, for  the  old  Dame  knows  she  can  get  more  effort  out  of  an 
empty-bellied  individual  than  a  full-bellied  one. 

* '  Concerning  myself,  I  am  moving  along  slowly,  about  $3000  in 
debt,  working  out  a  philosophy  of  life,  or  rather,  the  details  of  a 
philosophy  of  life,  and  slowly  getting  a  focus  on  things.  Some  day 
I  shall  begin  to  do  things,  until  then  I  merely  scratch  a  living. 

"Between  you  and  me,  I  wish  I  had  never  opened  the  books. 
That's  where  I  was  the  fool." 

It  was  in  this  summer,  ^'pitifully,  tragically  hard  at 
work,"  as  Anna  once  phrased  it,  that  about  the  middle  of 
July  an  offer  from  the  American  Press  Association  found 
Jack  London.  This  came  by  wire,  and  the  following  day  he 
left  for  New  York,  the  proposition  being  that  he  sail  for 
South  Africa  to  write  a  series  of  articles  on  the  Boer  War 
and  the  political  and  commercial  status  of  the  British  Colo- 
nies. Sorely  in  need  of  diversion,  and  money  with  which  to 
meet  the  lengthening  scale  of  living,  this  commission,  prom- 
ising both,  was  welcomed  and  accepted  with  celerity,  and 
Jack  was  the  very  picture  of  enthusiasm  and  relief  when  a 
God-speeding  crowd  of  us  saw  him  off  on  the  Overland 
Limited  at  Oakland  Pier.  The  only  regret  he  showed  was  in 
his  face,  when  he  pressed  Baby  Joan  in  his  arms  at  parting. 

By  the  time  he  reached  New  York,  it  had  been  learned 
that  the  Boer  generals  had  set  sail  for  England.  His  plans 
were  altered,  but  he  continued  on,  in  the  hope  of  intercept- 
ing and  interviewing  these  men.  Meanwhile  he  had  made 
tentative  arrangements  with  the  Macmillan  Company  to 
publish  a  contemplated  book  upon  the  slums  of  London.  For 


PIEDMONT  379 

through  lack  of  foresight  and  faith,  the  McClures  had  let 
the  bright  young  star  slip  through  their  fingers.  But  Mr. 
George  P.  Brett,  President  of  the  Macmillan  Company, 
made  no  such  blunder. 

On  the  29th  of  July,  Jack  wrote  to  Cloudesley  Johns, 
who  had  temporarily  left  New  York : 

**It's  a  damned  shame  we  missed  each  other.  I  sail  to-morrow 
evening  for  Liverpool.  I  received  your  letter  last  night  at  8  o'clock 
at  the  Harvard  Club — too  late  to  write  you.  .  .  .  Write  me,  care 
of  Am.  Press  Association,  45  Park  Place,  N.  Y.  C.** 

And  to  Anna,  on  the  31st,  from  **R.  M.  S.  Majestic": 

**1  sailed  yesterday  from  New  York  at  noon.  A  week  from 
to-day  I  shall  be  in  London.  I  shall  then  have  two  days  in  which 
to  make  my  arrangements  and  sink  down  out  of  sight  in  order  to 
view  the  Coronation  from  the  standpoint  of  the  East  Enders,  with 
their  stray  flashes  of  divinity. 

**I  meet  the  men  of  the  world  in  Pullman  coaches.  New  York 
clubs,  and  Atlantic  liner  smoking  rooms,  and,  truth  to  say,  I  am 
made  more  hopeful  for  the  Cause  by  their  total  ignorance  and  non- 
understanding  of  the  forces  at  work.  They  are  blissfully  ignorant 
of  the  coming  upheaval,  while  they  have  grown  bitterer  and  bitterer 
towards  the  workers.  You  see,  the  growing  power  of  the  workers 
is  hurting  them  and  making  them  bitter  while  it  does  not  open  their 
eyes. ' ' 

Richard  Lloyd  Jones  met  Jack  in  New  York  at  this 
time,  and  was  impressed  by  the  many  facets  he  observed 
of  the  boy.  ''To  me,**  Jack  said  in  his  hearing,  '*the  world 
looks  like  a  play  that  needs  perfecting.  The  lines  we  speak 
are  not  well  thought  out.  The  stage  business  we  perform 
is  not  well  conceived.  And  the  plots  we  put  together  are 
too  often  poor  and  mean.  We  need  to  work  on  higher  and 
finer  lines.** 

And  the  next  day  the  young  fellow  was  roystering 
through  the  recreational  city  of  Coney  Island,  nothing  too 


380      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

absurd  or  too  wild  for  him  to  attempt.  He  insisted  upon 
looping  the  loop.  Mr.  Jones  accompanied  him — once,  which 
was  the  measure  of  his  fun.  *  *  But  London  went  down  again 
and  then  again,  and  still  again.  He  went  down  eleven  times. 
After  he  was  about  half  way  of  these  trials,  I  asked  him 
why  he  wanted  to  keep  on,  and  he  replied:  'I^m  going 
down  that  thing  until  I  can  go  clear  around  the  loop  without 
grabbing  hold  of  it. '  And  he  did,  an  evidence  of  his  perse- 
verance. ' ' 

By  the  end  of  the  first  week  in  August  Jack  was  installed 
in  the  East  End  of  London,  working  under  forced  draft, 
and  on  the  17th  scribbled  a  card  to  Cloudesley: 

"Your  letter,  forwarded  from  California,  just  received.  I  en- 
joyed it  immensely.  I  am  located  in  the  East  End  and  am  hard  at 
work.  Have  finished  6000  words.  Latter  part  of  this  week  I  go 
down  into  Kent  to  do  the  hop-picking. 

**Been  in  England  11  days,  and  it  has  rained  every  day.  Small 
wonder  the  Anglo-Saxon  is  such  a  colonizer.'^ 

On  the  25th,  to  Anna: 

**  Saturday  night  I  was  out  all  night  with  the  homeless  ones, 
walking  the  streets  in  the  bitter  rain,  and,  drenched  to  the  skin, 
wondering  when  dawn  would  come.  Sunday  I  spent  with  the  home- 
less ones,  in  the  fierce  struggle  for  something  to  eat.  I  returned  to 
my  rooms  Sunday  evening,  after  thirty-six  hours*  continuous  work 
and  short  one  night's  sleep.  To-day  I  have  composed,  typed  and 
revised  4000  words  and  over.  I  have  just  finished.  It  is  one  in 
the  morning.  I  am  worn  out  and  exhausted  and  my  nerves  are 
blunted  with  what  I  have  seen  and  the  suffering  it  has  cost  me.  .  .  • 
I  am  made  sick  by  this  human  hell-hole  called  the  East  End.'' 

By  the  close  of  September,  roughly  in  seven  weeks  he 
had  lived  his  book,  written  his  book,  taken  the  photographs 
to  illustrate  his  book,  tried  out  some  English  publishers  on 
his  work,  and  was  ready  for  a  fleeting  jaunt  on  the  Conti- 
nent.   He  had  written  Cloudesley  on  September  22 : 


PIEDMONT  381 

"Yours  of  Sept.  9th  received.  I  quite  agree  with  you  that  not 
to  be  a  free  agent  is  hell.  But  I  don't  quite  follow  you  when  you 
say  the  particular  hell  lies  in  not  being  able  to  blame  anybody,  any- 
thing, and  not  even  yourself.  I  don't  see  how  that  will  help  mat- 
ters in  the  least.  If  you  throw  me  down  and  break  my  back,  of 
course  I  can  blame  you ;  but  that  does  n  't  mend  my  back. 

"I  am  glad  you  liked  *Nam-Bok  the  Unveracious. *  The  idea 
of  it  always  appealed  to  me  (including  the  satire),  but  I  was  not 
satisfied  when  I  wrote  it.    I  feel  that  I  missed  somewhere.  .  .  . 

**In  another  week  I  shall  have  finished  my  book  of  60,000  words. 
It's  rather  hysterical,  I  think.  Look  up  a  brief  article  of  mine  in 
the  Critic  somewhere  in  the  last  numbers.  Also  tell  me  how  you 
like  the  *  Story  of  Jees  Uck*  in  current  Smart  8et.'* 

Near  the  end  of  his  life,  **0f  all  my  books  on  the  long 
shelf,*'  Jack  said  to  me,  **I  love  most  *The  People  of  the 
Abyss.  *  No  other  book  of  mine  took  so  much  of  my  young 
heart  and  tears  as  that  study  of  the  economic  degradation 
of  the  poor/'  Always  he  was  made  wroth  from  a  technical 
standpoint,  when  this  work  was  ignorantly  and  maliciously 
termed  a  ** socialistic  treatise/'  **I  merely  state  the  dis- 
ease, as  I  saw  it, ' '  he  would  explain.  *  ^  I  have  not,  within  the 
the  pages  of  that  book,  stated  the  cure  as  I  see  it."  Jack's 
earliest  method  seems  to  have  been  to  entrench  himself  be- 
hind facts  that  others  had  overlooked  or  neglected,  and  de- 
liver his  challenge.  To  the  wavering  and  hesitant  tongue 
and  eye  of  the  unprepared  or  unwilling,  he  showed  no 
mercy  whatever.  All  the  satisfaction  he  won  from  trying 
to  stir  the  dead  mass  was  his  knowledge  that  he  knew  what 
he  knew.  Facts  were  facts,  and  the  only  foundation  upon 
which  to  build  righteous  certitudes.  Of  work  like  **The 
People  of  the  Abyss,"  he  would  say:  *'I  troat  of  the  thing 
that  is,  not  of  the  thing  that  ought  to  be."  To  critics  who 
rail  at  his  propaganda,  I  like  to  point  out  how  deliberately 
little  he  cluttered  his  art,  his  fiction,  with  propaganda. 

As  if  in  negation  of  his  consistent  attitude  on  the 
mighty  dollar.  Jack  put  his  heart  and  precious  time  into 


382      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

this  exposition  of  London's  East  End  with  full  belief  that 
it  would  not  prove  a  money  maker,  either  as  a  bound  book 
or  serially.  No  bourgeois  magazine,  able  to  pay  its  worth 
as  a  human  document,  would  risk  reputation  on  one  so 
forthright  of  unsavory  truths.  So  **The  People  of 
the  Abyss'*  appeared  in  Gaylord  Wilshire's  socialist 
monthly,  Wilshire's,  and  of  course  the  price  could  not 
have  been  large.  Only  one  of  many  instances  was  this, 
where  Jack  London  acted  what  seemed  paradoxically  when 
sternest  values  were  at  stake.  It  was  only  a  manifestation 
of  his  necessity,  while  perchance  building  temples  in  the 
sky,  of  keeping  his  feet  on  the  ground — as  he  had  written 
Anna,  *  *  Somehow,  one  must  always  build  in  the  concrete. ' ' 
One  critic  has  said,  *  ^  With  sincerity  one  may  cleave  to  great- 
ness and  sit  among  the  giants."  And  Jack  was  eminently 
sincere  in  all  he  did — ^whether  pursuing  a  hard-headed 
course  in  order  to  discharge  his  patriarchial  duties,  or 
flaming  his  unremunerative  soul-stuff  upon  the  incom- 
bustible wall  of  public  opinion.  He  must  weave  his  best 
into  a  dog-story  or  other  fiction  medium;  straight,  unvar- 
nished Truth  about  the  human,  no  matter  how  gloriously 
portrayed,  did  not  command  an  approval  that  paid  for  the 
beds  and  bread  and  coats  he  must  supply  his  charges. 

In  Paris,  Jack  fell  in  with  a  spirit  kindred  to  his  own 
vein  of  French,  who  assured  him :  *  *  Ah-h-h,  we  will  not  only 
see  Paris:  we  will  live  Paris!*' 

It  grimly  amused  him,  in  the  early  days  of  the 
Great  War,  to  read  or  hear  denial  on  the  part  of  Germany 
and  the  Germans  of  their  hatred  for  England  and  the  Eng- 
lish. His  sharpest  impression  of  Germany  was  of  a  day's 
journey  that  ended  in  Berlin.  The  compartment  contained  a 
half-dozen  men  besides  himself,  all  Germans  of  the  educated 
classes;  but  though  they  spoke  English  perfectly,  any  bid 
for  companionship  or  request  from  Jack  for  information 
was  met  with  boorish  discourtesy  of  briefest  reply,  or  no 


PIEDMONT  383 

reply  except  lowering  looks  and  cold  shoulders.  Upon 
alighting  at  Berlin,  these  men  suddenly  learned  from  some 
remark  he  dropped  that  he  was  American : 

**Why  didn't  you  tell  usf  was  the  burden  of  their 
lament.  * '  We  thought  you  were  an  Englishman — ^your  face, 
your  figure,  your  clothes." 

And  thereafter  nothing  was  too  good  to  be  done  to  make 
amends. 

Italy  he  loved,  and  took  many  photographs  with  his 
big  **panoram,"  which  he  enjoyed  developing  later  in 
the  little  dark-room  in  Piedmont,  and  framing  for  his 
walls.    And  he  climbed  Vesuvius. 

In  all  the  great  centers  of  civilization,  as  in  New  York 
City,  his  personal  touches  with  and  too-keen  observation 
of  the  rich,  set  against  his  intimate  knowledge  of  the  Sub- 
merged, contributed  toward  a  vast  melancholy.  Again  he 
wished  that  he  had  never  ** opened  the  books.*'  But  having 
opened  them,  it  was  not  in  his  nature  to  turn  back ;  he  must 
continue  to  the  end  to  keep  his  eyes  open  their  uttermost, 
for  weal  or  woe. 

While  still  on  the  Continent,  a  cable  apprised  him  of  the 
birth  of  his  second  child,  Bess,  who  came  along  eighteen 
months  after  Joan,  and  Jack  lost  no  time  in  terminating 
the  vacation.  On  the  evening  of  November  4,  1902,  from 
New  York  he  wrote  to  Cloudesley: 

**Just  arrived,  and  if  I  can  raise  $150  by  to-morrow  morning, 
shall  put  out  for  CalLfornia  to-morrow  afternoon. 

** Sorry  I  didn't  have  your  room  address,  for  I  could  have 
looked  you  up  and  talked  the  evening  with  you.  As  it  is,  shall  have 
to  be  on  the  jump  to  get  away  to-morrow. 

That  autumn  of  1902,  as  Jack  London  sped  west  once 
more,  saw  his  bewildered  reviewers  facing  throe  new  vol- 
umes just  on  the  bookstalls,  from  as  many  different  pub- 
lishers— namely,  ** Children  of  the  Frost,*'  (Macmillan) ; 


384      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

**The  Cruise  of  the  Dazzler,"  (Century) ;  and  **A  Daughter 
of  the  Snows,*'  (Lippincott.)  In  all,  he  had  five  books  to 
his  credit,  with  enough  manuscript  on  hand  for  an  equal 
number.  There  ensued  lengthy  reviews  in  America,  where 
he  was  hailed  alliteratively  as  ^^The  Kipling  of  the  Klon- 
dike,'' while  England  sat  up  and  dared  venture  the  asser- 
tion that  he  was  America's  most  promising  writer  of  fiction. 
**A  Daughter  of  the  Snows"  called  out  much  diversity  of 
opinion,  and  no  reviewer  thought  as  poorly  of  it  as  the 
author  himself.  But  in  future  years,  looking  over  this  his 
first  long  romance.  Jack  concluded :  *  *  It 's  not  so  bad,  after 
all.  I  really  believe  I  think  it's  rather  good  for  a  starter. 
Lord,  Lord,  how  I  squandered  into  it  enough  stuff  for  a 
dozen  novels  I" 


1903.     JACK  LONDON  AT  2; 


I'jnt       SAILOR    JACK    OF    SLOOP 
"SPRAY* 


IDOfl.      JACK   IX)NnON   IN  BOSTON 

Tho    nr«t    Pri'KUlent    of    Th«>    Intor- 

collt>Kintc   SuoinllHt    Society 


1909.     JACK     LONIX)N     IN     MIL 
BOUKNE.  ArSTIlALIA 


CHAPTER  XXin 

HOME   FROM   EUROPE;    SEPARATION 
1903 


BACK  from  Europe,  Jack's  solemn  purpose  was  to 
achieve  harmony  within  himself  when  he  should 
again  be  at  home  in  the  Piedmont  bungalow.  He  devoted 
himself  to  this  idea,  with  earnest  intention  toward  the  de- 
velopment of  his  children,  and  strove  to  convince  himself 
that  all  was  well  with  him.  As  note  this  paragraph  to 
Cloudesley,  dated  January  27,  1903 : 

**By  the  way,  I  think  your  long-deferred  congratulations  upon 
my  marriage  are  about  due.  So  fire  away.  Or,  come  and  take  a 
look  at  us,  and  at  the  kids,  and  then  congratulate.** 

The  Wednesday  evenings  and  Sunday  outings  were  re- 
sumed, new  acquaintances  came  and  went.  Among  other 
writers  who  shared  in  the  Piedmont  gaieties  were  W.  C. 
Morrow,  Dr.  C.  W.  Doyle,  and  Philip  Verrill  Mighels,  whose 
novel,  *'The  Inevitable,*'  made  simultaneous  appearance 
on  Lippincott's  fall  list  with  **A  Daughter  of  the  Snows." 
Frank  Norris,  with  whom  Jack  London  had  previously  got- 
ten tangled  in  press  controversy,  had  died  the  year  be- 
fore, or  undoubtedly  he  would  have  been  one  in  the  Crowd. 

To  me  Jack  was  always  friendly,  if  a  trifle  impersonal ; 
and  once  in  a  while  he  referred  with  genial  quizzicalness  to 
my  failure  to  review  his  first  book.  He  presented  me  with 
a  copy  of  **The  Cruise  of  the  Dazzler,"  inscribing  it: 

385 


386      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

"Dear  Charmian: 

*  *  In  memory  of  the  Jessie  E.  and  the  run  home  before 
the  wind. 

**Jack  London. 
'"The  Bungalow,  February  25,  1903.'' 

Journalists  came  thousands  of  miles  to  interview  him, 
and  of  them  all  I  think  he  most  cared  for  that  brilliant  and 
lovable  soul  Fannie  K.  Hamilton,  whose  surpassing  appre- 
ciation of  him  was  a  sustained  joy  for  all  his  years.  As  to 
his  mode  of  life  he  said  to  her : 

**I  have  adaptability,  and  can  endure  cities j  but  this  suits  me 
best.    I  like  room. ' ' 

Odd  little  experiences  came  his  way,  hurts  delivered  by 
pinch-natured  debtors  to  his  kindness.  Two  of  them  were 
totally  unexpected — one,  when  a  friend  he  had  assisted  in 
various  ways  spent  an  entire  night  showing  him  conclusive- 
ly why  he,  Jack  London,  was  doomed  to  failure  in  literature ; 
the  second,  when  another,  far  more  indebted,  cut  him  dead 
in  a  Piedmont  home,  before  **The  Crowd.''  He  seemed  a 
veritable  mark  for  slights  from  persons  whose  touchiness 
and  jealousies  restrained  them  from  truly  knowing  his  un- 
suspecting good-nature  and  fellowship : 

*  *  Did  you  see cut  you  when  lie  came  into  the  room 

Sunday,  when  you  and  George  were  playing  pedro  ? ' '  asked 
his  indignant  hostess. 

**No!''  with  incredulous,  bright  interest.  **You  don't 
say  so!  I  was  so  intent  on  my  rotten  hand  that  I  never 
noticed  .  .  .  why,  I  said  Hello,  didn't  I?  I'm  sure  I  did. 
.  .  .  Now  I  do  remember — ^just  for  an  instant  it  seemed  the 
air  was  chilly,  and  then  it  went  right  out  of  my  head. — Why, 
the  son  of  a  gun ! "  he  added  amiably,  *  *  what  did  he  do  that 
for?   What  have  I  done  to  him!" 

And  the  short-lived  wonder  gave  place  to  other  and 
more  profitable  curiosities  about  the  world  in  which  he 


HOME  FROM  EUROPE;  SEPARATION   387 

lived.     For  the  largest  part  of  his  life,  he  stedfastly  re- 
frained to  take  to  himself  slights  or  petty  humors  of  men 
and  women.     Near  the  end,  sadly  enough,  they  began  to 
gather  in  a  formidable  cloud  upon  his  horizon  of  values. 
To  Anna,  in  a  letter,  he  commented  upon  the  incident : 

**0h,  by  the  way.  I  have  lost  a  friend.  W.  has  canceled  my 
name  from  his  list  and  even  cut  me  in  public.  For  what  reason  I 
cannot  imagine,  for  he  has  said  nothing  to  me  at  all,  though  I  have 
heard  he  was  incensed  because  I  told  Leonard  D.  Abbot  when  I  was 
in  New  York  that  he  (W.)  was  a  backslider  from  the  Cause." 

But  it  would  appear  that  the  young  husband  and  father 
waged  a  losing  fight  for  the  livable  contentment  of  his 
resolutions.  As  early  as  the  middle  of  February,  when 
again  he  wrote  Cloudesley,  his  final  words  bespeak  a  desire 
for  solitude; 

**Feb.  21/03. 

'*Dear  Cloudesley: — 

"Well,  I  must  say,  from  your  letter,  that  my  predictions  con- 
cerning you  and  New  York  came  pretty  close  to  being  verified. 
And  I'm  glad  to  hear  you're  shaking  its  dust  from  your  shoes  by 
May.  Do  it,  by  all  means.  The  city  life  is  too  unnatural  and 
monstrous  for  us  folk  of  the  West.  To  hell  with  it.  There's  more 
in  life  than  what  the  social  shambles  oflTers. 

*'Do,  by  all  means,  stop  over  and  see  us.  I  hope,  by  May,  to 
have  a  sloop  on  the  Bay  and  be  writing  a  sea  novel.  You  and  I 
can  have  some  fine  voyaging  together." 

A  letter  to  Anna  Strunsky,  written  a  month  later  during 
an  illness,  illustrates  the  heavy  pressure  ho  was  putting 
upon  himself  to  gain  financial  footing  to  do  justice  to  his 
little  family,  as  well  as  an  almost  superhuman  struggle 
to  shake  free  from  **  hack-work  * '  and  get  down  to  worthy 
achievement.  (I  remember  dropping  in  one  day  to  see  the 
babies,  and  noticing  Jack,  much  tousled,  very  pale,  and 
with  a  don't-disturb-mc  look  appealing  through  the  wel- 


388      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

coming  smile.  Jack,  who  a  few  short  years  earlier  had 
been  striving  to  master  common  grammar,  to  develop 
** grammatical  nerves,*'  was  now  typing  the  manuscript  of  a 
story  that  was  destined  to  ring  around  the  world  and  be 
treasured  in  the  universities  of  his  country  as  a  jewel  of 
English  literature— **  The  Call  of  the  WHd/'  At  the 
same  time  he  was  shaping  up  material  for  the  sea  novel 
referred  to  in  the  above  letter  to  Cloudesley,  which  was 
**The  Sea  Wolf,''  hardly  less  noted;  while  arrangements 
had  been  perfected  with  Macmillans  to  bring  out  **The 
Kemp  ton- Wace  Letters.")    Below  is  the  letter  to  Anna: 

**  March  13/03. 
"Dear  Anna: — 

**I  quite  wondered  if  you  were  ever  going  to  write  to  me  again. 
And  I  should  have  wondered  more,  only  I  have  been  head  over 
heels  in  work,  getting  things  cleaned  up,  books  partly  finished,  etc., 
so  that  I  might  start  in  on  the  sea  novel  for  Mr.  Brett. 

"You  found  him  reading  the  manuscript  of  what  was  probably 
my  dog  story.  ["The  Call  of  the  Wild.'']  I  started  it  as  a  com- 
panion to  my  other  dog-story  *Batard,*  which  you  may  remember; 
but  it  got  away  from  me,  and  instead  of  4000  words  it  ran  32000 
before  I  could  call  a  halt.    I  hope  you  will  like  it  when  it  appears. 

"I  wrote  Hyman  [her  brother]  a  letter  which  he  must  have 
received  just  about  the  time  he  arrived  in  San  Francisco.  I  have 
been  unable  to  get  over  and  see  him.  I  go  nowhere  any  more. 
Since  my  return,  I  have  been  to  San  Francisco  but  twice  and  do 
not  dream  of  when  I  shall  again  go  there. 

"I  have  just  finished  writing  two  lectures,  each  6000  words  long 
and  something  like  the  *  Tramp.'  They  are  *The  Scab'  and  *The 
Class  Struggle.'     [Collected  under  title  of  "War  of  the  Classes."] 

"I  can  hardly  contain  myself,  looking  forward  to  seeing  the 
Letters  in  print.  Be  sure  to  question  anything  and  everything  in 
mine  that  strikes  you  as  wrong. 

"...  I  am  quite  a  hermit  these  days,  going  nowhere  and  see- 
ing nobody.  Between  my  crippled  condition  and  the  excessive 
delayed  work  it  heaped  upon  me,  I  have  been  unable  to  see  your 
people.  .  .  . 


HOME  FROM  EUROPE;  SEPARATION   389 

**...!  hear  all  kinds  of  flattering  bits  of  news  concerning  you 
from  Don  and  Wilshire,  and  know  that  you  are  glowing  and  ram- 
pant, living  always  at  the  pitch  of  life  as  is  your  way,  pleasuring 
in  your  sorrows  as  ardently  as  in  your  joys,  carelessly  austere, 
critically  wanton,  getting  more  living  out  of  hours  and  minutes 
than  we  colder  mortals,  God  pity  us,  get  out  of  months  and  years. 
Child,  how  one  envies  you.  For  child  you  are,  as  essentially  a 
child  as  saliently  you  are  a  woman. 

**I  have  reread  what  I  have  written.  Believe  me,  there  is 
nothing  in  it — only  envy,  honest  envy,  for  one  who  will  always 
titillate  -with  desire,  and  with  a  thousand  desires,  who  is  content  to 
pursue  without  attaining,  and  who  enjoys  more  in  anticipation 
than  do  others  who  grasp  and  satisfy  and  feel  the  pangs  of  hunger 
that  is  sated  and  yet  can  never  be  sated.  Am  I  wrong?  I  hope 
not.*' 


Desperate  for  funds,  with  bills  pressing,  Jack  London 
hesitated  not  to  accept  two  thousand  dollars  flat  from  The 
Macmillan  Company  for  ''The  Call  of  the  Wild,'*  which 
wa-s  to  be  brought  out  in  July,  following  serial  publication 
begun  immediately  in  the  Saturday  Evening  Post,  for 
which  he  received  seven  hundred  dollars.  And  ''The  Call 
of  the  Wild,*'  for  which  he  pocketed  only  this  total  of  twen- 
ty-seven hundred  dollars,  scored  an  instantaneous  hit, 
leaped  into  the  front  ranks  of  the  "best-sellers"  and  made 
money  for  everyone  but  the  author.  However,  lest  there  be 
misunderstanding  on  this  ground,  let  me  go  on  record  with 
the  fact  that  Jack  London  came  to  maintain  that  he  gained 
rather  than  sacrificed  in  the  transaction,  in  view  of  the 
world-wide  advertising  upon  which  the  Macmillans  spent 
enormous  sums. 

"Mr.  Brett  took  a  gamble,  and  a  big  chance  to  lose.  It 
was  the  game,  and  I  have  no  kick,"  he  stoutly  asserted. 
"Also,"  Jack  would  add,  "Mr.  Brett  stood  almost  cer- 
tainly to  lose  on  'The  Kempton-Wace  Letters,'  and  I'm 
willing  to  lay  a  bet  that  the  Company  never  much  more 


890      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

than  cleaned  np  expenses  on  tliat  splendid  but  misunder- 
stood and  unpopular  book.'* 

**Tlie  Kempton-Wace  Letters'*  subsequently  went  out 
of  print  in  both  the  United  States  and  England.  In  1921 
the  book  was  resurrected,  and  reprinted  in  London  by  Mills 
&  Boon,  Ltd. 

Jack's  aptness  for  titles  was  never  more  happily  evi- 
denced than  in  ^'The  Call  of  the  Wild."  And  yet,  both 
serial  and  book  publishers  entreated  a  different  one.  Jack 
concurred  with  their  dissatisfaction,  and  told  them  he  was 
quite  willing  they  should  invent  a  better.  That  they  could 
not,  or  at  least  did  not,  gives  one  pause. 

Jack  was  systematically  criticized  by  a  certain  type  of 
reviewers  of  all  times,  for  his  ** brutality."  I  am  inclined 
to  think  the  following,  from  a  letter  to  Mr.  Johns  of  March 
16/03,  must  have  been  the  most  surprising  commission  he 
ever  received : 

**If  you  have  any  *  horror'  stories,  submit  them  to  Booh- 
man,     I  have  the  following  from  Bookman : 

**  *  Don't  you  happen  to  have  up  your  sleeve  a  dramatic 
tale  with  plenty  of  battle,  murder,  and  sudden  death — a 
story  with  real  horror  in  itf  Eemember,  the  more  gore  the 
better." 

One  New  York  critic  of  *^The  God  of  His  Fathers" 
had  pleased  Jack. 

*'Mr.  Jack  London  *s  strength  never  degenerates  into  brutaiity. 
He  deals  with  brutal  things,  with  naked  things,  with  the  primitive 
life  in  a  world  barren  of  all  save  hardship,  ice  and  snow,  rich  only 
in  gold ;  but  he  remains  an  artist  to  the  last.  Whatever  he  tells  us 
we  accept  because  we  feel  its  truth  and  the  skill  of  its  telling. ' ' 

And  an  English  reviewer  characterized  this  collection  as 
**Epic  Stories  of  the  North." 

In  another  note  to  Anna,  Jack  is  seen  emerging  from  his 
hermit  mood  in  a  reference  to  the  pleasure  of  a  fortnight 's 
visit  each  from  the  Lily  Maid  and  Cloudesley  Johns.    And 


HOME  FROM  EUROPE;  SEPARATION   391 

below  are  brief  communications  to  his  two  friends  upon  one 
matter  or  another : 

**Dear  Anna: — 

*  *  Telegram  received.  I  have  no  copy  of  the  quotations  lost  by 
the  printers.  So  book  ["Kempton-Wace  Letters"]  will  have  to  go 
without  them.    Too  bad ! 

**.  .  .  Am  in  tremendous  rush.  Hope  you'll  make  this  out. 
Wilshire  was  out  to  see  me,  with  Rose,  the  Wallings,  etc.  All  went 
to  Ruskin  Annual  Dinner  together. 

**  Shall  send  fotos  of  Joan  and  Bess  as  soon  as  I  can  get  around 
to  the  making  of  them.  .  .  . 

*  *  By  the  way,  the  contract  you  signed  with  Macmillan  Company 
is  for  the  U.  S.  only.  I  feel  quite  certain  that  you  and  I  will 
receive  the  same  royalties  from  England  from  Messrs.  Isbister  & 
Co.  .  .  .  (This  Isbister  proposition  is  due  to  certain  publishing 
arrangements  I  have  on  that  side  of  the  water.) " 

*' April  24/03. 
**Dear  Anna: — 

"This  is  the  first  writing  I  have  done  for  some  time.  Easter 
Sunday  I  elected  to  cut  off  the  end  of  my  thumb,  and  not  finding 
the  piece,  have  had  a  painful  wound  to  heal.  .  .  .  Have  a  heart 
beating  in  the  end  of  my  thumb.  .  .  .  Am  glad  you  liked  the  dog 
story.  .  .  ." 

Of  same  date  to  Cloudesley : 

** Sedgwick  has  accepted  'Marriage  of  Lit-Lit*  [In  collection 
entitled  "The  Faith  of  Men"]  if  I  put  a  'snapper'  on  the  end  of  it 
As  it*8  already  sold  in  England  I  guess  I'll  obey. 


it 


Referring  to  ** People  of  the  Abysg'*: 


**May  5/03. 


**Dear  Cloudesley: 

"Thank  you  very  much  for  your  criticism.  The  proofs  are  in, 
but  I  shall  save  your  points  (almost  all  of  which  I  bow  to)  until  I 
get  another  whack  at  the  proofs,  which  I  will  get  when  I  place  the 
illustrations  in  it. 


392      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

"My  thumb  is  growing  nicely— quite  a  chunk  of  new  and  very 
tender  meat  on  the  end  of  it.  We  went  out  sailing  yesterday,  and 
about  eveo'body  aboard,  and  there  were  fifteen,  ran  into  it. ' ' 

'*May  29,  1903. 
"Dear  Cloudesley: 

"When  are  you  coming  up?  Am  just  in  from  a  cracking  good 
trip,  in  which  I  blew  the  Spray  ^s  sails  to  ribbons.  Am  waiting 
ashore  now  while  new  ones  are  being  bent.  I  find  that  I  can  work 
splendidly  upon  her. 

"Nothing  doing,  no  news,  nothing.  Thumb  is  getting  along 
and  have  finished  30,000  words  of  sea  story.  ["The  Sea  Wolf."] 
When  it  is  done  am  going  to  send  you  a  MS.  copy  for  criticism  (if 
you  don't  mind),  before  I  submit  it.'* 

*'The  Kempton-Wace  Letters''  was  published  in  May, 
and  Jack  received  his  first  copy  of  the  book  through  the 
Glen  Ellen  post  oflSce,  in  Sonoma  County,  whither  he  had 
removed  his  family  to  camp  on  my  Aunt's  place  on  Sonoma 
Mountain,  **Wake  Robin  Lodge."  Here  a  congenial  com- 
pany of  acquaintances  met  in  the  summers,  making  merry 
in  the  incomparable  woods  bordering  Graham  and  Sonoma 
Creeks,  swimming  in  the  pools,  tramping,  boxing,  fencing, 
kiting,  and  gathering  about  the  campfire  at  dusk  for  dis- 
cussion and  reading.  On  one  such  night  Jack,  in  firelight 
supplemented  by  a  lantern,  read  aloud  the  *' Letters.'* 
While  several  members  of  my  family  participated  in  all 
this  rural  delight,  I  was  able  to  be  present  upon  only  an  oc- 
casional week-end.  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  make  one 
of  the  thralled  circle  that  formed  about  the  flickering  logs 
on  the  June  evening  Jack  London  read  aloud  in  his  musical 
voice,  at  one  sitting,  ''The  Call  of  the  Wild,"  which  had 
just  come  to  his  hand. 

Jack's  state,  and  his  method  of  speculation  upon  that 
of  another,  is  shadowed  in  the  following,  written  to  George 
Sterling  in  June  of  1903 : 


HOME  FROM  EUROPE;  SEPARATION   393 

'*.  .  .  this  I  know,  that  in  these  later  days  you  have  frequently 
given  me  cause  for  honest  envy.  And  you  have  made  me  speculate 
a  great  deal.  You  know  that  I  do  not  know  you — no  more  than 
you  know  me.  We  have  really  never  touched  the  intimately  per- 
sonal note  in  all  the  time  of  our  friendship.  I  suppose  we  never 
shall. 

**And  so  I  speculate  and  speculate,  trying  to  make  you  out, 
trying  to  lay  hands  on  the  inner  side  of  you — what  you  are  to  your- 
self, in  short.  Sometimes  I  conclude  that  you  have  a  cunning  and 
deep  philosophy  of  life,  for  yourself  alone,  worked  out  on  a  basis 
of  disappointment  and  disillusion.  Sometimes,  I  say,  I  am  firmly 
convinced  of  this,  and  then  it  all  goes  glimmering,  and  I  think  that 
you  don't  want  to  think,  or  that  you  have  thought  no  more  than 
partly,  if  at  all,  and  are  living  your  life  out  blindly  and  naturally. 

"So  I  do  not  know  you,  George,  and  for  that  matter  I  do  not 
know  how  I  came  to  write  this.'* 

During  this  period,  some  of  his  friends  sensed  the  break- 
ing strain  the  young  man  was  undergoing,  and  that  all  was 
not  well  in  the  Londons'  ruddy-brown  tent  cottage  and 
environs  amidst  the  spicy-perfumed  laurels  edging  the 
Graham's  bank;  but  they  would  have  been  shocked  had  they 
known  the  strain  was  so  taut  that  for  some  time  back  Jack 
had  avoided  sleeping  with  his  old  familiar  pistol  in  the 
same  room,  lest  he  do  himself  an  injury  in  his  trouble- 
ridden  slumber.  Which  would  point  to  the  surmise  that 
unhappy  as  he  thought  himself,  he  valued  existence  suflSo- 
iently  to  take  steps  to  preserve  his  own. 

Much  suffering  he  concealed  in  the  solitude  of  a 
leafy  study  on  a  mossy  shelf  down  the  bank,  where  at  a 
rustic  table  he  worked  steadily  on  his  novel,  *^The  Sea 
Wolf'*;  or  under  an  hilarious  exterior  as  he  played  water- 
tag  with  a  bevy  of  camp  children,  or  blind-man's  bluff 
among  the  trees  and  blossomy  undergrowth  on  the  Sonoma's 
marge.  Mornings  he  rose  betimes  ivnd  went  out  ostensibly 
for  small  game,  with  a  conspicuous  absence  of  bags  upon 
his  retuniings.     This  gave  rise  to  an  endless  string  of 


3M      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

verses,  goodnaturedly  tauuting  and  wholly  affectionate, 
composed  by  little  Dorothy  ReynoId3  and  Henry  Breck  and 
their  playmates,  and  chanted  shrilly  by  the  juvenile  com- 
pany by  campfire,  to  the  tune  of  *  *  Mr.  Dooley.  *  *  Here  are 
some  of  the  verses: 

*'0  Mr.  London, 
O  Mr.  London, 

The  finest  man  the  rabbits  ever  knew; 
He  always  sought  them 
But  never  shot  them, 

For  that  was  Mr.  London's  way  to  do. 

**He  started  early 
One  Sunday  morning : 

He  said,  'I  will  be  sure  to  get  one  now  I' 
And  gazing  upward 
Upon  the  hillside, 

He  saw  a  rabbit  there  as  big  as  a  cow. 

**He  raised  his  rifle, 
He  shook  a  trifle; 

The  rabbit  looked  at  him  reproachfully. 
He  said,  'I  cannot,' 
He  said,  *I  will  not,' 

And  so  he  let  the  rabbit  turn  and  flee. 

CHORUS 

**0  it's  strange  when  upon  returning, 

How  his  hunter's  skill  he'd  praise, 
About  those  monstrous  rabbits 

In  his  early  morning  chase. 
O  it's  then  that  our  hearts  are  gladdest, 

And  it  seems  it  can't  be  true, 
When  he  has  to  eat  that  bacon 

Instead  of  rabbit  stew." 

It    was    during    these    dawn    and    sunrise    hauntings 
of  this  sloping  wall  of  Sonoma's  valley  that  Jack  London 


HOME  FROM  EUROPE;  SEPARATION   395 

fell  hopelessly  in  love  with  the  ** Sweet  Land'*  he  ever- 
more was  to  adore  and  make  his  heart-home. 

Evidently  his  plans  were  to  spend  as  little  time  thence- 
forth as  he  could  possibly  avoid  at  the  once  desirable  bunga- 
low in  Piedmont,  as  cited  by  his  next  contemplated  absence, 
in  a  letter  of  July  2 : 

**Dear  Cloudesley: 

"Here  I  am,  camping  and  knocking  out  1500  words  per  day 
seven  days  in  the  week.  If  you're  coming  to  see  me,  come  just  the 
same.  Am  only  2^2  hours  ride  from  San  Francisco.  So  bring  your 
traps  right  on  up  to  camp  here.  Have  a  girl  to  do  the  cooking, 
plenty  of  grub,  and  plenty  of  blankets.  So  come  along.  Expect  to 
stay  here  for  a  month  yet.    Then  for  the  sloop  I 

"...  You  remember  the  rig  we  rode  in  the  day  I  cut  my  thumb. 
Five  of  us  were  coming  in  on  it,  same  road,  down  hill,  horse  hitting 
it  up — when  king-bolt  broke  and  we  spilled.  I  had  five  different 
places  on  arms  and  legs  in  bandages,  also  a  stiff  knee.  Am  almost 
recovered  now. 

**No,  the  Kempton  Letters  were  written  entirely  by  Anna 
Strunsky,  though  the  ear-marks  of  each  are  to  be  found  in  the 
other's  work — unconscious  absorptions  of  style,  I  suppose." 

In  answer  to  some  question  from  George  Sterling,  he 
again  outlines  his  philosophy  of  work:  **No,  I  don't  ap- 
prove of  Pegasus  plowing  if  he  can  fly.  But  I  believe  in 
his  plugging  like  hell  in  order  to  fly. ' ' 

Of  course  this  tension  of  spirit  could  not  last,  in  one  so 
dynamic  and  intense  as  he.  In  spite  of  every  effort,  struggle 
as  he  would  to  carry  out  his  scientific-mating  experiment, 
he  became  beaten  at  his  own  game ;  and  it  was  by  a  curious 
irony  of  events  that  his  ultimate  failure  should  have  been 
coincident  with  the  appearance  of  **The  Kempton- Wace 
Letters,"  dealing  the  lie  direct  to  his  once  boasted  rule-of- 
thumb  program. 

Indeed,  not  long  afterward  we  learned  that  in  a  copy 
of  this  book  presented  to  a  young  cousin  of  mine,  he  had 


396      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

written  refuting  a  brave  argument  once  held  with  her  in 
camp: 

*  *  One  hour  of  love  is  worth  a  century  of  science. ' ' 

This  he  repeated  in  my  own  copy  three  months  after 
our  marriage. 

For  now,  abruptly,  *  *  out  flew  the  web  and  floated  wide, ' ' 
the  fabric  he  had  so  carefully  designed,  so  faithfully  woven 
to  its  last  least  pattern  of  fidelity.  It  had  got  beyond  him 
and  he  tore  it  and  cast  it  to  the  winds.  He  did  not  care 
whither  he  went,  nor  how,  nor  with  whom.  He  caught  at  a 
wild  unthought-out  suggestion  for  a  northern  trip  without 
an  ending — and  not  without  a  companion.  Largely  owing 
to  restlessness,  he  renounced  the  steamer  voyage  as  lightly 
as  he  had  conceived  it.  But  he  remained  unshaken  in  de- 
termination to  start  living  by  himself,  at  the  first  moment 
he  could  break  up  at  the  bungalow  and  see  his  family  housed 
comfortably  where  he  would  have  convenient  access  to  his 
little  ones. 

Let  no  one,  quick  to  condemn  his  action,  dream  that  all 
this  chaos  of  the  established  was  easy  for  a  man  of  Jack 
London's  stamp.  Deeply  he  loved  his  children,  bone  of  his 
bone,  flesh  of  his  flesh.  But  he  had  committed  a  boundless 
mistake  in  his  arrogant  youth,  and  the  penalty  that  was 
inevitable  had  overwhelmed  him  commensurately.  **I 
must  work  hard  to  bring  things  out  as  right  as  I  can,''  with 
sad  eyes  he  said  to  one  of  us,  *  *  though  it  be  work  that  shall 
wring  my  heart" — thinking  of  his  babies,  and  not  a  little 
of  the  radical  disturbance  of  their  mother's  round  of  exist- 
ence. Sometimes,  it  seemed,  he  almost  doubted  his  own 
strength  to  go  through  with  what  he  had  been  driven  to 
undertake. 

But  desire  for  freedom  had  wrung  him  vitally  from  all 
other  considerations — ^he  who  could  never  be  really  free,  in 
his  whole  life  of  responsibility  for  others.  From  Piedmont, 
in  the  midst  of  the  rack  of  tearing  up — everyone  concerned 


HOME  FROM  EUROPE;  SEPARATION    397 

oppressed  with  tlie  impermanence  of  what  had  seemed  so 
secure — Jack  wrote: 

**Dear  Cloudesley: 

**  Just  a  line  to  let  you  know  I  am  suddenly  back  from  camping, 
that  my  affairs  are  all  in  confusion,  that  I  do  not  know  yet  what  I 
shall  do,  that  I  need  and  can  use  no  help  other  than  my  own 
strength  may  give  me,  and  that  you  do  not  come  North  till  you  hear 
from  me  again.'* 

And  on  the  29th: 

*  *  Thank  you,  old  man.  Am  moving  house  and  splitting  up,  just 
now.     Poor,  sad  little  Bungalow! 

** Should  I  need  you,  I  will  call  upon  you  unhesitatingly.'* 

He  found  a  cozy  five-room  flat  in  Oakland,  at  what  was 
then  1216  Telegraph  Avenue,  to  which  he  moved  his  mother 
and  Johnnie,  setting  aside  space  for  his  own  belongings 
while  he  should  be  away  in  the  sloop.  The  two  babies  and 
their  mother  were  quartered  in  another  flat  a  few  blocks 
distant.    From  his  new  habitation  he  wrote  Cloudesley: 

''Aug.  21,  1903. 

**  Well,  good  luck  to  you,  old  man.  If  you  love,  that  is  all  there 
is  to  it.  I  thought  you  downed  my  Herbert  Wace  philosophy  rather 
squeamishly. 

**And  so  we  go  zigzagging  through  life.  When  we  first  knew 
each  other  we  were  on  the  same  tack.  Then  I  filled  away  on  the 
other  tack  and  married.  Now  I  have  come  about  once  more,  and 
I  find  that  you  have  put  your  helm  down  and  are  away  on  the 
opposite  tack.  May  your  reach  be  a  longer  one  than  mine — much 
longer." 

That  there  was  no  lack  of  anguish  on  Jack's  part  for 
pain  inflicted  throughout  this  separation,  may  be  judged, 
reticent  though  he  was  in  general,  from  the  closing  remark 
of  the  next  letter.  Also  he  gives  a  line  on  his  expectation 
of  benefit  to  his  work  in  the  new  order  of  life.    To  his  mind. 


398      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

there  could  be  no  two  ways  about  the  latter,  for  the  double 
homes  demanded  his  very  best  effort  to  earn  big  prizes, 
although  meanwhile  he  must  deliver  a  certain  amount  of 

**hack:'' 

"1216  Telegraph  Avenue, 
*' Oakland,  Cal.,  Aug.  26,  1903. 

**Dear  Cloudesley: 

**Ye8,  I  shouldn't  mind  living  for  a  while  in  Los  Angeles;  but, 
you  see,  I'm  settled,  am  three  months  behind  in  all  my  work,  let- 
ting my  contracted  work  go  and  hammering  away  at  hack  in  order 
to  catch  up  with  a  few  of  my  debts,  and  do  not  see  my  way  to 
getting  even  with  my  work  for  all  of  a  year  hence. 

**Hard-a-lee  with  me  will  not  affect  my  work — in  fact,  I  am 
confident  it  will  be  far  otherwise. 

**I  laugh  when  I  think  of  what  a  hypocrite  I  was,  when,  at  the 
Bungalow,  I  demanded  from  you  your  long-deferred  congratula- 
tions for  my  marriage — ^but,  believe  me,  I  was  a  hypocrite  grinning 
on  a  grid. 

"Concerning  your  affair,  let  me  say  this:  It*s  all  right  for  a 
man  sometimes  to  marry  philosophically,  but  remember,  it^a 
damned  hard  on  the  woman.*' 

.    To  Cloudesley,  September  5,  1903 : 

**Tell  you  what  I'll  do.  I'll  take  a  flying  trip  down  to  Los 
Angeles,  say  somewhere  in  January — if  not  December,  as  soon  as 
*  The  Sea  Wolf '  is  done  and  providing  the  Century  takes  it  serially 
for  1904.  The  dicker  is  now  on,  and  the  only  thing  Gilder  hesitates 
about  is  the  last  half  (unwritten)  wherein  a  man  and  woman  are 
all  by  themselves  on  an  island.  I  have  just  tried  to  assure  him 
that  I  won 't  shock  the  American  Prude,  and,  anyway,  that  he  can 
blue-pencil  all  he  wants. 

* '  If  Century  docsn  't  take  the  novel,  why,  when  I  get  done  with 
it  I  '11  have  to  plunge  into  hack-work  up  to  my  ears  to  escape  bank- 
ruptcy.   If  Century  does  take  it,  why  then  I  can  take  a  vacation. 

*'As  for  living  in  Los  Angeles — ^nay,  nay.  I  am  wedded  to 
Trisco  Bay. 

* '  I  should  like  to  take  the  ride  you  mention.  I  love  motion  and 
can  never  go  too  fast.  .  .  . 


HOME  FROM  EUROPE;  SEPARATION   399 

"I  wouldn't  care  much  for  a  woman  capable  of  saying:  *A 
woman  can  lose  everything,  even  her  loved  ones  and  her  life,  and 
still  be  rich  in  her  purity/  I  may  respect  her,  but  I  could  not 
admire  her.  She  is  a  little  cloudy  and  small  in  her  ethical  concepts 
even  though  it  be  not  her  fault.** 

The  next  letter  shows  his  desire  again  to  roam  the 
world : 

**Sept.  5,  1903. 
**Dear  Anna: — 

**As  usual,  hard  at  work.  It's  been  so  long  since  I  had  a  real 
vacation  that  I  hardly  know  what  such  a  thing  would  be  like. 
Even  when  I  was  in  Europe  last  year,  instead  of  resting  I  wrote 
a  book.  Well,  in  about  a  year  I  am  starting  off  around  the  world, 
and  I  expect  to  take  years  in  going  around. 

**.  .  .  Our  Book I  haven't  the  least  idea  how  it  has  sold; 

but,  when  all  is  said  and  done,  it  has  been  received  far  more  favor- 
ably  than  might  have  been  expected.  It  is  a  good  book,  a  big  book, 
and,  as  we  anticipated,  too  good  and  too  big  to  be  popular.  ..." 

On  the  21st  he  wrote  Cloudesley: 

"I'm  sending  you,  this  mail,  a  copy  of  *Call  of  the  Wild.*  You 
don't  seem  to  care  for  the  *  Daughter  of  the  Snows.'  I  don't  blame 
you.  I  wonder  how  you  11  like  the  '  Sea  Wolf. '  I '11  bet  you'll  won- 
der how  the  Century  dares  to  publish  it." 

**Sept.  26,  1903. 
**Dear  Cloudesley: 

**.  .  .  By  the  way,  I  learn  Macmillan  Company  has  made  *  Peo- 
ple of  Abyss'  into  a  $2.00  net  book." 

The  reviewers,  again  with  three  new  books  thrown  sud- 
denly at  their  heads,  making  eight  within  three  meteoric 
years  since  this  astonishing  young  writer  had  shot  into 
vision,  were  stunned  not  only  by  numbers  but  by  the  total 
dissimilarity  of  the  three—** The  Call  of  the  Wild,*'  **The 
Kempton-Wace  Letters,"  and  now  **The  People  of  the 
Abyss.**    British  critics,  theretofore  gathering  in  enthus- 


400  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

iasm,  were  of  two  minds  about  **The  People  of  the  Abyss.  *' 
Mainly  it  was  resented  and  condemned  as  an  inexcusable 
infringement  on  his  part  to  come  to  their  shores  and  turn 
out  the  London  slums  for  the  world  to  view.  They  thought 
he  would  be  better  occupied  in  those  of  his  own  land.  A 
minority,  however,  accorded  the  book  its  due.  And  two 
years  later,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  inspecting  New 
York's  East  Side,  exclaimed:  ** Amazing!  I  am  astonished 
at  it  all.  The  slums  of  New  York  are  not  nearly  so  bad  as 
the  slums  of  London.  And  the  mean  streets  are  not  so  mean 
as  the  East  End  of  our  great  English  city.'' 

'*Oct.  9,  1903. 
*  *  Say,  Cloudesley : 

**  Thursday,  Oct.  22nd,  I  set  sail  on  the  Spray  for  a  couple  of 
months  cruising  about  the  Bay,  and  up  the  Sacramento,  San  Joa- 
quin and  Napa  rivers.    Do  you  want  to  come  along,  just  you  and  I  ? 

**  We  can  both  get  our  writing  in  each  day  and  have  a  jolly  time. 
Also,  I'll  have  a  shotgun  and  rifle  along  and  we  can  get  in  plenty 
of  duck-shooting.  It  won't  cost  you  anything.  .  .  .  Also,  I  have 
that  Smith-Premier  typewriter,  and  if  you  can  use  such  a  machine 
you  won't  have  to  bring  your  own  along. 

**What  d'ye  say?    Let's  hear  soon." 

**Oct.  13,  1903. 
**A11  right,  old  man.    I  shall  look  for  you,  then,  on  Oct.  21st. 
You  may  desert  or  receive  dishonorable  discharge,  whichever  you 
will,  whenever  you  wish.  .  .  .  We  ought  both  of  us  get  in  plenty 
of  work,  and  have  a  good  time,  and  get  health  and  strength." 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

JAPANESE-RUSSIAN    WAK 
Spring  1904 

WITH  war  threatening  to  flare  up  any  moment  be- 
tween Japan  and  Russia,  the  San  Francisco  Eocami- 
ner  asked  Jack  London  if  he  would  be  ready  to  go  out  at 
call.  Jack,  near  the  close  of  his  sea  novel,  sorely  needing 
funds,  held  himself  awaiting  the  summons.  He  arranged 
his  finances  so  that  regular  payments  would  be  made  to  his 
mother  as  well  as  to  his  children,  with  instructions  to  his 
eastern  publishers  to  stand  prepared  to  advance  any  nec- 
essary further  sums  should  his  wife  call  for  the  same. 
Meanwhile  the  Managing  Editor  haled  him  to  San  Fran- 
cisco, to  sit  for  photographs  against  the  day  of  featuring  a 
sensational  departure.  The  pictures  were  posed  on  the 
roof  of  the  Examiner  Building,  and  portray  a  very  lovable, 
very  boyish,  unmodish  person,  with  tousled  curls. 

Although  hostilities  had  not  yet  been  actually  declared, 
Jack  was  dispatched  on  the  S.  S.  Siberia,  To  Cloudesley 
on  January  7  he  dashed  off:  **Sail  to-day  for  Yokohama, 
Am  going  for  Hearst.  Could  have  gone  for  Harper* s,  Col- 
Iter's,  and  N,  Y.  Herald — but  Hearst  made  the  best  offer. ' ' 
Other  newspapermen  aboard  were  Captain  Lionel  James, 
London  Times;  Percival  Phillips,  London  Daily  Express; 
Sheldon  Inglis  Williams,  artist  for  London  Sphere;  0.  K. 
Davis,  New  York  Herald;  Frederick  Palmer  and  R.  L. 
Dunn,  for  Collier's  Weekly,  and  Collier's  veteran  war 
photographer,  James  H.  Hare. 

En  masse  **The  Crowd'*  saw  Jack  off  at  the  dock;  and 
of  the  Crowd,  George  Sterling  and  I  were  entrusted  jointly 

401 


402      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

with  the  Century  Magazine  and  the  Macmillan  proof-read- 
ing of  **The  Sea  Wolf/*  the  manuscript  of  which  had  been 
completed  and  signed  the  previous  evening,  and  shipped  off 
to  the  Century  Magazine  for  immediate  serialization.  The 
original  script  of  this  novel  lay  in  a  steel  safe  throughout 
San  Francisco's  Great  Earthquake  and  Fire  of  1906,  and 
to  this  day  the  incinerated  sheets  preserve  their  form,  the 
only  visible  markings  being  lead-penciled  corrections,  which 
withstood  the  heat. 

Five  days  later,  at  the  Sterlings  *  in  Piedmont,  a  few  of 
us  gathered  to  celebrate  Jackie  twenty-eighth  birthday. 

Early  in  the  voyage,  he  had  an  attack  of  grippe;  and 
the  day  the  Siberia  cleared  from  Honolulu,  during  deck 
sports  Jack's  left  foot  was  badly  injured. 

There  is  not  space  in  this  biography  to  incorporate  Jack 
London's  articles  on  the  Japanese-Kussian  War.  But  I 
quote  excerpts  from  letters  written  to  me,  and  these  will 
serve  to  illustrate  the  almost  intolerable  irk  endured  under 
the  rigors  of  Japanese  discipline  toward  the  newspaper- 
man. *'They  settled  the  war  correspondent  forever,"  he 
often  exclaimed,  ^* and  they  proved  that  he  was  a  dis- 
pensable feature  of  warfare. ' ' 

Near  the  time  of  Jack's  death,  among  other  collections 
of  unpublished  book  material,  he  had  arranged  his  Jap- 
anese-Russian and  also  his  1914  Mexican  War-Notes,  which 
shall  presently  be  issued  as  he  intended.  His  utter  disgust 
with  the  lack  of  opportunity  given  the  journalist,  to  deliver 
what  would  be  really  worth-while  articles,  accounts  for 
his  long  delay  in  bringing  out  his  notes.  His  3-A  Kodak, 
however,  had  the  distinction  of  being  the  first  to  supply 
pictures  for  the  American  public,  although  so  poor  was 
the  mail  service  in  and  out  of  Korea,  he  never  knew  until 
his  return  six  months  afterward  whether  or  not  his  films 
and  cables  had  been  received. 

One  can  give  no  better  idea  of  his  experience  and  frame 
of  mind  than  by  quoting  from  his  letters  to  myself : 


JAPANESE-RUSSIAN  WAR  403 

"S.S.  Siberia, 
"Jan.  13/04. 

*' Somewhat  weak  and  wobbly,  but  still  in  the  ring.  Came  down 
with  a  beautiful  attack  of  La  Grippe.  Of  course,  didn't  go  to  bed 
with  it,  but  spent  the  time  in  a  steamer  chair,  for  one  day  half  out 
of  my  head.  And  oh,  how  all  my  bones  ache,  even  now !  And  what 
wild  dreams  I  had !  .  .  . 

*  *  Honolulu  is  in  sight,  and  in  an  hour  I  shall  be  ashore  mailing 
this,  and  learning  whether  or  not  there  is  war. 

**.  .  .  Am,  Grippe  excepted,  having  a  nice  trip.  The  weather  is 
perfect.  So  is  the  steamer.  Sit  at  the  Captain  *8  table,  and  all  the 
rest — ^you  know.  .  .  .'* 

"Jan.  15/04. 

"...  Well,  we  sailed  yesterday  from  Honolulu.  .  .  .  Am  still 
miserable  with  my  Grippe,  but  getting  better.  Had  a  swim  in  the 
surf  at  Waikiki.  Took  in  the  concert  at  the  Hawaiian  Hotel,  and 
had  a  general  nice  time. 

"Had  some  fun.  I  bucked  a  game  run  by  the  Chinese  firemen 
of  the  SiberiGf  and  in  twenty-five  minutes  broke  three  banks  and 
won  $14.85 !  So,  you  see,  I  have  discovered  a  new  career  for  my- 
self. 

"The  war  correspondents,  the  'Vultures,*  are  a  jolly  crowd. 
We  are  bunched  up  at  the  Captain's  table,  now  that  the  passenger 
list  has  been  reduced  by  the  lot  who  left  at  Honolulu.  In  fact,  the 
trip  to  Honolulu  had  three  bridal  couples  which  sat  at  the  upper 
end  of  the  table.  This  is  a  funny  letter — the  correspondents  are 
cutting  up  all  around  me;  and  just  now  I  am  being  joshed  good 
and  plenty." 

"S.S.  Siberia,  Jan.  20/04. 

**.  .  .  Quite  a  time  since  I  last  wrote.  You'll  wonder  why. 
Well,  know  that  I  am  the  most  fortunate  of  unfortunate  men. 
The  evening  of  the  day  we  left  Honolulu  I  smashed  my  left  ankle. 
For  sixty-five  sweaty  hours  I  lay  on  my  back.  Yesterday  I  was 
carried  on  deck,  on  the  back  of  one  of  the  English  correspondents. 
And  to-day  I  have  been  carried  on  deck  again. 

"The  smashed  ankle  is  the  misfortune;  the  fortune  ...  is  the 
crowd  of  friends  I  seem  to  have  collected.  Prom  six  o  'clock  in  the 
morning  till  eleven  at  night,  there  was  never  a  moment  that  my 


404      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

stateroom  did  not  have  at  least  one  visitor.  As  a  rule  there  were 
three  or  four,  and  very  often  twice  as  many.  I  had  thought,  when 
the  accident  happened,  that  I  should  have  plenty  of  time  for  read- 
ing; but  I  was  not  left  alone  long  enough  to  read  a  line. 

**I  am  looking  forward  with  interest  to  the  sixth  day,  when,  if 
the  surgeon  does  not  change  his  mind,  I  may  put  my  foot  to  the 
deck  and  try  to  walk  with  the  aid  of  crutches. 

* '  Of  course,  what  you  want  to  know  is  what  the  smash  consists 
in.  I  was  jumping  and  coming  down  from  a  height  of  three  feet 
and  a  half.  I  landed  on  my  left  foot — having  'taken  off'  with  my 
right.  But  my  left  foot  did  not  land  on  the  deck.  It  landed  on  a 
round  stick,  and  lengthwise  with  the  stick.  Stick  about  diameter 
of  broom-handle.  Of  course,  my  foot  went  up  alongside  my  leg. 
My  ankle  was  strained  on  one  side,  sprained  on  the  other.  That 
is,  the  tendons  on  the  inside  were  stretched  and  ruptured,  the  bones 
on  the  outside  ground  against  each  other,  bruising  themselves  and 
pinching  the  nerves — result,  an  irresistible  combination. 

**Now  I  have  two  weak  ankles.  I  fear  me  I  am  getting  old. 
Both  my  knees  have  been  smashed,  and  now  both  my  ankles.  It 
might  be  worse,  however.  What  bothers  me  just  now  is  that  I 
don't  know  just  how  bad  this  last  ankle  is.  Absolute  rest,  in  a 
rigid  bandage,  has  been  the  treatment,  so  not  even  the  surgeon  will 
know  till  I  try  to  walk  on  it. 

**.  .  .  Don't  worry  because  I  have  let  my  worry  out  in  this 
letter.  Anyway,  I'll  be  able  to  write  you  later,  before  we  make 
Yokohama,  and  let  you  know  more.  I  hope  the  report  will  be 
promising. ' ' 

**S.S.;Si&erm,  Jan.  21/04. 

"You  should  see  me  to-day.  Quite  the  cripple,  hobbling  around 
on  a  pair  of  crutches.  I  can't  stand  on  the  ankle  yet,  but  hope  to 
be  able  to  walk  by  the  time  we  make  Yokohama.  To-day  is  Thurs- 
day, and  we  expect  to  arrive  next  Monday  morning.  I  hope  war 
isn't  declared  for  at  least  a  month  after  I  arrive  in  Japan — will 
give  my  ankle  a  chance  to  strengthen. 

*'A11  hands  are  very  good  to  me,  and  I  might  say  I  am  almost 
worn  out  by  being  made  comfortable.  ...  I  am  in  for  a  game  of 
cards  now,  80  more  anon. " 


JAPANESE-RUSSIAN  WAR  405 

*'S.S.  Siberia,  Jan.  24/04. 

**  Yesterday  I  dragged  about  on  crutches  to  the  boat  deck  and 
to  tiffin,  and  to  bed.  To-day  I  have  ventured  without  crutches. 
But  I  walk  very  little — just  from  stateroom  to  boat  deck. 

**A  young  gale  is  on,  but  the  Siberia  is  behaving  splendidly. 

*'P.S.    The  young  gale  is  still  growing." 

*'S.S.  /Siberia,  Jan.  24/04. 
**Just  packing  up.  Shall  be  in  Yokohama  at  six  to-morrow 
morning.  Ankle  is  improving.  Am  walking  (very  slowly,  and 
limpingly,  and  carefully)  without  crutches.  I  just  missed  break- 
ing the  leg — so  you  can  see  what  a  twist  it  was.  Hope  the  war 
holds  off  for  a  month  yet.  .  .  .'* 

**  Thursday,  Jan.  28/04. 

**.  .  .  If  you  can  read  this.  The  train  is  joggling,  and  the  tem- 
perature inside  the  car  is  40.  I  am  on  the  express  bound  for  Kobe 
— where,  on  Jan.  31,  if  not  sooner,  I  expect  to  get  a  steamer  for 
Korea.  I  am  bound  for  Seoul,  the  capital.  Was  pretty  busy  in 
Yokohama  and  Tokio.  Arrived  Monday,  and  have  been  on  the 
jump  until  now,  though  this  writing  looks  as  though  I  were  still 
jumping. 

** Ankle  is  getting  better  very  slowly.*' 

**Jan.  29/04. 

**You  should  have  seen  me  plunging  out  of  Kobe  this  morning, 
myself  and  luggage  in  three  'rickshaws,  with  push-boys  and  pull- 
boys  and  all  the  rest,  and  racing  to  catch  the  express  for  Nagasaki. 
No  steamer  out  of  Kobe  till  Feb.  3rd,  so  am  going  to  try  my  luck 
at  Nagasaki,  twenty-two  hours'  ride  on  the  train  and  no  sleeping 
car. 

**  Weather  is  warmer  down  here.  It  was  bitter  cold  up  Yoko- 
hama-way. 

"If  I  do  not  refer  to  war  doings,  know  that  there  is  a  censor- 
ship, and  cables,  etc.,  are  held  up.  .  .  ." 

"Shimonoseki,  Feb.  3/04. 
"Still  trying  to  sail  to  Chemulpo.    Made  an  all-day  ride  back 
from  Nagasaki  to  Moji  to  catch  a  steamer,  Feb.  1    (Monday). 


406      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

Bought  ticket,  stepped  outside  and  snapped  three  street  scenes. 
Now  Moji  is  a  fortified  place.  Japanese  police  *Very  sorry,'  but 
they  arrested  me.  Spent  the  day  examining  me.  Of  course,  I 
missed  steamer.  'Very  sorry.'  Carted  me  down  country  Monday 
night  to  town  of  Kokura.  Examined  me  again.  Committed.  Tried 
Tuesday.  Found  guilty.  Fined  five  yen,  and  camera  confiscated. 
Have  telegraphed  American  Minister  at  Tokio,  who  is  now  trying 
to  recover  camera. 

* '  Received  last  night  a  deputation  from  all  the  Japanese  News- 
paper correspondents  in  this  vicinity.  Present  their  good  offices, 
and  'Very  sorry.'  They  are  my  brothers  in  the  craft.  They  are 
to-day  to  petition  the  judges  (three  judges  sat  on  me  in  black  caps) 
to  get  up  mock  auction  of  camera,  when  they  will  bid  it  in  and 
present  it  to  me  with  their  compliments.  'Very  uncertain,'  how- 
ever, they  say. 

*  *  Expect  to  leave  for  Chemulpo  on  the  6th  or  7th  inst. ' ' 

"On  board  Junk,  off  Korean  Coast, 
"Tuesday,  Feb.  9,  1904. 

* '  The  wildest  and  most  gorgeous  thing  ever !  If  you  could  see 
me  just  now,  captain  of  a  junk  with  a  crew  of  three  Koreans  who 
speak  neither  English  nor  Japanese  and  with  five  Japanese  guests 
(strayed  travelers)  who  speak  neither  English  nor  Korean — ^that 
is,  all  but  one,  which  last  knows  a  couple  of  dozen  English  words. 
And  with  this  polyglot  following  I  am  bound  on  a  voyage  of  sev- 
eral hundred  miles  along  the  Korean  coast  to  Chemulpo. 

"And  how  did  it  happen?  I  was  to  sail  Monday,  Feb.  8th,  on 
the  Keigo  Maru  for  Chemulpo.  Saturday,  Feb.  6th,  returning  in 
the  afternoon  from  Kokura  (where  my  camera  had  been  returned 
to  me) — returning  to  Shimonoseki,  I  learned  the  Keigo  Maru  had 
been  taken  off  its  run  by  the  Jap  Government.  Learned  also  that 
many  Jap  warships  had  passed  the  straits  bound  out,  and  that 
soldiers  had  been  called  from  their  homes  to  join  their  regiments 
in  the  middle  of  the  night. 

"And  I  made  a  dash  right  away.  Caught,  just  as  it  was  get- 
ting under  way,  a  small  steamer  for  Fusan.  Had  to  take  a  third 
class  passage — and  it  was  a  native  steamer — no  white  man's  chow 
(food)  even  first  class,  and  I  had  to  sleep  on  deck.  Dashing  aboard 
in  steam  launch,  got  one  trunk  overboard  but  saved  it.     Got  wet 


JAPANESE-RUSSIAN  WAR  407 

myself,  and  my  rugs  and  baggage,  crossing  the  Japan  Sea.  At 
Fusan,  caught  a  little  120-ton  steamer  loaded  with  Koreans  and 
Japs,  and  deck  load  piled  to  the  sky,  for  Chemulpo.  Made  Mokpo 
with  a  list  to  starboard  of  fully  thirty  degrees.  It  would  take  a 
couple  of  hundred  of  such  steamers  to  make  a  Siberia.  But  this 
morning  all  passengers  and  freight  were  fired  ashore,  willy  nilly, 
for  Jap.  Government  had  taken  the  steamer  to  use.  We  had 
traveled  the  preceding  night  convoyed  by  two  torpedo  boats. 

"Well,  fired  ashore  this  morning,  I  chartered  this  junk,  took 
five  of  the  Japanese  passengers  along,  and  here  I  am,  still  bound 
for  Chemulpo.  Hardest  job  I  ever  undertook.  Have  had  no  news 
for  several  days,  do  not  know  if  war  has  been  declared  and  shall 
not  know  until  I  make  Chemulpo — or  maybe  Kun  San,  at  which 
place  I  drop  my  passengers.  God,  but  I  *d  like  to  have  a  mouthful 
of  white  man's  speech.  It's  not  quite  satisfying  to  do  business 
with  a  24- word  vocabulary  and  gesticulations.'* 

**  Thursday,  Feb.  11,  1904. 

**0n  board  another  junk.  Grows  more  gorgeous.  Night  and 
day  traveled  for  Kun  San.  Caught  on  lee-shore  yesterday,  and 
wind  howling  over  Yellow  Sea.  You  should  have  seen  us  clawing 
off — one  man  at  the  tiller  and  a  man  at  each  sheet  (Koreans),  four 
scared  Japanese,  and  the  fifth  too  seasick  to  be  scared.  Of  course, 
we  cleared  off,  or  you  wouldn  't  be  reading  this. 

**Made  Kun  San  at  nightfall,  after  having  carried  away  a  mast 
and  smashed  the  rudder.  And  we  arrived  in  driving  rain,  wind 
cutting  like  a  knife.  And  then,  you  should  have  seen  me  being 
made  comfortable  last  night — five  Japanese  maidens  helping  me 
undress,  take  a  bath,  and  get  into  bed,  the  while  visitors,  male  and 
female,  were  being  entertained  (my  visitors).  And  the  maidens 
passing  remarks  upon  my  beautiful  white  skin,  etc.  And  this 
morning,  same  thing  repeated — the  Mayor  of  Kun  San,  the  captain 
of  police,  leading  citizens,  all  in  my  bed-room,  visiting  while  I  was 
being  shaved,  dressed,  washed,  and  fed. 

"And  all  the  leading  citizens  of  the  town  came  to  see  me  off, 
and  cheered  me,  and  cried  'Sayonara'  countless  times. 

"New  junk,  manned  by  Japanese — five — and  not  one  knows  one 
word  of  English ;  and  here  I  am,  adrift  with  them,  off  the  Korean 
Coast. 


406      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

**No  white  man's  news  for  a  long  time.  Hear  native  rumors 
of  sea-fights,  and  of  landing  of  troops,  but  nothing  I  may  believe 
without  doubting.  But  when  I  get  to  Chemulpo,  I'll  know  'where 
I'm  at.' 

**And  maybe  you  think  it  isn't  cold,  traveling  as  I  am,  by 
junk.  .  .  .  The  snow  is  on  the  land,  and  in  some  places,  on  north 
slopes,  comes  down  to  the  water's  edge. 

**And  there  are  no  stoves  by  which  to  keep  warm — charcoal 
boxes,  with  half  a  dozen  small  embers,  are  not  to  be  sneered  at — I 
am  beside  one  now,  which  I  just  bought  for  12 14  cents  from  a 
Korean  at  a  village,  where  we  have  landed  for  water." 

'*  Saturday,  Feb.  11,  1904. 

** Still  wilder,  but  can  hardly  say  so  'gorgeous,'  unless  land- 
scapes and  seascapes  seen  between  driving  snow  squalls,  be  gor- 
geous. You  know  the  tides  on  this  Coast  range  from  40  to  60  feet 
(we  're  at  anchor  now,  in  the  midst  of  ten  thousand  islands,  reefs, 
and  shoals,  waiting  four  hours  until  the  tide  shall  turn  toward 
Chemulpo — 30  li — which  means  75  miles  away). 

"Well,  concerning  tides.  Yesterday  morning  found  us  on  a 
lee  shore,  all  rocks,  with  a  gale  pounding  the  whole  Yellow  Sea 
down  upon  us.  Our  only  chance  for  refuge,  dead  to  leeward,  a 
small  bay,  and  high  and  dry.  Had  to  wait  on  the  40-ft.  tide.  And 
we  waited,  anchored  under  a  small  reef  across  which  the  breakers 
broke,  until,  tide  rising,  they  submerged  it.  Never  thought  a 
sampan  (an  open  crazy  boat)  could  live  through  what  ours  did. 
A  gale  of  wind,  with  driving  snow — you  can  imagine  how  cold  it 
was.  But  I'm  glad  I  have  Japanese  sailors.  They're  braver  and 
cooler  and  more  daring  than  the  Koreans.  Well,  we  waited  till 
eleven  A.M.  It  was  'twixt  the  devil  and  the  deep  sea — stay  and 
be  swamped,  run  for  the  little  bay  and  run  the  chance  of  striking 
in  the  surf.  We  couldn't  possibly  stay  longer,  so  we  showed  a 
piece  of  sail  and  ran  for  it.  Well,  I  was  nearly  blind  with  a  head- 
ache which  I  had  brought  away  with  me  from  Kun  San,  and  which 
had  been  increasing  ever  since;  and  I  did  not  much  care  what 
happened;  yet  I  remember,  when  we  drove  in  across,  that  I  took 
off  my  overcoat,  and  loosened  my  shoes — and  I  didn  't  bother  a  bit 
about  trying  to  save  the  camera. 

"But  we  made  it— half  full  of  water — but  we  made  it.    And 


JAPANESE-KUSSIAN  WAR  409 

maybe  it  didn  *t  howl  all  night,  so  cold  that  it  froze  the  salt  water. 

**A11  of  which  I  wouldn't  mind,  if  it  weren't  for  my  ankles.  I 
used  to  favor  the  right  with  the  left,  but  with  the  left  now  smashed 
worse  than  the  right,  you  can  imagine  how  careful  I  have  to  be 
(where  it  is  impossible  to  be  careful)  in  a  crazy  junk  going  through 
such  rough  weather.    And  yet  I  have  escaped  any  bad  twists  so  far. 

"Junks,  crazy — I  should  say  so.  Rags,  tatters,  rotten — some- 
thing always  carrying  away — how  they  navigate  is  a  miracle.  I 
wonder  if  Hearst  thinks  I'm  lost." 

*' Monday,  Feb.  15,  1904. 

**0h,  yes,  we  waited  four  hours!  When  four  hours  had  passed, 
wind  came  down  out  of  the  north,  dead  in  our  teeth.  Lay  all  night 
in  confounded  tide-rip,  junk  standing  on  both  ends,  and  driving  me 
crazy  what  of  my  headache. 

**At  four  in  the  morning  turned  out  in  the  midst  of  driving 
snow  to  change  anchorage  on  account  of  sea. 

**It  was  a  cruel  day -break  we  witnessed;  at  8  A.M.  we  showed 
a  bit  of  sail  and  ran  for  shelter. 

**My  sailors  live  roughly,  and  we  put  up  at  a  fishing  village 
(Korean)  where  they  live  still  more  roughly,  and  we  spent  Sunday 
and  Sunday  night  there — my  five  sailors,  myself — and  about  20 
men,  women  and  children  jammed  into  a  room  in  a  hut,  the  floor 
space  of  which  room  was  about  equivalent  to  that  of  a  good  double- 
bed. 

"And  my  foreign  food  is  giving  out,  and  I  was  compelled  to 
begin  on  native  chow.  I  hope  my  stomach  will  forgive  me  some 
of  the  things  I  have  thrust  upon  it :  Filth,  dirt,  indescribable,  and 
the  worst  of  it  is  that  I  can't  help  thinking  of  the  filth  and  dirt 
as  I  take  each  mouthful. 

**In  some  of  these  villages,  I  am  the  first  white  man,  and  a 
cariosity. 

**I  showed  one  old  fellow  my  false  teeth  at  midnight.  He  pro- 
ceeded to  rouse  the  house.  Must  have  given  him  bad  dreams,  for 
he  crept  in  to  me  at  three  in  the  morning  and  woke  me  in  order 
to  have  another  look. 

**We  are  under  way  this  morning — for  Chemulpo.  I  hope  I 
don't  drop  dead  when  I  finally  arrive  there. 

The  land  is  covered  with  snow.    The  wind  has  just  hauled 


I'll 


410      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

ahead  again.  Our  sail  has  come  in,  and  the  men  are  at  the  oars. 
If  it  blows  up  it'll  be  another  run  for  shelter.  0,  this  is  a  wild 
and  bitter  coast." 

**  Tuesday  night,  Feb.  16,  Chemulpo. 
**Just    arrived.      Am    preparing    outfit — horses,    interpreter, 
coolies,  etc.,  for  campaign  into  the  North  toward  the  Yalu  and 
most  probably  into  Manchuria." 

**Buy  everything  in  sight  and  get  ready  to  start  for 
Ping-Yang!''  Jack  was  greeted  when  he  landed  at  Che- 
mulpo. It  was  the  first  white-man's  speech  he  had  heard  in 
eight  days.  The  welcome  tongues  were  those  of  Jones 
and  MacLeod,  who  had  preceded  him.  One  of  these  men, 
who  had  known  Jack,  did  not  recognize  him,  so  disfigured 
and  cadaverous  was  he  from  sunburn  and  illness,  and  so 
crippled.  And  now,  for  the  first  time,  he  learned  that  war 
was  on — had  been  on  for  five  days. 

**  Chemulpo,  Feb.  17/04. 
**.  .  .  Am  preparing  to  advance  north — campaign  to  the  Yalu 
and  perhaps  into  Manchuria.  I  shall  accompany.  Am  busy  get- 
ting interpreters,  coolies,  horses,  saddles,  provision^,  etc.  Only 
four  outside  newspapermen  here.  The  rest,  a  host,  cannot  get 
here." 

'*  Grand  Hotel,  Seoul,  Feb.  24/04. 
**.  .  .  Am  starting  in  five  minutes  for  the  North.     Have  been 
about  crazy  trying  to  outfit  and  start: 

**3  pack  ponies 

**2  riding  horses 

**1  interpreter  (Jap.) 

"1  cook  (Korean) 

'*2  mapus  (Korean  grooms)." 

Of  all  the  correspondents  in  the  field,  Jack  was  the  last 
to  reach  Seoul,  but  the  first  to  the  Front.  At  Seoul,  no  one 
seemed  to  have  any  orders  about  him,  so  he  lost  not  a 
moment  hitting  the  road  for  the  North.    But  from  Sunan, 


JAPANESE-RUSSIAN  WAR  411 

the  farthest  point  yet  reached  by  any  correspondent,  and 
near  the  firing  line,  he  was  ruthlessly  ordered  back  to  Seoul. 

**  Ping-Yang,  March  4/04. 

**Have  made  180  miles  on  horseback  to  this  place.  I  shall  be 
able  to  ride  a  little  with  you  when  I  return,  for  it  appears  there  are 
months  of  riding  before  me.  I  have  one  of  the  best  horses  in  Korea 
— was  the  Russian  Minister's  at  Seoul  before  he  went  away. 

**Very  little  chance  to  write  these  days — am  not  writing  enough 
for  the  Examiner  as  it  is.  Worked  to  death  with  the  trouble  of 
traveling. 

**Have  received  no  more  letters  from  you  nor  anybody. 

**Am  pulling  North  soon  for  Anju  and  maybe  the  Yalu.  Am 
now  in  the  midst  of  accounts  with  correspondents,  interpreters, 
mapus  and  what  not,  so  cannot  think.  ...  I  do  not  know  when  I 
shall  ever  be  able  to  write  you  a  real  letter — lack  of  time. 

**But  I'm  learning  about  horses — last  two  days  traveled  50 
miles  a  day,  and  I  was  saddle-sore  and  raw. 

**I  am  living  in  a  Japanese  hotel  crammed  with  soldiers.  (Only 
three  of  us — 1  English  correspondent — 1  American  photographer.) 
Am  ordering  whiskey  just  now  for  them.'' 

*'Poral-CoUi,  March  8/04. 

*'How  the  letters  have  roused  me  up!  .  .  .  Furthermore,  they 
have  proved  to  me,  or,  rather,  reassured  me,  that  I  am  a  white  man. 

"As  a  sample  of  many  days,  let  me  give  to-day.  Was  for- 
bidden departure  by  Gen.  Sasaki  at  Ping- Yang — argued  it  out 
through  interpreters — vexations,  delays,  drive  me  mad.  Should 
have  started  at  7  A.M.  Scarcely  started  to  load  pack  horses,  when 
Bununoned  by  Japanese  Consul — more  interpreter — distraction — 
successful  bluff — pull  out  late  in  afternoon. 

**  Arrive  at  this  forlorn  village ;  people  scared  to  death.  Already 
have  had  Russian  and  Japanese  soldiers — we  put  the  finishing 
touch  to  their  fright.  They  swear  they  have  no  room  for  us,  no 
fuel,  no  charcoal,  no  food  for  our  horses,  no  room  for  our  horses, 
nothing — no  grub  for  our  mapus  and  interpreters.  We  storm  the 
village — force  our  way  into  the  stables — capture  25  lbs.  barley 
hidden  in  man's  trousers — and  so  forth  and  so  forth,  for  two 
mortal  hours — chatter  and  chin-chin  to  drive  one  mad. 


412      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

**And  this  is  but  one  of  all  the  days.  One  can  scarcely  think 
"white  man^s  thoughts.  ...  As  I  write  this,  the  horses  are  breaking 
loose  in  the  stable — native  horses  are  fiends,  and  I  have  desisted 
writing  long  enough  to  stir  up  the  mapus. 

**The  horse  I  was  astride  of  to-day  is  named  Belle.  I  named 
her  after  your  Belle.  She  is  as  sweet  and  gentle  as  yours,  and  she 
is  the  only  sweet  and  gentle  horse  in  Korea.  She  is  an  Australian 
barb,  and  have  I  told  you  she  was  the  Russian  Minister 's  at  Seoul  1 
She  is  gigantic  compared  with  all  other  horses  in  Korea — Chinese, 
Japanese,  and  Korean  horses — and  excites  universal  wonder  and 
admiration. 

"As  I  write  this  a  cold  wind  is  blowing  from  the  North,  and 
snow  is  driving.  Also,  before  my  door  are  groaning  and  creaking 
a  hundred  bullock-carts  loaded  with  army  supplies  and  pushing 
North. 

"My  interpreter  comes  in  with  his  daily  report.  Manyoungi, 
my  Korean  cook  and  interpreter,  comes  in  with  tea  and  toast.  Dunn 
sends  down  half  a  can  of  hot  pork  and  beans — and  there  are  a 
thousand  interruptions. '  * 

"Wednesday,  Mar.  9/04. 

"Here  we  are — captured  and  detained,  while  the  wires  are 
working  hot  between  here  and  Ping- Yang  and  Seoul.  I  mean  cap- 
tured by  Japanese  soldiers  who  will  not  let  us  proceed  North  to 
Anjou.  And  five  more  vexatious  hours  have  just  elapsed — chin- 
chin  and  delay  galore. 

"As  I  write  this,  a  thousand  soldiers  are  passing  through  the 
village  past  my  door.  My  men  are  busy  drawing  rations  for  them- 
selves and  horses  from  the  Army. 

"Red  cross  ponies,  pioneers,  pack  horses  loaded  with  munitions 
and  supplies,  for  foot  soldiers,  are  streaming  by.  Captains  are 
dropping  in  to  shake  hands  and  leave  their  cards,  and  then  going 
on. 

"IMPORTANT.    ANOTHER  VEXATION! 

"Just  caught  five  body  lice  on  my  undershirt.  That  is,  I  dis- 
covered them,  Manyoungi  picked  them  off,  the  while  he  interpreted 
for  me  an  invitation  from  a  Korean  nobleman  to  come  to  his  place 
and  occupy  better  quarters!    The  nobleman  looked  on,  while  the 


JAPANESE-KUSSIAN  WAR  413 

lice  were  caught  and  I  changed  my  clothes.  Lice  drive  me  clean 
crazy.  I  am  itching  all  over.  I  am  sure,  every  second,  that  a 
score  of  them  are  on  me.  And  how  under  the  sun  am  I  to  write 
for  the  Examiner  or  write  to  you ! 

**  Intermission — the  horses,  stabled  within  ten  feet  of  me,  have 
been  kicking  up  a  rumpus — kicking,  biting,  stampeding  my  Belle 
and  my  three  other  horses — and  broken  legs  would  not  be  welcome 
just  now.    I  am  advised  to  get  my  life  insured. 

'^*And  the  troops  stream  by,  the  horses  fight — and  mapus,  cook 
and  interpreter,  are  squabbling  4  feet  away  from  me.  And  the  frost 
is  in  the  air.    I  must  close  my  doors  and  light  my  candles. 

**A  Korean  family  of  refugees — ^their  household  goods  on  their 
backs,  just  went  by.** 


'*  Japanese  Consulate, 

**The  9th  March,  1904. 
*'To  Mr.  Jack  London: 
**Sir: 

**I  have  the  honor  to  inform  you  by  the  order  that  you  would 
stay  here  until  our  Land  Forces  under  Major  General  Sasaki  pro- 
ceed for  the  North. 

**  Yours  truly, 

(Signed)  "C.  Chinjo, 
"Jap.  Acting  Consul." 

Jaxjk,  referring  to  the  foregoing,  notes  as  follows : 

**Thi8  is  one  of  many  commands  not  heeded.  This  was  issued 
yesterday  at  Ping- Yang.  I  am  now  North  of  that  city  and  in 
advance  of  General  Sasaki. 

*'The  first  command,  had  I  obeyed  it,  would  have  held  me  in 
Tokio  to  this  day,  where  are  50  other  correspondents  who  did  heed. 
I  am  prepared,  however,  to  be  held  up  by  Japanese  scouts  at  any 
moment  and  be  brought  back  to  Ping- Yang.  But  it's  all  in  the 
game.  I  am  the  only  correspondent  thus  far  in  advance.  With  me 
is  Dunn,  a  photographer  for  Collier's  Weekly.  ...  In  Ping-Yang 
are  two  other  correspondents — and  that  is  all  the  regular  cor- 
peepondents  in  Korea  at  present  moment.** 


414  THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

"Sunan,  Mar.  11/04. 

**Have  just  returned  from  a  ride  on  Belle — doesn't  that  strike 
you  familiarly  t  North  I  may  ride  for  a  hundred  yards,  and  when 
I  come  thundering  up  at  a  lope  the  Japanese  guard  turns  out  on 
the  run,  presenting  bayonets  to  me  in  token  that  I  may  proceed  no 
farther.  East,  West,  and  South  I  may  ride  as  far  as  I  wish,  but 
North,  where  fighting  is  soon  to  begin,  I  may  not  go.  Nor  may  I 
go  until  I  receive  permission  from  Lieut.-General  Inouye,  com- 
mander of  the  12th  Division  of  12,000  men,  and  just  now  at  Seoul, 
a  couple  of  hundred  miles  to  the  South. 

**.  .  .  Your  two  letters  I  received  several  days  ago  were  brought 
up,  horseback,  from  Seoul.  As  I  write  I  look  out  my  door  and  a 
dozen  feet  from  where  I  am  sitting,  see  Belle  munching  away  at 
her  barley  ration  which  I  have  drawn  for  her  from  the  Army.  She 
IS  a  joy!  ...  I  am  my  own  riding  teacher.  I  hope  I  don't  learn 
to  ride  all  wrong.  But  anyway,  I'll  manage  to  stick  on  a  horse 
somehow,  and  we  '11  have  some  glorious  rides  together. ' ' 

**Sunan,  March  12/04. 
**.  .  .  You  needn't  worry  about  my  welfare.  The  Japanese  are 
taking  very  good  care  of  me.  Here  I  am,  40  miles  from  the  front, 
and  here  I  stay.  The  only  other  newspaperman  who  reached  this 
far,  Dunn,  has  gone  back.  So  I'm  farthest  north  of  all  the  cor- 
respondents. Furthermore,  no  others  may  now  pass  out  of  Ping- 
Yang." 

He  quotes  several  short  poems  from  the  Korean,  and 
comments : 

*  *  These  are  sweet,  are  they  not  ?  They  are  the  only  sweet  things 
I  have  seen  among  the  Koreans ! ' ' 

'*  Ping- Yang,  March  14/04. 
'*.  .  .  Ordered  back  to  Ping- Yang  yesterday  by  the  authorities — 
80  here  I  am,  and  a  chance  to  mail  this. ' ' 

**  Ping- Yang,  March  16/04. 

*  *  Here  beginneth  the  retrograde  movement.  Have  been  ordered 
back  50  li  from  Sunan  to  this  place.  Am  now  ordered  back  540  li 
from  this  place  to  Seoul — the  Japanese  are  disciplining  us  for  our 


JAPANESE-RUSSIAN  WAR  415 

rush  ahead  and  the  scoop  we  made — and  they  are  doing  it  for  the 
sake  of  the  correspondents  who  remained  in  Japan  by  advice  of 
Japanese  and  who  have  made  life  miserable  for  the  Japanese  by 
pointing  out  that  we  have  been  ahead  gathering  all  the  plums. 

"540  li  to  Seoul  and  540  li  back  =  1080  useless  11  I  have  to 
ride,  plus  100  (Sunan  and  return)  =  1180  useless  li.  Well,  I'll 
become  used  to  the  saddle  at  any  rate.'* 

**  Seoul,  March  18/04. 
**  Just  arrived,  fired  hence  from  the  North.    Pull  out  on  a  little 
side  jump  to  Wei-hai-wei  to-morrow  morning  early.    Learn  that  a 
bunch  of  letters  is  chasing  around  after  me  up  at  Ping- Yang.  .  .  . 
Shall  get  them  a  week  hence  when  return  from  Wei-hai-wei.  *  * 

*•  March  19/04. 
"...  Didn't  go  to  Wei-hai-wei  after  all.'' 

'•Seoul,  Korea,  March  29/04. 

**Here  I  am,  still  in  Seoul,  assigned  to  the  first  column  but  not 
permitted  to  go  to  the  Front.  None  of  the  correspondents  at  front. 
All  held  back  by  Japanese,  and  in  this  matter  we  are  being  treated 
abominably. 

**...!  have  decided  that  I  shall  remain  away  no  more  than  a 
year.  Ten  months  from  the  time  I  left  San  Francisco,  I  shall  cable 
Hearst  to  send  out  another  man  to  take  my  place  at  the  front — if 
I've  got  to  the  front  by  that  time. 

**.  .  .  Since  writing  you  from  north  of  Ping- Yang  at  Sunan,  I 
have  not  only  received  not  one  letter  from  any  one  else,  but  not  one 
letter  from  you.  .  .  .  You,  at  least,  have  my  miserable  letters  to 
the  Examiner  to  read.  Have  never  been  so  disgusted  with  any- 
thing I  have  done.  Perfect  rot  I  am  turning  out.  It's  not  war 
correspondence  at  all,  and  the  Japs  are  not  allowing  us  to  see  any 
war.  Photographs  inclosed  taken  at  table  upon  which  I  am  writing 
this." 

"Grand  Hotel,  Seoul,  Korea,  April  1/04. 
"And  still  no  mail.  ...  Ill  never  go  to  a  war  between  Orien- 
tals again.     The  vexation  and  delay  are  too  great.     Here  I  am, 
■till  penned  up  in  Seoul,  my  5  horses  and  interpreters  at  Chemulpo, 
my  outfit  at  Ping-Yang,  my  post  at  Anjou— -and  eating  my  heart 


416      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

out  with  inactivity.  Such  inactivity,  such  irritating  inactivity,  that 
I  cannot  even  write  letters. 

**Mark  you,  while  inactive,  I  am  busy  all  the  time.  What  wor- 
ries is  that  I  am  busy  with  worries  and  nothing  is  accomplished. 
Never  mind,  I  may  not  ride  beautifully  or  correctly,  but  I  '11  wager 
that  I  stick  on  and  keep  up  with  you  in  the  rides  we  may  have  to- 
gether. 

*'Just  now  I'm  riding  all  kinds  of  Chinese  ponies,  with  all 
kinds  of  saddles,  in  all  kinds  of  places  (and  some  of  the  ponies  are 
vicious  brutes).  I  was  out  yesterday,  without  stirrups,  and  loped 
all  over  the  shop  with  another  fellow,  down  crowded  streets,  narrow 
streets,  crooked  streets,  over  sprawling  babies,  for  the  ponies  are 
hard-mouthed  and  headstrong  (a  thousand  shaves),  and  live  to  tell 
the  tale.*' 

Here  is  a  letter  received  by  Jack  from  Mr.  James, 
Chemulpo,  at  this  juncture: 

**Dear  London: 

*  *  Your  mare  and  the  ponies  are  well  looked  after.    Only  a  little 

influenza  in  her  and  she  wants  a  lot  more  exercise.    She  is  quite  fat. 

** Chin-chin,  old  chap.  <,^  c       j       i. 

'  Yours  as  a  Sourdough, 

'*  James." 

And  at  foot,  this  note  from  Jack's  interpreter,  K. 
Yamada : 

**For  you  don't  returned  within  long  time  there  happened  trou- 
ble yesterday  that  I  had  been  arrested  to  Japanese  gendarme  as 
reporting  military  secret  to  you  and  after  10  hours  examined  sev- 
eral questions,  I  could  come  back  to  my  boarding  house.  Received 
telegram  and  I  shall  do  your  order. 

**Y.ff'ly  [affectionately?!], 
**K.  Yamada." 

'*If  you  don't  come  back  I  can't  help  plenty  troubles." 

Jack  comments  upon  the  two  communications  above : 

**  These  two  letters,  on  same  sheet,  as  indicative  of  some  of  my 
troubles.    Here  I  am,  compelled  to  remain  in  Seoul,  my  horses  at 


JAPANESE-RUSSIAN  WAR  417 

Chemulpo.  My  interpreter,  K.  Yamada,  left  in  charge  of  horses, 
arrested.  My  mare  with  influenza,  and  suffering  from  *  hay-belly,' 
which  James  mistakes  for  being  in  foal.  Hay  I  had  sternly  for- 
bidden, for  I  had  learned  effect  on  mare.  James  (an  Ex-Klondiker) 
and  making  a  dash  for  Chemulpo,  I  asked  to  take  a  look  at  my 
horses.  *  * 

In  very  bad  humor  over  the  holding  up  of  his  mail,  he 
writes : 

**  Seoul,  Korea,  April  5/04. 

**.  .  .  I  am  going  out  to  ride  off  steam  now  on  a  jockey  saddle 
and  a  spanking  big  horse,  and  if  we  don't  kill  each  other  well  kill 
a  few  native  babies  or  blind  men.  Had  the  horse  out  yesterday — 
hardest  mouth — took  half  a  block  to  bring  it  to  a  walk  and  half  a 
dozen  to  hold  it  when  I  got  off  to  pay  a  call.  How  I  stuck  on  I 
don't  know — but  I  never  took  the  reins  in  both  hands,  a  la  Jap- 
anaise,  nor  did  I  throw  my  arms  around  his  neck.  Oh,  I'm  learn- 
ing, I'm  learning.  I  never  had  time  in  my  life  to  learn  to  play 
billiards,  but  I'm  learning  now.  I  never  had  time  to  learn  to 
dance,  but  if  this  war  keeps  on  I'll  learn  that,  too — only  the  mis- 
sionaries don't  dance,  and  the  Kresang  (Korean  dancing  girls) 
can't  dance  because  the  Emperor's  mother  is  dead  and  the  court 
is  in  mourning. 

** To-morrow  night  I  give  a  reading  from  *Call  of  Wild'  before 
foreign  residents  for  benefit  of  local  Y.  M.  C.  A. — and  I  give  it  in 
evening  dress  I  !  I  Custom  of  the  country  and  I  had  to  come  to 
it.  In  Japan,  however,  one  has  to  have  a  frock  coat  and  top  hat — 
imagine  me  in  a  Prince  Albert  and  a  stovepipe.  Anyway,  if  Japan 
wins  this  war  the  Japs  will  be  so  cocky  that  white  people  will  be 
unable  to  live  in  Japan.  .  .  . 

**.  .  .  Here's  the  horse,  and  I  go.  Say,  I  have  learned  a  new 
Bwear-word  (Korean),  'Jamie.'  Whenever  you  want  to  swear  just 
say  'Jamie'  softly,  and  people  won't  know  you  are  swearing," 

*'0-Pay,  Korea,  April  16/04. 
**In  the  saddle  again  .  .  .  and  riding  long  hours.     Roads  are 
muddy.    Was  putting  Belle  in  up  to  the  shoulders  as  darkness  fell 
last  night.    Have  breakfast  eaten  and  am  under  way  at  6  a.m.    It 


418      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

is  now  9 :30  p.m.,  and  I  have  just  finished  supper  and  am  going  (in 
about  one  minute)  rather  tired  to  bed.** 


**Anjou  House,  April  17/04. 

**  Plugging  along  in  the  race  for  Japanese  Headquarters.  Four 
men  ahead  of  me,  but  expect  to  overhaul  them,  though  I  am  bring- 
ing my  packs  along  and  they  are  traveling  light.  The  rest  of  the 
bunch  is  left  in  the  rear. 

*' Beautiful  long  hours  in  the  saddle,  and  beautiful  mud.  .  .  . 
Am  prouder  than  a  peacock,  for  I  am  able  to  keep  Belle's  shoes 
on  her,  to  tighten  them  when  they  get  loose,  and  to  put  on  a  shoe 
when  she  casts  and  loses  one.  Of  course,  it  is  coldshoeing,  but  they 
work!  they  workr^ 

**Wiju,  April  24th. 

**Well,  I  didn't  overtake  the  four  men  ahead  of  me,  though  I 
caught  up  with  them  where  they  were  stopped  farther  back  along 
the  road,  and  arrived  here  with  them,  where  we  shall  stop  for 
some  time. 

**Now,  to  business.  As  I  understand  it,  Macmillans  expect  to 
bring  out  *  The  Sea  Wolf '  late  this  Fall.  I  shall  not  be  able  to  go 
over  the  proof-sheets.  And  you  must  do  this  for  me.  I  shall  write 
Macmillans  telling  them  this  and  asking  them  to  get  into  com- 
munication with  you.  In  the  first  place,  before  any  of  the  book 
is  set  up  in  print,  you  must  get  from  them  the  original  MS.  in 
their  possession.  Much  in  this  MS.  will  have  been  cut  out  in  the 
Century  published  part.  What  was  cut  out  I  want  put  back  in 
the  book.  On  the  other  hand,  many  GOOD  alterations  have  been 
made  by  you  and  George  [Sterling],  and  by  the  Century  people — 
these  alterations  I  want  in  the  book.  So  here's  the  task — take  the 
Macmillan  MS.,  and,  reading  the  Century  published  stuff,  put  into 
Macmillan  MS.  the  good  alterations. 

**  Furthermore,  anything  that  offends  you,  strike  out  or  change 
on  your  own  responsibility.  You  know  me  well  enough  to  know 
that  I  won't  kick." 

**  Headquarters  1st  Japanese  Army, 

**  Manchuria,  May  6/04. 
**...!  am  well,  in  splendid  health,  though  profoundly  irri- 
tated by  the  futility  of  my  position  in  this  Army  and  sheer  inability 


JAPANESE-RUSSIAN  WAR  419 

(caused  by  the  position)  to  do  decent  work.  Whatever  I  have  done 
I  am  ashamed  of.  The  only  compensation  for  these  months  of 
irritation  is  a  better  comprehension  of  Asiatic  geo^aphy  and 
Asiatic  character.  Only  in  another  war,  with  a  whiteman's  army, 
may  I  hope  to  redeem  myself.  It  can  never  be  done  here  by  any 
possibility.** 

*  *  Feng- Wang-Cheng, 
**Headqrs.  First  Jap.  Army,  **  Manchuria,  May  17,  1904. 

**...!  have  so  far  done  no  decent  work.  Have  lost  enthusiasm 
and  hardly  hope  to  do  anything  decent.  Another  war  will  be 
required  for  me  to  redeem  myself,  when  I  can  accompany  our  army 
or  an  English  army.  Well,  time  rolls  on.  In  six  weeks  the  rainy 
season  will  be  here.  The  chances  are  that  I'll  pull  out  for  some 
point  in  China  where  I  can  get  in  touch  with  a  cable.  .  .  . 

**Do  you  know — beyond  my  camera  experience  at  Moji  (mailed 
before  the  War)  I  do  not  know  whether  the  Examiner  has  received 
one  article  of  mine  (I  have  sent  19)  or  one  film  (and  I  have  sent 
hundreds  of  photographs)." 

**  Headquarters  First  Japanese  Army, 

*  *  Feng- Wang-Cheng, 

**  Manchuria, 
"May  22,  1904. 

**My  heart  does  not  incline  to  writing  these  days.  It  could  only 
wail,  for  I  am  disgusted  at  being  here.  Wart  Bosh!  Let  me  give 
you  my  daily  life. 

**I  am  camped  in  a  beautiful  grove  of  pine  trees  on  a  beautiful 
hill-slope.  Near-by  is  a  temple.  It  is  glorious  summer  weather.  I 
am  awakened  in  the  early  morning  by  the  songs  of  birds.  Cuckoo 
calls  through  the  night.  At  6 :30  I  shave.  Manyoungi,  my  Korean 
boy,  is  cooking  breakfast  and  waiting  on  me.  Sakai,  my  inter- 
preter, is  shining  my  boots  and  receiving  instructions  for  the  morn- 
ing. Yuen-hi-kee,  a  Chinese,  is  lending  a  hand  at  various  things. 
My  Seoul  mapu  is  helping  in  the  breakfast  and  cleaning  up  gen- 
erally.   My  Ping- Yang  mapu  is  feeding  the  horses. 

"Breakfast  at  7.  Then  try  to  grind  something  out  of  nothing 
for  the  Examiner.  Perhaps  go  out  and  take  some  photographs, 
which  I  may  not  send  any  more  for  the  Censor  will  not  permit 


420      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

them  to  go  out  undeveloped  and  I  have  no  developing  outfit  or 
chemicals  with  me. 

**I  am  at  liberty  to  ride  in  to  headquarters  at  Feng- Wang- 
Cheng,  less  than  a  mile  away.  And  I  am  at  liberty  to  ride  about 
in  a  circle  around  the  city  of  a  radius  little  more  than  a  mile. 
Never  were  correspondents  treated  in  any  war  as  they  have  been  in 
this.    It's  absurd,  childish,  ridiculous,  rich,  comedy. 

* '  In  the  afternoon,  the  call  goes  forth,  and  we  (the  correspond- 
ents) go  swimming  in  a  glorious  pool — clear  water,  over  our  heads, 
plenty  of  it.  It  all  reminds  me  of  Glen  Ellen.  A  campfire  at  night, 
whereby  we  curse  God,  or  Fate,  and  divers  peoples  and  things 
which  I  shall  not  mention  for  the  Censor's  sake,  and  the  day  is 
ended. 

**  Disgusted,  utterly  disgusted. 

*  *  I  have  this  day  written  the  Examiner  that  in  a  month  or  six 
weeks  (at  outside)  I  shall  pull  out  of  the  country  and  go  to  some 
place  where  I  can  get  in  direct  communication  with  them ;  that  my 
position  here  is  futile;  that  there  is  no  reason  for  my  continuing 
here,  and  that,  unless  arrangements  have  been  made  for  me  to  go 
on  the  Russian  side,  I  shall  return  to  the  United  States — unless 
they  expressly  bid  me  remain. 

**Now  I  don't  think  it  is  possible  for  them  to  make  arrange- 
ments for  me  to  go  on  the  Russian  side,  so  ...  as  you  read  this 
I  may  be  starting  on  my  way  back  to  the  States,  to  God 's  country, 
the  Whiteman's  country.  .  .  .  Who  knows?  Who  knows?  At  any 
rate,  believe  me  ...  it  would  take  a  many  times  bigger  salary 
than  I  am  receiving  to  persuade  me  to  put  in  a  year  again  in  Japan 
much  less  pay  for  the  year  out  of  my  own  pocket.  In  the  past  I 
have  preached  the  Economic  Yellow  Peril;  henceforth  I  shall 
preach  the  Militant  Yellow  Peril. 

*'And  just  imagine  the  Censor  reading  all  this.  .  .  .  Not  a  let- 
ter, not  a  line.    I  know  not  what  is  happening. 

**.  .  .  I  have  no  heart,  no  head,  no  hand,  for  anything.  In 
preposterous  good  health,  but  ungodly  sick  of  soul.  ..." 

Jack  London  always  cherished  a  high  regard  for  Rich- 
ard Harding  Davis.  Mr.  Davis,  together  with  John  Fox, 
Jr.,  and  a  large  contingent  of  other  writers,  were  held 
tightly,  though  courteously  and  hospitably,  bottled  up  in 


JAPANESE-RUSSIAN  WAR  421 

Tokyo  by  the  Nippon  Government.  Here  they  were  eating 
out  their  hearts  in  enforced  inaction,  doubtlessly  envious, 
and  excusably,  of  the  seven  men  who.  Jack  among  them, 
had  somehow  got  ahead  with  the  First  Army.  And  yet, 
when  it  was  rumored  in  Tokyo  that  Jack  London,  a  white 
man,  a  countryman,  was  in  sore  straits  with  the  brown 
military  authorities  away  up  in  Korea,  and  like  to  be  sum- 
marily dealt  with,  it  was  Richard  Harding  Davis,  white  man 
to  white  man's  rescue,  although  personally  he  knew  him  not, 
who  first  set  the  wires  burning  to  Washington,  where  Theo- 
dore Roosevelt  sat  in  the  President's  chair. 

I  have  heard  Jack's  account  of  the  fracas  that  **put  him 
in  wrong"  with  General  KurokL  Later  on,  someone  cir- 
culated that  he  had  been  sent  back  to  America  for  **  viola- 
tion of  neutrality."  Being  very  rusty  on  the  facts,  I  took 
occasion,  during  a  visit  from  James  H.  Hare  in  1917,  to 
refresh  my  memory.  When  Jack  renewed  acquaintance 
with  both  **Jimmie"  Hare  and  **Dick"  Davis  in  1914  at 
Vera  Cruz,  I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  them. 

The  seven  who  were  lucky  enough  to  be  members  of  the 
Japanese  First  Army  were  Jack  London,  Captain  Thomas 
(French),  William  Maxwell  (British),  Mr.  Eraser,  and, 
for  Collier's  Weekly,  Mr.  Hare,  Mr.  Palmer,  and  Mr.  O.  K. 
Davis — all  absolute  subjects  of  the  iron  machine  of  which 
they  were  part.  Each  possessed  his  own  outfit  and  servants, 
including  a  mapu  (horse-boy),  and  every  week  these  mapus 
went  to  the  Japanese  quartermaster  to  obtain  feed  for  their 
masters'  beasts.  On  one  such  day.  Jack's  boy  had  some 
dispute  with  another  mapu.  Going  to  see  what  the  row 
was  about.  Jack's  boy  explained  that  the  other  had  pre- 
vented him  from  getting  his  proper  share  of  the  feed. 
This  same  offender  Jack  recognized  as  one  who  had  been 
stealing  his  *'grub"  for  some  time  back;  but  knowing  how 
risky  it  would  be  for  an  unwelcome  white  correspondent  to 
strike  a  Japanese,  no  matter  how  low  in  station,  had  re- 
gretfully refrained  from  taking  it  out  on  the  other's  hide. 


422      THE  BOOK  OF  JACK  LONDON 

On  the  present  occasion  Jack  interposed,  by  word  of 
mouth,  and  the  impudent  thief,  presuming  too  far  upon  a 
fancied  security,  made  a  threatening  bluff  in  his  direction. 
Jack  watched  carefully,  and  only  when  the  fellow  came 
actually  at  him,  did  he  let  out  that  small,  scientific  fist. 
**Lord,  Lord,*'  I  can  hear  him  muse,  **I  only  hit  him  once — 
stopped  him  with  my  fist,  rather — you  know,  he  fell  right 
into  it;  and  then  down  with  a  thud.  And  he  went  around 
whimpering  in  bandages  for  two  weeks.  *' 

But  Jack  nor  his  friends  minimized  the  danger  he  was 
in,  for  the  beaten  mapu  lost  no  time  reporting  to  headquar- 
ters, and  there  were  black  looks  everywhere.  Jack  was 
called  on  the  carpet  by  General  Kuroki's  chief  of  staff. 
General  Fuji,  while  the  six  other  white  men  armed  them- 
selves, determined  to  stand  with  their  comrade  against  the 
whole  brown  Army  if  need  be,  and  go  down  together — a 
lovely  thing,  the  most  inspiring  and  romantic  in  the 
world. 

Matters  looked  very  serious  for  a  while,  although  Gen- 
eral Fuji  did  at  length  condescend  to  listen  to  Jack's  side. 
Richard  Harding  Davis's  effort  undoubtedly  halted  any 
sudden  execution  by  court  martial  that  might  have  been 
in  the  minds  of  the  staff.  At  any  rate  the  storm  blew  over; 
but  for  days  the  seven  men  kept  closely  together,  ready  for 
emergency.  Again,  in  1914,  Mr.  Davis  extended  a 
second  white-man's  hand  in  an  unforeseen  diflSculty;  but 
that  story  belongs  elsewhere. 

And  when  Jack  sailed  from  Yokohama,  coming  home,  he 
left  Mr.  Davis  still  awaiting,  with  the  other  soul-sick  cor- 
respondents, their  permission  to  go  to  the  Front. 


APPENDIX 


jf^   HOROSCOPE 

D^.../s::.i..^.At.M. 


i4mi /*^.: 

IXU..   J.^.f. 


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HOROSCOPE  OP  JACK  LONDON,  CAST  IN  1905 


aOBOICOPIl  OF  JACK  LONDON,  CIST  AFTBB  UIS  DEATH 


PS       London,  Charmian  (Kittredge) 
3523        The  book  of  Jack  London 
04,6Z7 
v.l 


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