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MORGAN ROBERTSON 
 THE MAN 
 
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MORGAN ROBERTSON 
 THE MAN 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 McCLURE'S MAGAZINE 
 
 AND 
 
 METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE 
 
COPYKIGHT, 1915, BY 
 
 METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE 
 Nbw York 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This is a little book about a big man. Within 
 
 the past year thousands have come to know Morgan 
 
 Robertson's stories. Old admirers have renewed the 
 
 charm of his work in a new and more befitting dress 
 
 than the fleeting pages of a magazine. For these 
 
 old and new friends this book was published, in the 
 
 hope that it would warm you to a man who gave you 
 
 many enjoyable hours. Not one side of his complex 
 
 personality was spared. In this book is Morgan 
 
 Robertson with all his weaknesses and foibles and all 
 
 the other things, too, that made him a big man and 
 
 a good friend. 
 
 THE EDITOR. 
 
 *r- VL^ -^ O O O 
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 From personal experience I have learned two 
 things — the rapaciousness of mother-in-laws and the 
 self-centeredness of professional writers are two 
 things that exist only in comic (sic) papers. As the 
 country man said of the camel, " they ain't no sich 
 animal " in real life. 
 
 It has been my pleasurable experience to see a 
 dream realized — to see the genius of Morgan Robert- 
 son recognized by his countrymen and to see his 
 widow benefit from that recognition. In no small meas- 
 ure was this success reached by the hearty and will- 
 ing commendations publicly made by some of the big- 
 gest men in Morgan Robertson's craft. They knew 
 the depth of Morgan Robertson's genius. They in- 
 vited the reading public to sit in and enjoy the good 
 things they had tasted. For Morgan Robertson and 
 for every new reader of his stories I acknowledge his 
 and their thanks to 
 
 Booth Tarkington Finley Peter Dunne 
 
 Robert W. Chambers Henry Reuterdahl 
 
 Irv'in S. Cobb Wilham Dean Howells 
 
 George Horace Lorimer Bozeman Bulger 
 
 Richard Harding Davis J. O'Neill 
 
 Joseph Conrad Charles Somerville 
 
 Robert H. Davis John Kendrick Bangs 
 
 Rex Beach Arthur T. Vance 
 
It would be amiss not to mention here the follow- 
 ing publishing houses who graciously surrendered 
 their book rights to Morgan Robertson in this effort : 
 
 Doubleday, Page & Co., 
 Century Company. 
 
 Thanks are also acknowledged to the publishers of 
 the various periodicals and magazines mentioned in 
 this book who courteously permitted the publication 
 of articles in this volume that originally appeared in 
 their publications. 
 
 J. B. K. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MouGAN Robertson . . Frontispiece 
 
 Morgan Robertson, Shipmate ... 1 
 
 Gathering No Moss — An Autobiography . 6 
 
 Sidelights on Morgan Robertson. By Seth 
 Moyle 38 
 
 My Skirmish with Madness. By Morgan 
 Robertson 4f5 
 
 Morgan Robertson, Hero. By J. O'Neill . 69 
 
 The Art of Morgan Robertson. By Charles 
 Hanson Towne ...... 87 
 
 The Morgan Robertson I Knew. By Arthur 
 T. Vance 9^ 
 
 The Psychic Mystery of His Time. By 
 Henry W. Francis 99 
 
 Morgan Robertson, the Man. By Bozeman 
 Bulger 103 
 
 Morgan Robertson. By Arthur B. Maurice . 116 
 
 The Man I Knew. By Grace Miller White . 120 
 
 Morgan Robertson's Famous Recipes . . 12^9 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON 
 THE MAN 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON, SHIPMATE 
 
 One of the original subscribers to the first edition 
 of Morgan Robertson's books was an American Con- 
 sular Agent in Japan. With his subscription he sent 
 a letter mentioning that thirty years ago Morgan 
 Robertson and he were ship-mates. Scenting an in- 
 teresting story, we invited the writer to tell Morgan 
 Robertson's admirers of the voyage and what he 
 remembered of Morgan Robertson, then a young 
 sailor. This interesting article was the answer. At 
 the request of the author his name is withheld. 
 
 MORGAN ROBERTSON and myself were ship- 
 mates in the American ship Sunrise, Captain 
 Clark, in the early eighties, from New York for 
 Hongkong. You will find part of this voyage de- 
 scribed in " Masters of Men," although for purposes 
 of his own Morgan Robertson has advanced the time 
 some sixteen or seventeen years, also worked in two 
 naval people. The tragedy of the carpenter and the 
 cook actually occurred and is not a bit overdrawn, 
 and is only one of the many incidents that occurred 
 on this voyage. I disagree with him in one thing 
 only, and that is the food. The food on this vessel 
 was really good. The skipper was the hardest propo- 
 sition that ever went captain of an American mer- 
 chant vessel. The mates — of whom more, farther on 
 — were two of the greatest brutes unhung. 
 
2 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 1 was only sixteen years old at the time. Morgan 
 Robertson was about twenty-three or twenty-four, 
 as near as I can recollect. He was a good sailor, 
 and was picked for one of the quartermasters when 
 the ship left New York. 
 
 It was my first voyage to sea. A young Irish boy 
 from Brooklyn — Jimmy Riley — and myself joined the 
 ship about a week before she sailed. We loaded case 
 oil on the South Brooklyn side of the river, and on 
 completion of the loading dropped down to Staten 
 Island, one cold winter's day, and anchored. The 
 crew came on board early the next morning, Morgan 
 Robertson with them, and my attention was first 
 drawn to him by the fact that he was one of the 
 few that were sober and ready to turn to. There was 
 only one other American besides him in the crew, a 
 man named Daly, whose picture is very well drawn in 
 the Sawyer, in " Masters of Men." Two minutes 
 after the crew had come aboard I thought Hell had 
 broken loose. The mates pitched into them and, by 
 hammering them that could stand, and playing the 
 hose on those that were unable to do so, in about 
 twenty minutes they had that crew in shape to turn 
 to. The first mate was a Down Easter, named Col- 
 son ; the second mate was an Irishman, named Nolan. 
 He came from Belfast, but hailed from Paris, Ken- 
 tucky, although he had never been there and only 
 had a hazy notion as to where it was. His reason 
 for hailing from Paris, Kentucky, was that every 
 Dutchman that came over hailed from New York, and 
 he wanted to hail from somewhere else. They were 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON, SHIPMATE 3 
 
 two brutes ; also, probably as fine specimens of sea- 
 men as you would find anywhere. 
 
 Although that morning there was not a sail bent, 
 three topgallant masts housed, jib-boom rigged in, 
 all the heavy stores around the deck because there 
 had been no time to stow them below, and most of 
 the crew more or less helpless on account of their 
 recent debauch on shore ; nevertheless at four o'clock 
 in the afternoon we were towing down the bay bound 
 for Hongkong. I did not appreciate this feat of 
 seamanship at the time, but I did so in later yea.TS. 
 
 The crew were the usual collection and conglomera- 
 tion of foreigners that gathered in the forecastles 
 of American ships thirty years ago. Riley and my- 
 self lived in the boys' room in the after end of the 
 forward house. Probably because it was more con- 
 genial, both Morgan Robertson and Daly spent much 
 of their spare time in the dog-watches with us. 
 Morgan Robertson was called " Shorty " and " Bib " 
 on board. He was a good, smart sailor and, as 
 already stated, the captain picked him for one of 
 the quartermasters before we got to Sandy Hook. 
 He was in the mate's watch, while I was in the second 
 mate's. He was a good " yamer," and I can still 
 remember many of his stories, some of which I can 
 even now recognize worked into various stories. He 
 also, at times, recited poetry. I recollect one poem, 
 about an old New Jersey deacon, who after his death 
 reached the gates of Heaven, and, being impressed 
 with his own importance, demanded admission as 
 follows : 
 
4 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 " Open wide the gates of Heaven, Uncle Gabriel blow 
 your horn; 
 Here comes one with sins forgiven, here comes one 
 that's newly born." 
 
 However, the gates are not thrown open, and 
 after a long time St. Peter opens the little window 
 and asks the cause of all the disturbance. The 
 deacon again demands admission, although he has 
 shrunk considerably in size. St. Peter then reminds 
 him of all the mean things that he has done and 
 forgotten, and gradually the deacon gets smaller and 
 smaller, and is about to take the road to down below, 
 when St. Peter takes pity on him and opens the gate 
 the fraction of an inch, through which the deacon 
 just manages to squeeze. 
 
 I do not know whether this poem was original with 
 " Shorty," or whether he read it somewhere and 
 memorized it. I have often wished that I could get 
 the whole of this poem again. 
 
 However, as a rule we were too tired to do much 
 
 more than lie around and talk in the dog-watch. The 
 
 Sunrise was a hard ship. There was no afternoon 
 
 watch below and very often no morning watch either, 
 
 which meant that if you got an average of six hours 
 
 sleep out of the twenty-four you were lucky. Also, 
 
 there were no opportunities for a quiet " calk " on 
 
 deck in the night time. The watch were kept on their 
 
 feet at the break of the poop, while we boys— one of 
 
 us in each watch— were kept on the lee side of the 
 
 poop under still closer supervision. Riley and myself 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON, SHIPMATE 5 
 
 were the only ones of the crew forward who made the 
 voyage. The rest of the crew, "Shorty" among 
 them, were either paid off or ran away in Hongkong. 
 I saw him but once afterwards and that was in 1889, 
 in New York, at which time he told me that he was 
 second mate of a barquentine, bound on a voyage 
 to Matanzas, Cuba. 
 
 I left New York in 1891, and did not return there 
 until 1913. In the meantime I had read a number 
 of his books, the first one published by Harpers 
 years ago. It was not, however, until I read " Mas- 
 ters of Men " that I recognized my old shipmate. I 
 always thought of writing and getting into touch 
 with him, but sailorlike kept putting it off. Two 
 years ago I came home to New York on a visit, 
 the first in twenty-two years. I thought of making 
 inquiries, but there was so much to see — so much 
 that had changed — that it kept me busy for a month, 
 at the end of which time I was suddenly recalled 
 by a cable. 
 
 When I saw your announcement last February, I 
 wrote you for his address, which you kindly sent 
 me, but almost immediately after I noticed the ac- 
 count of his death in the New York Times. 
 
GATHERING NO MOSS 
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 This is Morgan Robertson's life story, as he wrote 
 it himself. Published in the " Saturday Evening 
 Post," it attracted attention all over the country. 
 Booth Tarkington considered it one of the best things 
 Morgan Robertson ever did. The publication of 
 this remarkable document was the inspiration for the 
 plan launched a few months later by the " Metro- 
 politan " and " McClure's " to give Morgan Robert- 
 son the recognition and reward that had been so long 
 denied him. 
 
 T PUT in ten years at sea before the mast. Ten 
 •■- more years I served as a diamond-setter. I have 
 been an inventor. In addition to this I have written 
 more than two hundred short stories. My name has 
 appeared as author of stories in every leading maga- 
 zine in the United States and frequently in the 
 English periodicals. The editor will recall that nine- 
 teen of my stories appeared in this publication — a 
 fact I cite to prove that my literary work reached 
 a pretty good standard of quality. 
 
 I have had published fourteen books, none of which 
 retailed for less than a dollar. I frequently go into 
 public libraries and see my fourteen volumes strung 
 out in a row. I go to these libraries for books be- 
 cause I have not enough money to buy one. I am 
 
 6 
 
GATHERING NO MOSS 7 
 
 broke! I am the rolling stone that gathered no 
 moss. 
 
 I am not a spendthrift — never have been one. I 
 have never lived expensively — have never been able to. 
 The only dress suit I have ever owned I still have. 
 I never wear it nowadays, because I have not the 
 things to go with it. In other words, I cannot live 
 up to it. I am simply improvident — a poor business 
 man. I have never made five thousand dollars in a 
 single year. 
 
 I still write, but I have trouble in selling. I fear 
 that I am a sponge squeezed dry. 
 
 I did not begin to write until I was thirty-six years 
 old, and that was a long time ago. I began then — 
 as I have begun everything — because I needed the 
 money. After many years of what my friends are 
 pleased to call a successful literary career I am in the 
 same fix as when I started. As a literary rolling 
 stone it is likely I have gained some polish, but just 
 enough to make me feel the lack of the moss. That, 
 I fear, I shall never have. 
 
 The responsibility for my having been an author 
 is shared by two men — a newspaper reporter and 
 Rudyard Kipling. The former suggested to me that, 
 as I had been a sailor, I might be interested in a 
 sea story written by the latter. He handed me a copy 
 of a magazine containing Kipling's story and urged 
 me to read it. While riding home on an elevated 
 train in New York, after having spent one nickel of 
 my last quarter, I did so. 
 
 Up to that time I had never read much fiction and 
 
8 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 became intensely interested, noting with impatience in 
 one or two instances where the author had made slight 
 mistakes in naming certain parts of a ship's rigging. 
 But that story inspired me. I was out of a job 
 because the failure of my eyes had forced me to give 
 up my work as a diamond-setter. 
 
 " If a man who has never worked at sea can write 
 a story like that " — I could tell from certain phrase- 
 ology that he had never been a sailor — " and get 
 money for it," I thought, " why couldn't I, a man of 
 actual experience, write one? " 
 
 On my walk from the train to my little flat on 
 Washington Heights, where a frugal dinner of corned 
 beef and cabbage awaited me, I thought of nothing 
 but Kipling's story. It fascinated me. It was the 
 first story I had ever read without a love affair in it. 
 
 Maybe, I thought, here is the chance for escape 
 from the hardships of tramping from place to place, 
 looking for a job. 
 
 As I neared home an idea came to me for a story 
 of my own. It was suggested by Kipling's, it is 
 true, but it was not an imitation. His was a story 
 of strong men up against a problem of life or death, 
 fighting it out. My story was of a tramp, a good- 
 for-nothing Jack-of-all-trades and master of none, 
 who, caught on an icebound and dismasted barge in 
 a winter storm on Lake Erie, rigged a jury foremast 
 and sailed her into Buffalo. I had spent many years 
 as a sailor on the Great Lakes and knew the at- 
 mosphere. 
 , At dinner I was so absorbed in my new thought 
 
GATHERING NO MOSS 9 
 
 that I answered mj wife in monosyllables and actually 
 bolted my food — so anxious was I to get at my story. 
 
 While my wife was clearing off the table I went 
 into the kitchen and, using the covered washtubs for 
 a desk, began to write with the stub of a pencil on 
 the backs of a stack of circulars 1 was to have dis- 
 tributed. On and on through the night I wrote until 
 I had finished the story of eight thousand words just 
 before daylight. Long before that my wife had gone 
 to bed and left me to my new whim, as she regarded 
 it. I slept but two or three hours and then did not 
 rest well, so impatient was I to get downtown with 
 my story. 
 
 At noon I hunted up my newspaper friend and 
 told him what I had done. He granted me the use 
 of his typewriter for transcribing. Up to that time 
 I had never had my hands on a typewriting machine, 
 but I was determined- In two days I painfully 
 picked out a transcription of my story, which natur- 
 ally was ragged with errors and misplaced letters. I 
 did not aspire to the magazines then, but took my 
 painfully typed story to a newspaper syndicate, the 
 editor of which received me most courteously. He 
 assured me if I could suit him he would pay as high 
 as two cents a word- Two cents a word ! That 
 meant one hundred and sixty dollars ! 
 
 I went home glorified and waited a week — two 
 weeks — three weeks; and then I called on the editor 
 of the syndicate. He had forgotten me, but said if 
 I had left a story with him I should hear about it 
 through the mails. I waited another week, while the 
 
10 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 butcher, the grocer, the landlord, and the wolf as- 
 sailed my door — then called again on the editor. He 
 glared at me while informing me that my story 
 would receive due attention, and again said that I 
 should hear from him through the mails. I waited two 
 more weeks and called again. 
 
 " Here I am ! " I announced. " And I want to 
 know whether or not you want my story." 
 
 Unconsciously I was talking like a sailor. He 
 looked up from his desk as though I had insulted him, 
 then let out a roar. He would have made a good 
 second mate, that editor ; he was big and strong and 
 self-confident. 
 
 " Albert ! " he called in a voice that would have 
 reached from the poop-deck to the foretopgallant- 
 yard. " Drop whatever you are doing and get this — 
 gentleman — his story. And give it to him. Hear 
 me ? Give it to him ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir," answered Albert, then a young stenog- 
 rapher but now a successful banker ; and he ran down 
 the long line of desks while I paced up and down, 
 with a tingling at the roots of my hair. Then Albert 
 came back. 
 
 " What is the name of the story? " he asked. 
 
 " The Destruction of the Unfit," I answered in as 
 loud a voice as my lungs and anger would give me. 
 " And my name is " 
 
 " Hold on ! " interrupted the big editor, rising to 
 his feet. " Did you write that story — ' The Destruc- 
 tion of the Unfit'.?" 
 
 " I did." 
 
GATHERING NO MOSS 11 
 
 " Sit down, sir," he said more kindly. " I beg 
 your pardon. I do recognize you now, but I had 
 lost remembrance of you in the rush of business here. 
 I remember your giving me that story and I assure 
 you I gave it a prompt reading. Though I recog- 
 nized its worth at the first page I knew it was too 
 long for my syndicate and sent it back to the editor 
 of the magazine." He explained to me that the 
 syndicate and one of the big magazines were op- 
 erated under the same general management. " It 
 must be there yet," he said. " Just sit here and 
 I'll get track of it." So I sat while Albert resumed 
 his work, and that big editor spent half an hour 
 hunting up my story. At last he appeared. 
 
 " Your story has received the approval of every 
 member of the editorial staff except the editor-in- 
 chief," he said; " and his objection is that it violates 
 all the rules of fiction writing." 
 
 I asked him whether he had read it through and 
 he said he had. I then asked him why he had read 
 it and his reply was : 
 
 " Because I wanted to know how it came out." 
 
 "Isn't that all you want in a story?" I asked, 
 unable to understand the fine points of the writing 
 game. He gave me no satisfactory answer. 
 
 " But " — and the big man clapped me on the back 
 — " your story will go. Just wait ! A story that 
 an editor will read to the end usually has a chance." 
 
 I went home more glorified than ever. Was it 
 possible, I asked of myself, that I was to become an 
 author.? Could I teach, preach, tell my fellow-men 
 
12 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 what I knew, and sign ray name in print? I could 
 hardly believe it; yet, if so, a wonderful career had 
 opened up for me — a career full of effort and en- 
 deavor, of honor, of esteem, of position and acclaim — 
 a career in which work was no longer an expenditure 
 of energy to be followed by bodily fatigue. Work 
 was to be a delight, a pleasure, a fruition. And in 
 this frame of mind, with empty pockets and an empty 
 stomach, I met that big editor a few days later on 
 the street. 
 
 " Come in here," he said, " and have a drink with 
 me. I want to tell you something." I followed him 
 in, and across a round table we talked. 
 
 " You are up against the hardest game a human 
 being ever tackled," he began. " Statistics have been 
 compiled which show that tons of ink, tons of paper, 
 and miles of typewriter ribbons are wasted each year 
 by would-be writers — for nothing. You have written 
 one good story and it will probably be accepted; 
 but you have wasted nearly two months in the effort. 
 Is it worth while .f* Can you keep it up? I can't, 
 and I have been writing with more or less success 
 for thirty years. 
 
 " Now, as I understand it, you want to make a 
 living. You need money and to get it you are willing 
 to work. Well, strike out ! Make out a list of busi- 
 ness houses that might give you work and go the 
 rounds every day. Present yourself again and again 
 to the business heads and repeat the formula: 'I 
 want work.' I assure you that in a week's time you'll 
 get it." 
 
GATHERING NO MOSS 13 
 
 I was impressed and was about to follow his advice 
 when the magazine accepted my story on condition 
 that I take twenty-five dollars as remuneration and 
 rewrite it so as to eliminate some of the expressions 
 which, in the editor's opinion, were too technical for 
 the average reader. I accepted, and forgot the other 
 editor's advice in my increased glorification. 
 
 I saw no more of that editor for a year, when — 
 again with empty pockets and an empty stomach, 
 but with nineteen or twenty stories to my credit in 
 good magazines — I met him accidentally. He again 
 invited me into a cafe. 
 
 " I am going to drink this one," he said as he 
 raised his glass, " to a fellow who has won. I had no 
 faith in you, for I had seen too many make the same 
 start and drop off ; but you are a winner. I know it ! 
 Never mind if you are not getting the money." He 
 had surely noticed my shabby apparel. " You'll get 
 it. You've got me beaten and I congratulate you. 
 I've read your stuff and I am mighty proud that I 
 was the first editor to approve it. Here's how ! " 
 
 Through the long years when an occasional spell 
 of glorification was sandwiched in between the poverty 
 and hardships, I have been upheld by that man's good 
 opinion of me more than by ambition, pride, or neces- 
 sity. He is dead now — dropped in the street ; but his 
 influence on my mind is still with me. Had I not 
 met him I should not be writing this story. 
 
 However, when the big editor said, " Never mind, 
 you'll get the money ! " he was wrong. I have made 
 some, it is true; but I have never been able to have 
 
14 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 enough ahead at any one time to live comfortably and 
 without worry. 
 
 My first story — the one for which I received 
 twenty-five dollars — received considerable attention at 
 the time and is now printed in one of my books. Its 
 appearance in a leading magazine made it easier for 
 me to see the editors and also enabled me to get my 
 future stories read more quickly. 
 
 When I went home with that first twenty-five dollars 
 my wife naturally was delighted. She saw a future 
 pride in telling people that her husband was an 
 author. It relieved her of having to explain that I 
 had been a sailor and a diamond-setter, but that I 
 was temporarily out of employment. 
 
 The money did not go far, however. We owed the 
 butcher and the grocer more than that, and were hard 
 pressed by the landlord besides. No matter how well 
 I succeeded, somehow I seem always to have been 
 pressed by landlords. Still, the money was a tem- 
 porary relief and, feeling encouraged, I set to work 
 with a vim and soon turned out another sea yarn. 
 For this one I received forty dollars, and the editor 
 urged me to write more. 
 
 Understand you, I was not an educated man and 
 knew little about the rules of English. I had never 
 heard of what is known as style in writing. My work 
 was always laborious. I would get an idea for a 
 plot and would then proceed to put it down in painful 
 style, a paragraph at a time. Unlike most writers, 
 I rarely ever rewrote my stories. 
 
 My vocabulary was very limited and frequently I 
 
GATHERING NO MOSS 15 
 
 had to look through the dictionaries for the proper 
 word to express myself. 
 
 I used to marvel at my newspaper friend, who 
 could sit down at a typewriter and reel off copy by 
 the yard. He never had to hesitate for a word. By 
 instinct, it seemed, he knew how to punctuate. 
 
 " It must be great to be able to do that," I said to 
 him one day. " Think of how I have to pore over 
 my words ! " 
 
 " Yes," he replied, " it does come easy ; but you 
 also want to remember that I couldn't write a short 
 story to save my life. I guess I'm too free with my 
 language." I know now that he was. 
 
 At the end of my first year of writing I sat down 
 with my wife one night and decided to take stock. 
 I had written something like twenty stories, which 
 later proved to be the cream of all my efforts. For 
 these I had received an average price of forty-five 
 dollars. My year's work had netted me about a 
 thousand dollars — about twenty dollars a week. 
 
 To some that may appear better than working as 
 a sailor or even as a diamond-setter. I know thousands 
 of good men support families on much less than that ; 
 but of those thousands few are authors who have to 
 live in New York. I assure you that living the life 
 of a writer is much more expensive than following 
 the daily walks of a sailor or a diamond-setter. 
 
 As my name began to appear frequently I had to 
 meet other writers. To be successful at anything one 
 must be in the atmosphere of the thing he is doing. 
 To have a talk with another writer or two usually 
 
16 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 cost me a dollar. If I did that every day — my aver- 
 age was easily one dollar — it can be seen that three 
 hundred and sixty-five of my thousand dollars went 
 toward social talks with other authors. 
 
 Right away I expect someone to say: " That only 
 goes to show the curse of drink ! " But I should like 
 someone to tell me how an individual in search of 
 companionship can upset the customs of his fellow- 
 men singlehanded ! I could not if I had wanted to ; 
 and, besides, I had no such inclination. If a fellow- 
 writer, meeting me on the street, slapped me on the 
 shoulder and invited me into a cafe I went — not 
 because I particularly wanted a drink but because 
 I wanted to talk and hear others talk. I needed com- 
 panionship of that kind. If I remained any length 
 of time I had to extend a drink invitation — and drinks 
 cost money. 
 
 It is not my purpose to discuss the drink question. 
 I think that was pretty well explained in a recent 
 story by Jack London. I am merely attempting to 
 explain why a writer's life is necessarily more expen- 
 sive than that of the average man in less prominent 
 walks of life. Remember, also, that I had been a 
 sailor and had the seaman's love for sociability. 
 
 My wife and I went over all this and understood 
 it. My literary success had been gratifying to both 
 of us ; but the butcher, the grocer, the landlord, and 
 the wolf were still waiting outside. In a year they 
 had not budged an inch. And up to that time I had 
 not encountered tailors. That was a new cloud, which 
 was to come. It came quickly. One of the crosses 
 
GATHERING NO MOSS 17 
 
 of ray career up to that time was a household duty 
 requiring me to take a big collie dog out for a walk 
 twice a day. I never liked dogs, though I am fond 
 of cats ; and that collie became one of the dark spots 
 in my life. Not only did I hate to be seen walking 
 with the dog, but a more serious worry arose. 
 
 On account of having to see editors I had dis- 
 covered that my personal appearance was important. 
 I had but one suit of clothes — a blue one — and during 
 the shedding period, or whatever it is called, the 
 reddish hairs from that collie would get on my blue 
 suit and stay there, no matter how much I brushed it. 
 
 " Something has got to be done about that collie ! " 
 I said to my wife after we had figured up for the 
 first year of writing. " My clothes are never in con- 
 dition for me to call on an editor." 
 
 My wife would not listen to anything that might 
 cause gloom in the life of the collie ; and as that dog 
 was her main joy I had to bear my burden and sub- 
 mit to the continued daily walks. 
 
 " Why don't you buy a new suit.'' " she asked. " I 
 think we can save up enough." 
 
 At the outset I told you I had been an inventor, 
 and it was now up to me to exercise inventive powers ; 
 but under an electric light inventive genius often goes 
 wrong, as I will explain. 
 
 It suddenly occurred to me that if I got a brown 
 suit of clothes — the same shade as the collie — the 
 loosened hairs that fell on me would be unnoticed. 
 
 . On a credit basis I put this idea into execution; 
 but imagine my chagrin when I discovered that under 
 
18 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 the electric light of the cheap clothing store I had 
 picked the wrong shade ! The flying hairs made my 
 apparel look more shabby than ever ! 
 
 This was no joking master with me. I was deadly 
 serious ; but when I spoke of it to a fellow short- 
 story writer I thought he would go into convulsions 
 of laughter. I became angry and left him. The next 
 time I met him he started to smile, but seeing the 
 frown coming on my face he apologized for having 
 laughed at my misfortune. He was a humorist. I 
 was not. 
 
 " Can you explain to me," I asked him, " why it is 
 that most of our mirth comes from seeing someone 
 suffer.? " 
 
 " But that is funny, you know — that suit being 
 bought to match the dog ! " he insisted. 
 
 " Maybe so," I agreed ; " but will you tell me how 
 I am going to get another suit.? Is that funny.? " 
 He lent me the money. 
 
 Soon after the misfortune of the collie and the 
 brown suit I was invited to a formal dinner. I knew 
 it would be of advantage for me to be present, but 
 this would entail the expense of a dress suit and a 
 high hat. It was impossible for me to stretch my 
 credit that far. There was but one thing left to do 
 — ^write a story. 
 
 In that story I became unconsciously a humorist — 
 at least some of the critics were kind enough to refer 
 to me as one. Really, though, I had no idea of caus- 
 ing laughter when I first began to devise the plot. 
 The question of clothes had suggested it to me. 
 
GATHERING NO MOSS 19 
 
 I had been reading a scientific work on the manu- 
 facture and composition of explosives. Always I 
 have made it a point to study those things thor- 
 oughly, and when I had finished the book I was pretty 
 familiar with the various stages in the preparation 
 of guncotton. I wrote the story, pointing out scien- 
 tifically how a sailor on a battleship accidentally sat 
 in an acid mixture, which was being used in making 
 explosives, and discolored his duck trousers. 
 
 By trying to whiten them with alcohol and pow- 
 dered chalk he had unwittingly turned the spot into 
 guncotton. He had a bottle in his hip pocket, and 
 when the boatswain struck him with a board an ex- 
 plosion followed that blew off the troublesome part 
 of the trousers at a most embarrassing moment. 
 
 That story caused a laugh, notwithstanding my 
 serious efforts to be scientific ; and I received sixty 
 dollars for it — received it in time to purchase the 
 dress suit and high hat for the dinner. 
 
 At that gathering I met more entertaining men 
 than I had ever seen before. It inspired me — gave 
 me new life. I should have gone home thoroughly 
 happy but for an unfortunate incident that some- 
 what marred my night. 
 
 Did you ever see a sailor in a dress suit and a high 
 hat.'' I realize that I must have looked funny. I am 
 short of stature and still have every earmark of the 
 man before the mast. At any rate, one of the other 
 guests became unduly and uncontrollably amused by 
 my appearance. As we walked through the lobby 
 of the hotel he asked to be introduced to me. 
 
20 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 When I turned to speak to him he slapped me on 
 top of the high hat and shoved it down over my ears. 
 Though I knew it was a case of too much wine, this 
 was too much for a man with the instinct of a second 
 mate. I landed a blow on his jaw that knocked him 
 half across the room. Friends interceded and he 
 finally apologized — still maintaining, however, that 
 I looked funny. In later years he and I became close 
 friends. 
 
 As a literary man I was progressing nicely at this 
 time, but I still had trouble keeping in ready money. 
 At that dinner several men of note told me that I was 
 a coming man. They had read my stories and had 
 liked them. In a way I guess that was true. If 
 some of them had not noticed my work I should not 
 have been invited to the dinner. 
 
 When I reached home after the banquet I was flat 
 broke. The dress suit and the few incidentals had 
 absolutely cleaned me out of funds. When I say 
 cleaned out I mean exactly that. I did not have a 
 nickel. The next day I had to walk downtown from 
 One Hundred and Fifty-first Street to Twenty-third 
 Street. Moreover, I was too proud or thin-skinned 
 to borrow — and I walked back ! 
 
 Soon after that my wife, who is a frail little woman, 
 fell ill. I knew how to cook — thanks to my training 
 as a sailor — and we had enough groceries on hand 
 for several meals ; but the clothes had to be washed. 
 It was impossible for my wife to do this and there was 
 not enough money on hand to have it done; so I 
 
GATHEmXG NO MOSS 21 
 
 shoved aside the few pages of an unfinished story and 
 undertook the job. 
 
 I was not thoroughly famihar with the workings 
 of a washboard and at the end of an hour my knuckles 
 were bleeding from having rubbed against the zinc 
 corrugations — but I had half of the clothes washed. 
 After hanging them out to dry I again started on my 
 long walk downtown. I was desperate and deter- 
 mined to get some money even if I had to get down 
 on my knees and beg it. Being already tired from 
 doing the washing, this was the most fatiguing jaunt 
 of all. From One Hundred and Fifty-first Street to 
 Twenty-third Street is about six miles. 
 
 When I finally arrived at the office of the magazine 
 that had bought my first story the bruises on my 
 knuckles had become quite painful, and I was foot- 
 sore besides. The editor noticed my condition. 
 
 " Sit down ! " he said. " You look tired and I can 
 see you have had some kind of an accident." He was 
 looking at my knuckles. 
 
 " It's no accident," I replied ; " it's hard luck. I 
 hurt my knuckles washing clothes and have walked 
 here to see whether I could sell you a story and get 
 some money in advance." 
 
 He could not believe me at first, and I was com- 
 pelled to go into the details of my hardships. He 
 was a college man who had never missed a meal in 
 his life and was amazed to know that such conditions 
 existed among writers. 
 
 "Would ten dollars a week help you?" he asked 
 kindly. 
 
22 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 " Would it help? It would be a Godsend! " I re- 
 plied. 
 
 " Well, I'll tell you what I'll do," he said — " I will 
 put you on the payroll for ten dollars a week, pro- 
 vided you will give us the refusal of your stories " — 
 that is to say, I should have to allow his magazine 
 to have the first chance at them. 
 
 I agreed to this readily; and, for a year, I took 
 them all to him faithfully. The ten dollars was a 
 port in a storm. I could always count on that, no 
 matter what happened ; but, strangely enough, after 
 that not half the stories I submitted to that editor 
 were accepted. Many of them I took elsewhere and 
 sold at a better price. 
 
 The best pay I had received for a story up to that 
 time was one cent a word, and in those days payment 
 was not made until publication. Nowadays all first- 
 class magazines pay on acceptance. When I had a 
 story accepted I borrowed money on the prospects — 
 and when the check did finally come I really had 
 nothing. My predicament was very similar to that 
 of the poor clerk who gets into the clutches of a 
 loan shark and can never escape. 
 
 Summer came on and I had to have another suit of 
 clothes. Out of the proceeds of one story I managed 
 to save enough to get a seersucker coat and trousers ; 
 but the material was bad and before I had tramped 
 round from one office to another for two months there 
 were fringes on the bottoms of my trousers that 
 looked like sets of false whiskers. My coat had 
 
GATHERING NO MOSS 23 
 
 wrinkled and drawn so in the back that it threatened 
 to climb over my shoulders any minute. 
 
 A neighboring woman who had become a friend of 
 my wife very kindly came to the rescue with a bundle 
 of shirts and other apparel that had been left by a 
 roving son named Thomas, who had gone West and 
 had not been heard of for several years. I took 
 Thomas's shirts and wore them. They were the old- 
 fashioned kind — long-bosomed stiff ones that fastened 
 with studs. 
 
 Thomas evidently was long, while I was short ; and 
 as the holes for the studs had worn too large, my 
 studs, which happened to be small ones, would oc- 
 casionally slip through. When I sat down the bosom 
 would flare open. I was always apprehensive about 
 this, and every time I took a seat in an editor's office 
 I would grab myself across the stomach and bend the 
 long bosom inward so as to prevent the shirt from 
 popping open at the top. That kept me so busy I 
 often lost the thread of the conversation. 
 
 It was in this rigging that I dropped in one day 
 to see an editor who, I had been told, was crazy for 
 sea stories. He wanted a story all right, but ex- 
 plained to me that the magazine was hard pressed 
 for cash. 
 
 " Though we haven't much money," he said, " we 
 can give you its equivalent in some articles that we 
 advertise." 
 
 "What have you?" I asked with a show of in- 
 terest. Understand you, I had walked down there 
 
24 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE IMAN 
 
 from home and my feet were very sore. I was will- 
 ing to take anything. 
 
 The editor took from his desk drawer a printed 
 sheet of advertised articles, and the first thing my 
 eye fell on was the cut of a chainless bicycle. Here 
 was a way to save walking! 
 
 " If I can have my choice," I said, " I'll take that " 
 — pointing to the bicycle ad. 
 
 " It's a go ! " he declared ; and I drew from my 
 pocket the manuscript of what has since been regarded 
 as my best story. 
 
 I realized that I was letting it go cheap, but that 
 chainless bicycle saved me many a long walk. I 
 was also in style, for at that time the bicycle craze 
 had the country in a firm grip. Broadway was alive 
 with wheels ; and mine was of fine make. 
 
 With a bicycle to ride and a story off my hands 
 I went home very much encouraged. The weekly 
 ten dollars served to hold off the grocer and the 
 butcher, and I began to turn out another sea yarn. 
 I sold it for just enough to pay up my more press- 
 ing domestic debts. 
 
 Ideas were getting scare now and I found I could 
 not possibly write more than two stories a month. 
 I also got to where I could not begin the writing of 
 a new story until I had sold the last one. The 
 anxiety and uncertainty while waiting an answer 
 from the editor kept my mind off new plots. To 
 make matters worse, right in the midst of one of 
 those lapses I broke the bicycle and had not enough 
 money to have it repaired. 
 
GATHERING NO MOSS 25 
 
 Thus ended my second year in literary life. The 
 butcher, tlie grocer, the landlord, and the wolf were 
 still on the job. 
 
 In relating these trials of an author I am sticking 
 closely to the truth, but I am not trying to convey 
 the impression that conditions such as I faced exist 
 to-day or that all writers had to face them then. 
 Neither am I trying to discourage others from tack- 
 ling the game. 
 
 This was fifteen years ago, and at that time the 
 magazines were not run as they are now. Better 
 prices are paid for fiction to-day, and the whole 
 literary game is played in a much more business- 
 like manner. Even the writers are more businesslike. 
 
 If I had started out under conditions prevailing 
 in 1914, the chances are my writings would have 
 enabled me to live comfortably. You see, I began to 
 reach the end of my string just as the value of stories 
 began to increase. 
 
 Again, I do not attribute my lack of financial 
 success altogether to conditions. Other men pros- 
 pered while I failed, notwithstanding the fact that 
 they did not gain so much recognition. One author 
 I recall had a way of manipulating the market so 
 as to get a good price for a very ordinary story, and 
 when he put over a good one he would do so with such 
 effect that it was good for three or four more — 
 at the same price. He would also go to see an editor 
 with money in his pocket and feel independent. Some 
 writers are good business men and born salesmen, 
 while others — like myself — are simply writers. With 
 
26 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 a good business manager I might have been a success- 
 ful man. 
 
 Less than a month ago a man well known in the 
 field of letters told me that when I died he was sure 
 someone would publish all my works in a uniform 
 edition, and that they would have a big sale. That 
 may or may not be true, but it is certain no one will 
 put them on the market now. 
 
 Getting back to my narrative, however, the editor 
 from whom I got the chainless bicycle sent for me 
 one day and suggested that I collect my first batch 
 of stories and have them printed in book form. This 
 had not occurred to me before ; so I set out with a 
 new ambition. I selected the best of those I had 
 done, got the several magazines to waive their book 
 rights, and took them to a big publishing firm. They 
 were promptly accepted, and in addition I got an 
 order from that house, which also published a maga- 
 zine, for a story. Things suddenly looked so bright 
 for me that I put my whole heart in that ordered 
 story and it brought me a hundred dollars in cash. 
 
 Though the book did not have a big sale it attracted 
 attention, and I began to get letters from editors 
 I had not known before. The book reviewers spoke 
 so well of my first effort that I became unusuall}' 
 glorified ; in fact I became vainglorious — ^had a swelled 
 head! 
 
 I could not work for thinking about what I had 
 done, and I bought drinks for those who would listen 
 while I told it. Consequently my funds soon dis- 
 appeared ; but I had paid off my debts and had more 
 
GATHERING NO MOSS 27 
 
 than a hundred dollars in a savings bank. I began 
 to think of raising the price of my work, and in a 
 way succeeded. The trouble was I could not or did 
 not turn out the stuff. I was busier thinking about 
 mj'self than about plots for new stories. 
 
 I finall}' settled down and wrote a story about 
 battleships — a satire on the brains that are supposed 
 to run them. It was about the time of the Spanish- 
 American War, and the papers were filled with deeds 
 of valor by the naval officers. I made the mistake 
 of making a drunken sailor the hero of a great naval 
 engagement — or, rather, I made the mistake of pick- 
 ing out the wrong nations. 
 
 My story was nothing more or less than a satire 
 on the naval officers of my own country. I offered 
 the story to several magazines, but they would not 
 take it for fear of offending the public, just then in 
 the throes of hero worship. Eventually I changed 
 the story so as to make it a naval battle between 
 ships of Russia and Great Britain. 
 
 That was unquestionably my best piece of de- 
 scriptive work, and I sent it to a weekly publication 
 which is now the most widely circulated periodical in 
 the United States — it was not then. In less than a 
 week I received a check for sixty dollars for the 
 story. Feeling that I was entitled to more in view 
 of the fact that I had published a book and that 
 my name was worth something, I made the first and 
 only stand of my career for better pay. After a 
 long mental fight with m3'self I decided not to accept 
 the check and returned it. 
 
28 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 " I think I am entitled to more than that," I wrote ; 
 " and unless you are willing to pay me one hundred 
 and twenty dollars, please return my manuscript." 
 To write that letter cost me considerable effort and 
 I awaited the reply with much anxiety. 
 
 Meantime, though I knew nothing about it in 
 advance, a change of editors had been made, and the 
 answer I received was from the new man. He not 
 only agreed to my terms but wrote a cheering letter, 
 telling me that the story was so good he wouid like 
 to have many more at the same price. That gave me 
 new life. 
 
 I was now on the floodtide of my literary career. 
 For the first time in my life I had a year of com- 
 parative domestic comfort. It cannot be said that I 
 was altogether happy, however. Before I had written 
 ten stories under the new scale of prices it began to 
 dawn on me that after every floodtide there comes 
 an ebb, 
 
 I felt myself slipping. Ideas were growing scarcer 
 and scarcer. In my fight against the hardships oc- 
 casioned by low prices and lack of independence I 
 had drawn too heavily on my store of creative ideas. 
 It is said that every man has in him just so many 
 stories, and I felt that I was nearing the end of 
 my string. 
 
 As I have intimated before, I am not and never 
 was a natural writer. It all came hard to me. With 
 this chance of making more money, though, I put my 
 nose to the grindstone and struggled on. I became 
 
GATHERING NO MOSS 29 
 
 nervous and irritable. Fears came to me that I was 
 losing my mind. 
 
 I have been a close student of psychology and 
 mental phenomena. I know now that I was medically 
 insane, though not legally so. Feeling this way I 
 went to a noted professor of psychology. He had 
 done some wonderful things by hypnotic suggestion. 
 I believe in that. 
 
 The professor had heard of me and knew my work. 
 He diagnosed my case as one of brain fag. There 
 was nothing the matter with me, he said, except that 
 I had overtaxed my brain in trying to invent too 
 many stories. After talking a long time he advised 
 me to keep him in mind and said he would do the 
 same with me. At the same time he discussed with 
 me some of the great inventions of the century. He 
 did that with the purpose of influencing my mind in 
 a new direction. He was trying to get my brain 
 out of a rut. 
 
 I kept in mind what the professor had said and 
 became much more content. He was influencing me 
 by hypnotic suggestion. Some of my younger friends 
 smile when I tell them this ; but I know the mind 
 of that professor, even though he was a great distance 
 away at times, turned me into a new channel of 
 endeavor — one that kept me from going insane. 
 
 The suggestion manifested itself in an unexpected 
 way — it always does. I had to write another story 
 to get a needed hundred and fifty dollars, and I went 
 down the coast many miles to consult a naval officer, a 
 
30 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 friend, about a new feature that had been added to a 
 battleship. While there I was taken on board a 
 submarine boat which happened to be at anchor in 
 that particular bay. It was then I got the idea of 
 my first invention — ^the periscope. 
 
 Now, I believe that nothing but hypnotic sugges- 
 tion could have made me go down there to see an 
 officer and then find the very thing needed to turn 
 my thoughts into a new channel of invention. If I 
 had gone at any other time the submarine boat would 
 not have been there. Those things are not coinci- 
 dences. Though no one has definitely located it, 
 I firmly believe there is a law behind them. You 
 cannot make me believe that when one man is think- 
 ing of another, and just at that moment sees him 
 coming round a corner, it is a coincidence. It occurs 
 too often. 
 
 When I left that boat I was actually enthusiastic. 
 Something new was dawning on me. I even forgot 
 about the condition of the larder at home. While 
 in the lower part of the little boat the lieutenant in 
 command showed me all its workings. It was a 
 great day for me. 
 
 " The one thing we need," he said as we came up, 
 " is an apparatus by which we can see what is going 
 on above without having to rise to the surface." 
 
 " In other words," I added, " if you could look into 
 a glass down below and, by a series of reflections, be 
 able to view the surrounding surface of the water 
 above, it would make the submarine boat the most 
 powerful of warships." 
 
GATHERING NO MOSS 31 
 
 « Exactly." 
 
 " Then I am going to invent it ! " I declared ; and 
 I left him, knowing absolutely that it could be done. 
 The mind of that professor of psychology was direct- 
 ing me. 
 
 At that very moment, though I did not know it, 
 a Frenchman, seated at his desk in Paris, was inno- 
 cently devising a fantastic yarn that was destined 
 to deal me a crushing blow — a blow from which I have 
 never recovered; one that has made me an old man, 
 lacking energy and ambition. 
 
 The officer who explained to me the need of such 
 an instrument as the periscope knew it would have 
 to be composed of a series of lenses in a tube, the 
 end of which must remain above water after the boat 
 was submerged; but he could not discover the shape 
 of the crystal or prism that, by refraction and reflec- 
 tion, would carry the image down the tube, so that 
 it could be seen by looking through the glass at the 
 lower end. That, in a rough way, explains the 
 problem which was before me. An accurate scientific 
 description would be impossible without a diagram. 
 
 In the course of my experiments it became neces- 
 sary for me to make a thorough study of physics — 
 which I had never done at school — and particularly 
 of optics. It took me four months to master that 
 alone. 
 
 Meantime I had to be a breadwinner and I was 
 sorely beset to make enough money to keep my wife 
 and myself from absolute want. I saw that, to 
 succeed, I should have to be systematic. 
 
32 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 I formulated a plan by which I could work one 
 week on a story and give the next to the invention. 
 In that way I figured I could live and, at the same 
 time, gradually reach the goal for which I was 
 striving. 
 
 My mind was in such a condition, however, that 
 I could not work on the periscope while waiting for 
 a story to be accepted. Editors were glad to get 
 my manuscripts, but that continual waiting for ac- 
 ceptances was killing my chances of making a success- 
 ful invention. Finally I saw the way out — at least 
 it was worth a trial. 
 
 Bright and early one morning I called on the editor 
 of a popular magazine, which had published several 
 of my stories, and asked him whether he could use 
 one every two weeks. The idea was agreeable to him. 
 
 " But where is the stuff.? " he inquired. 
 
 " I haven't a story ready," I replied, " but I have 
 one in mind. What do you think of this idea? " 
 
 I then related in detail the plot of a story — I had 
 not thought of it until that very moment — and he 
 said it sounded like good stuff. 
 
 " That's all right," he said. " I'll take that. Go 
 ahead and finish it." 
 
 That, in the writing game, is known as offering a 
 story in scenario form — in other words an outline. 
 At my suggestion the editor gave me fifty dollars in 
 advance, and, with the story already sold, I quickly 
 turned it out. 
 
 Just why this idea had never occurred to me before 
 
GATHERING NO MOSS 33 
 
 I do not know. It would have saved me many nights 
 of worry. 
 
 For a whole year I did nothing but sell scenarios 
 to that editor and work on my invention. And — 
 what is more remarkable — I managed to make ends 
 meet. 
 
 It was at the expiration of a year of experimenting 
 I suddenly discovered that, in addition to other lenses, 
 a cone-shaped glass placed in the end of the tube 
 would do the trick of refracting the light rays as I 
 wanted them. I was beside myself with joy. Work- 
 ing night and day I quickly rigged out a model, and 
 — imagine my delight ! — it worked ! I had solved the 
 problem ! I had invented the periscope ! 
 
 At nine o'clock the next morning I called up the 
 submarine-boat builders and asked for the lieutenant 
 who had talked to me a year before. It so hap- 
 pened he was passing through New York that day 
 and was in the office for just an hour* I had chosen 
 the psychological moment for calling on the telephone. 
 
 " I've got it ! I've got it ! " I shouted over the 
 'phone. 
 
 " Got what? " he asked in an irritated voice. 
 
 " The periscope ! " I explained. " I've solved the 
 problem." 
 
 He told me to hurry to the office as quickly as I 
 could, as he had but a short time to stay. I got there 
 in exactly forty minutes. Unfortunately on my way 
 down I broke my model and it would not work. He 
 explained to me, though, that a diagram would do 
 
34 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 just as well, as he understood perfectly what I was 
 after. 
 
 " Get your diagrams ready and have them here 
 when I return from Boston — in three days," he said ; 
 " and be sure you have them accurate." 
 
 I spent three days working on those diagrams and 
 they were complete when he arrived. I sat across 
 the desk from the lieutenant as he unrolled my blue- 
 prints, and I shall never forget the expression in his 
 eyes when he looked at the first one. 
 
 " You've got it ! " he declared exultantly. " The 
 cone-shaped tip solves the problem. I congratulate 
 you." 
 
 I told him I had applied for a patent. 
 
 " That's all right," he said ; " that will protect you 
 until a lawyer can put it through for you. We will 
 help you all we can. If you haven't enough money 
 we will defray all expenses ; but, you understand," he 
 said, " you will have to make improvements on this 
 idea, and it will take much of your time. How about 
 it.?" 
 
 I explained to him my financial condition and told 
 him of my literary work which was necessary to keep 
 me going while waiting for the patent to be issued. 
 
 The lieutenant suggested to me that if I could live 
 on fifty dollars a week his company would put me on 
 the payroll for that amount indefinitely, so that I 
 might continue my experiments. 
 
 The two years that followed were the happiest of 
 my life. The fifty dollars a week enabled us to live 
 in comparative comfort and I could devote my entire 
 
GATHERING NO MOSS 35 
 
 time to the thing I loved — invention. I am naturally 
 of a mechanical turn of mind and am at peace with 
 the world when I can sit down and make things. My 
 friends to-day often come to my room and marvel at 
 a contrivance in the shape of a sliding board on which 
 I can place my typewriting machine and write in bed. 
 
 It was in the midst of these happy moments that 
 the blow fell. And this brings me back to the French- 
 man and his yarn. 
 
 The lawyers notified me that the United States 
 Government had refused to grant me a patent on the 
 periscope because a story had been published, prior 
 to my application, in a French magazine, which had 
 described fantastically the possibilities of an instru- 
 ment very similar to the one I had invented. 
 
 On account of some international law or agreement 
 in regard to patents, which they explained in technical 
 terms I did not understand, my hopes were blasted. 
 Understand you, this Frenchman did not attempt an 
 invention. He merely wrote that such a thing was 
 possible. 
 
 My beloved periscope was now public property, and 
 anybody had the right to proceed with its develop- 
 ment. Though the submarine-boat people had treated 
 me generously, my devices were no longer needed. 
 I was out of a job! 
 
 Really, I believe it was the saddest moment of my 
 life when I went back to the typewriter and began 
 to lay out a story. Ahead of me I saw the old grind, 
 the weary rounds of the magazine offices, the butcher, 
 the grocer, the landlord, and the wolf ! 
 
36 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 I am not a quitter, though. With as much strength 
 and spirit as I could muster I ground out that story 
 and started downtown with the manuscript in my 
 pocket. Four editors turned it down; and then I 
 had to sell it to a cheap publication that paid me 
 less than one cent a word. My punch was gone ! 
 
 Though I have written along in a desultory way 
 for several years that punch has never returned. 
 The first-class periodicals turn my stories down and 
 I finally have to sell them to the cheaper — yes, 
 cheapest — ones. Instead of being recognized as a 
 writer of originality I am looked on as a hack. 
 
 Less than a month ago I went to the office of a 
 first-class magazine to get an answer on a sea story 
 I had submitted a week before. After waiting nearly 
 an hour in the reception-room the editor sent for me. 
 He was a young man — a stranger to me. Over his 
 desk hung a large portrait of myself, done by a well- 
 known artist, a personal friend of mine. 
 
 The young editor did not know me from Adam's 
 house cat ; in fact he had never heard of me, though 
 my portrait hung over his desk. I must admit, 
 though, I do not look like that portrait now. 
 
 " I'm sorry we can't use that story of yours," he 
 said; and wearily I reached for the manuscript. 
 
 " By the way," he went on, " if you intend to 
 continue writing sea stories, why don't you read a 
 book I have here? It will give you an idea of how 
 to write one.'* 
 
 He handed me a beautifully bound volume of sea 
 stories — my own book, a collection of my best stories ! 
 
GATHERING NO MOSS 37 
 
 I did not have the heart to tell that young man 
 I was the author of the book, and he was not observ- 
 ant enough to see that the name on my story and 
 that on the book were the same. He would not have 
 believed me if I had told him. I took the manuscript 
 and went to the next editor. 
 
 I went away from there thinking of my past 
 triumphs — literary triumphs. I wanted that young 
 editor to keep that book and read it. It might do 
 him some good. Then I thought — Had it done me 
 any good? 
 
 My portrait hangs in the office of many editors, 
 it is true. My books are in the libraries. Some 
 relatives of the future generations — I have no children 
 — may be kind enough to point to my works with a 
 slight feeling of pride. That is all I can hope for. 
 
 Of this world's goods I have none. I never have 
 had any and I never shall have any. I have led an 
 improvident life. The other night, supperless, I went 
 to my stuffy little hall bedroom, weary of the world. 
 I looked in the mirror and saw I was an old man. 
 
 I lighted my pipe and stretched myself on the bed. 
 
 "Why is this?" I said to myself. "Why is it 
 that, with all your toil, you have accumulated noth- 
 ing but passing fame? " 
 
 I thought and I thought — and finally an answer 
 came. At first it was jumbled, but gradually it 
 came out in a sentence of four clear-cut words. I 
 guess that is the answer: 
 
 I am a sailor! 
 
SIDELIGHTS ON MORGAN 
 ROBERTSON 
 
 By SETH MOYLE 
 
 The author of the folloicing memoir of Morgan 
 Robertson is a prominent literary agent in New YorJc. 
 The anecdotes he relates bring out vividly the per- 
 sonality of Morgan Robertson. Mr. Moyle knew 0. 
 Henry and Morgan Robertson in the early, lean years 
 of their literary struggles. The world and time he 
 "writes about are gone. Both ended when the brilliant 
 lights that made their Bohemia were extinguished. 
 
 MORGAN ROBERTSON'S personality reflected 
 the vigor and directness of his writings. It 
 was a mighty force. He was a man's man through 
 and through — a power that, once met, never would 
 be forgotten. The artificial, superficial, and hypo- 
 critical, all were foreign to his nature. He was too 
 honest in his straight-from-the-shoulder emphasisms 
 for his own good, perhaps. Evasion and even 
 diplomacy were strangers to his makeup. His lack 
 of tact and habit of blurting out his feelings, in 
 stentorian tones, lost him the support of some powers 
 in the magazine world. Accustomed to being catered 
 to, they might have been "jollied" into a more re- 
 ceptive mental perspective. But Morgan Robertson 
 would not indulge this. He never played the game 
 of bluff, and selected the harder road of right rather 
 than the easier line of least resistance. 
 
 38 
 
SIDELIGHTS OX MORGAN ROBERTSON 39 
 
 His was the highest sense of honor, even with the 
 most trivial of things. 
 
 " Give me fifty cents," or " Give me fifty dollars," 
 would follow a sudden cyclonic entrance into my 
 offices ; and often it would be only a quarter or even 
 a dime asked for. 
 
 " I'll have a check from Street & Smith, or from 
 Good-Heart Taylor on Friday. You'll get yours 
 then." 
 
 And punctiliously, always, he would present him- 
 self with the amount. Many times, I have learned 
 later, in order to keep his word with me and with 
 others, he would leave himself strapped, and, in the 
 absence of carfare, hoof it for several miles from the 
 downtown district to his apartment, far uptown. 
 
 Few understood him, but his friends were legion ; 
 and beneath his brusque surface there was a heart 
 warmly reciprocating this afi'ection. 
 
 So much has been written, since his death, of his 
 career as an able seaman, his spectacular entry, after 
 a very brief apprenticeship, into that most difficult 
 trade, diamond-cutting, and his equally spectacular 
 jump, as an uneducated man, into the fiction-writing 
 world, that I will pass it by. 
 
 Like 0. Henry and Edwin Bliss (the latter with 
 probably the largest reading public in the United 
 States at the time of his decease, and yet absolutely 
 unknown, personally, because of his choice of four- 
 teen nom de plumes), for a great number of years he 
 sold his best work at one cent and one and one-half 
 cents per word. The same material, now, would bring 
 
40 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 from $500 to $1,000 per story, which rates ten cents 
 to twenty cents per word ; and the books, sold out- 
 right for $150 to $250, would bring, under the roy- 
 alty arrangement, a small fortune, as with the 0. 
 Henry collected edition, now selling into the hundreds 
 of thousands. 
 
 A volume of anecdotes would not exhaust the stock 
 that could be supplied by the friends of Morgan 
 Robertson. It was his joy to get together with his 
 fellow-craftsmen and " swap " yarns. Morgan's 
 supply in this respect was very limited, and there 
 were a few old war-horses that he always trotted out 
 whenever a newcomer joined the elect, despite the 
 fact that the majority of the boys had heard them 
 again and again for a period of many years. But 
 his method of telling them made them always interest- 
 ing. Unfortunately, most were of the " stag-story " 
 nature, better presented at " Johnny Baber's " or 
 " Perry's " ; but here is his pet, and it stands the 
 light of printed expression. It reflected, incidentally, 
 his hobby, telepathy, mental suggestion, hypnotism, 
 etc. 
 
 A day-laborer had suffered much abuse at the 
 hands of a husky foreman who would browbeat this 
 fellow-worker, who was weaker mentally and physic- 
 ally, with strong language, and vary this occasionally 
 with a little muscular exertion. He complained to 
 Morgan Robertson. Morg gave him the " once- 
 over," and Inquired, " Have you ever tried mental 
 suggestion ? No ? Well, do it ! Next time that big 
 stiff comes around, just look him straight in the eye — 
 
SIDELIGHTS ON MORGAN ROBERTSON 41 
 
 see. Don't hesitate. Look him straight in the eye 
 and concentrate your mind on the thought. Just 
 
 say, ' Go to , you blinkity-blank ! ' But don't 
 
 fail to hold his eye." 
 
 A few days later the laborer approached Morgan 
 holding his own eye, which was pretty well bunged 
 up and discolored. His entire anatomy also reflected 
 the result of the foreman's rage. With what little 
 spirit remained he protested. " You're a helluva 
 fine friend, you are ! " said he. 
 
 With great disgust Morgan surveyed the wreck. 
 
 " Did you look him in the eye ? " he finally thun- 
 dered. "And did you concentrate?" 
 
 " Yes," whined the other, " and I beat it when I 
 
 got the chance. I told him to ' Go to ,' as you 
 
 told me to do. Now look what he handed to me ! " 
 
 " Did you let him HEAR you.'' " shouted Morgan. 
 
 "Sure; can't you see for yourself.''" forlornly 
 responded the beaten one. 
 
 " Well ! " deliberated Morgan, " what'd you ex- 
 pect?" 
 
 " And to this day," Morgan would conclude, " that 
 same gink hasn't got through his cranium the dif- 
 ference between mental suggestion and the same 
 thought expressed orally in plain English. Solid 
 ivory, I call it." 
 
 This is typical of his spun yarns. They were 
 far from the Irvin Cobb, Bob Davis, Ro}^ and Charles 
 Somerville " bell-ringer " type, and the last to be 
 expected from the master narrator of original fiction, 
 as reflected in his " Spun-Yarn " volume. But his 
 
42 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 method of telling made them, and they will all live 
 permanently in the minds of his friends. 
 
 Because of his initial success with " Sinful Peck " 
 and " Finnegan," there was a constant demand from 
 the editors for this type of humorous material. As 
 his vision broadened and his understanding of things 
 occult and of psychic phenomena became clearer, he 
 evidenced a strong inclination to concentrate on this 
 line of thought. But the majority of editors denied 
 him space. Fred. Duneka, General Manager of Har- 
 per & Brothers, and Trumbull White, then editor 
 of The Red Book, did most to encourage his inclina- 
 tion in this direction. 
 
 Telepathy, hypnotism, mental suggestion, dual 
 personality, extraordinary inventions — this sort of 
 thing he dearly loved to conjure with. And his 
 fiction inventions took practical form, also. One of 
 these, the periscope, was adopted for submarine use 
 and is now in service. In my judgment, only lack 
 of funds and the driving necessity of writing the 
 sort of fiction that would sell, prevented his suc- 
 ceeding in perfecting his invisible searchlight. In 
 the celebrated five-by-twelve bunkroom on West 
 Twenty-fourth Street, he managed, by means of 
 ultraviolet rays, to make remarkable progress with 
 this invention. 
 
 One of the most amusing incidents I ever witnessed, 
 where Morgan Robertson was concerned, occurred at 
 my Irving Place apartments. Dan O'Reilly, the cele- 
 brated criminal attorney, had been stopping with me 
 for two days in an attempt to get over the effects of 
 
SIDELIGHTS ON MORGAN ROBERTSON 43 
 
 " too much Irish " ; i.e., Joseph O'Mara's rendition 
 of Irish songs, a large quantity of Bushmills and 
 Cruiskeen Lawn, and an accommodating fellow- 
 countryman from the Emerald Isle who drove a green 
 taxicab. O'Mara's " Wearin' of the Green " had 
 proved the climax. Dan's nerves, considerably on 
 edge, were again started into the jumping-tooth stage 
 by the repeated whistling of the dumb-waiter tube, 
 the constant ringing of the telephone and hall door- 
 bell, an industrious coal-heaver putting into our cellar 
 a ton of coal, and an over-zealous Italian with a tin- 
 panny hurdy-gurdy grinding out, ironically enough, 
 " The Wearin' of the Green," with " Sweet Marie " 
 as a relief. 
 
 Dan had settled himself for relaxation on the 
 dining-room couch. It was a mistake. In rushed 
 Charlie Somerville, the famous journalist, with a 
 bad case of the "jumps," only to be followed by 
 Mrs. G., and her friend, a poetess of passion. They 
 insisted on discussing Christian Science versus Mental 
 Science, suffrage, and poetry. It was a world quite 
 foreign to Dan. Then came Morgan Robertson, 
 and he was soon enmeshed in the argument. His best 
 efforts failed to switch it to his own hobbies, and 
 he sought solace from a bottle of Hennessy. The 
 whole proposition was too much for Charlie, and he 
 made for " The Westminster," just around the 
 corner, for a different kind of refreshment. Roy 
 Norton, one of Morgan's best friends, presented him- 
 self with a " Blue-Monday " grouch. A story had 
 failed to sell. Morgan read him a lecture, intended 
 
44 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 indirectly for Dan, on the evils of alcohol, every now 
 and then falling back on " Hennessy " for support. 
 He, too, had occasion for resentment, it seemed. His 
 pet story, " The Grain Ship," later featured in 
 Harper's Monthly, had gone a-begging and he was 
 broke. 
 
 Dan brightened. Here were waters more familiar 
 to him. He ventured a dip. " And what might the 
 story be about, Morgan?" he inquired with that 
 broad smile and geniality that endeared him to all 
 who knew him. 
 
 Cutting the words into sharp syllables, the author 
 ejaculated viciously, " Hy-dro-pho-bic rats!" And 
 with a growl for purposes of emphasis he repeated, 
 " Hy-dro-pho-bic rats ! ! Mad dog inoculates rats ! 
 Mad rats run wild ! Merry hell to pay ! Great ex- 
 citement on ship ! Sensational story ! Best I've 
 ever done ! " 
 
 This was too much for Dan, who beat a hasty 
 retreat, to be followed by Roy, who saw no hope 
 for Hennessy relief, the ammunition having been 
 exhausted. Shortly Morgan, too, departed, and 
 " The Westminster " then found the entire party of 
 male celebrities reunited. 
 
MY SKIRMISH WITH MADNESS 
 By morgan ROBERTSON 
 
 Bozeman Bidger in his sketch relates the circum- 
 stances that led up to Morgan Robertson's volun- 
 tarily placing himself as a patient in the psychopathic 
 ward in Bellevue Hospital. Serious as was his pre- 
 dicament he did not jail to appreciate the humor of 
 some of the situations in which he found himself. 
 As a result of the baseless premonitions that he was 
 losing his reason Morgan Robertson showed a boyish 
 eagerness to have everyone with whom he desired to 
 leave an impression read this article, which was orig- 
 inally published in the " National Sunday Magazine." 
 He felt that it explained many things about him that 
 others did not understand. 
 
 FOR twelve years I had thought that in me was 
 latent insanity that only needed extra mental 
 strain to make active. The usual mental strain inci- 
 dent to short-story writing was always with me, and 
 I had eased it by moderate drinking. In this I had 
 a better excuse than had Jack London, who drank 
 because of suggestion and availability, but I do not 
 offer it as an excuse — only as an explanation. 
 Alcohol, by the way, never was a mental stimulant 
 to me, only an inhibition of troubling thought, mainly 
 of my coming madness, enabling me to concentrate 
 
 45 
 
46 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 my mind on my work. Until my physical health 
 gave out it worked well, as I never got drunk and 
 could always turn down an invitation if I felt that 
 I had enough. But some three years prior to this 
 writing I met with an accident, and, being poor, 
 sought no medical attention. So, imbued with an 
 early code of conduct — which decrees that a man 
 must not quit work until he drops in his tracks — I 
 limped around until rheumatism set in. For years I 
 could not sleep at night without an opiate. And 
 then one day, with fifteen cents in my pocket, and 
 not knowing where the next money was to come from, 
 I told my trouble to a friend who listened sympa- 
 thetically. 
 
 " The hospital for you," he said at length ; and, 
 for half an hour he kept the telephone busy, calling 
 up the powers that be in New York, then said to me : 
 " Go down to Bellevue in the morning and see the 
 Medical Superintendent. I've had him on the wire, 
 and he'll take care of you." 
 
 And now, having thrown up my hands, a strange 
 tranquillity came to me, utterly at variance with 
 my habit of mind, which had never known tran- 
 quillity or peace except after some temporary vic- 
 tory in the battle of life. I slept well that night, 
 and with the nerve of a gambler signed a check 
 for a good breakfast in a chop house where I had 
 spent much money and owed none, then with my 
 fifteen cents in my pocket, started for Bellevue Hos- 
 pital, a mile distant. I remember that a policeman 
 
MY SKIRMISH WITH MADNESS 47 
 
 stopped me close to the hospital, and allowed me 
 to proceed on my staggering way when I stammered : 
 " Bellevue." I staggered from weakness, for I had 
 drunk nothing that day. The next I remember was 
 talking to the Medical Superintendent, a man who 
 listened to me kindly, but whose face I would not 
 recognize now. 
 
 About all I can recall of the interview is that I said 
 I needed help from the outside — that, while I had been 
 able to advise and assist others in trouble I could 
 not care for myself. I cannot recall what he said to 
 me, or whether or not he said anything ; but I know 
 that he led me out of his office, across the grounds, 
 and into a two-story brick building standing alone. 
 Here, I somewhat came to myself and began to take 
 notice. I was left in the presence of a doctor and 
 a white-clad nurse. 
 
 My tranquillity of mind — or was it apathy — ^was 
 still with me, though I was now shaking convulsively 
 and my thick tongue could hardly articulate an an- 
 swer to the questions of the doctor. And as the nurse 
 led me through a door into a ward — a long, wide hall 
 bordered by sleeping-rooms — this mind state was in 
 nowise disturbed by the sight of a man on his knees 
 before an armchair, praying fervently. " Some poor 
 devil whose time has come," I thought, as I followed 
 the nurse, wondering, too, when I might be on my 
 knees. 
 
 The nurse was a plump, pretty young woman, with 
 smiHng eyes, and as she led me into a room turned 
 
48 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 to me with those eyes slightly moist and her face 
 saddened by sympathy — genuine sympathy, as I 
 learned later. 
 
 " Now, you poor fellow," she said, " take off your 
 clothes and get into bed for a good rest. I'll help 
 you undress." 
 
 " Can I have a drink.'' " I answered, selfishly, not 
 appreciating the sympathy to which I was not ac- 
 customed. 
 
 " No; but I'll bring you something just as good. 
 Let me help you with that necktie." 
 
 I had thrown off my outer clothing, and she re- 
 moved my collar and tie. Then she pulled down my 
 suspenders and began unbuttoning my shirt ; but here 
 I balked. I was ever a modest man, even when dying. 
 
 " You must be undressed," she said, kindly, yet 
 firmly, " and get into pajamas." 
 
 I sat down on the bed and looked her squarely in 
 the face. 
 
 " Now, you're not going to stay here while I un- 
 dress, are you? " I asked, as kindly and firmly as I 
 could in my agitation. 
 
 "Would you rather I'd go? Can you undress 
 alone? " 
 
 " I can," I replied promptly. 
 
 " I'll send in a man," she said, and departed. 
 
 A white-clad male nurse — a pleasant-faced young 
 giant — came in with a book, and stripped me down. 
 Then he entered my various measurements in the 
 book, and stowed my limp limbs into a suit of 
 pajamas. 
 
MY SKIRMISH WITH MADNESS 49 
 
 " Going to take my finger-tips ? " I asked, as I 
 looked at the book. 
 
 " Going to kill anybody? " he asked in answer. 
 
 " I may," I said, thinking of some editors I knew. 
 " That is, if I get well." 
 
 " Forget it. You'll never kill anything." I won- 
 dered what he meant, as I turned in. 
 
 My friendly nurse returned and gave me a dose of 
 aromatic ammonia. Then, when the nerves within me 
 had straightened out a little, another nurse arrived. 
 She was a slim girl, with a sweet face and pleasant 
 voice, and she gave me a tablet and a swallow of 
 water. " You're to take one every half hour until 
 you've had six," she said. 
 
 "Do I get anything to eat.-^ " I asked, as the 
 rattle of dishes came to my ears. 
 
 " Not until supper time. You're dieting to-day." 
 
 " Well, can I have a smoke ? I brought my pipe 
 and tobacco." 
 
 " You must ask the doctor," she said evasively. 
 
 No doctor appeared, and I made the best of it 
 until, when she brought the third tablet, she also 
 brought a piece of plug chewing tobacco and a cus- 
 pidor. 
 
 " Don't overdo it," she said, " but I know you are 
 suffering for a smoke, and this will take away the 
 craving." 
 
 She was right. I had not chewed tobacco for a 
 great many years, and a small morsel of that plug 
 went a long way. I talked with this girl until her 
 duties called her, and felt that we were getting ac- 
 
50 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 quainted ; but when my fourth tablet was given me 
 and I resumed the conversation I was surprised at 
 the nurse's lack of response. 
 
 " Do you chew tobacco? " she said, as she noticed 
 the plug on the window-sill. 
 
 " Why, you gave it to me," I answered, " to stop 
 the craving for a smoke." 
 
 " I? " she laughed. " Why, I'm just back from 
 lunch. I was going out when you were admitted, but 
 I'm taking care of you now. You must take me for 
 Miss " 
 
 She pronounced a Russian or Polish name which 
 I cannot yet pronounce, nor spell. 
 
 I looked at her, but could not believe her. My 
 defective mental vision would not separate the two 
 girls, yet in physique, voice, and temperament, they 
 were opposites. Not until the next day could I tell 
 which was which, though that afternoon they often 
 visited my room together. I have gone into this detail 
 to show that I was pretty far gone. 
 
 This third nurse deserves a better description than 
 I can give her, not because of her beauty, though it 
 was of an order to first impress a normal observer. 
 It did not impress me at all, and now, as I write, 
 I cannot visualize her face, and perhaps would not 
 know her in the street without her white uniform 
 and cap. It was her wonderful personality that sank 
 into my soul and made me respect her, admire her, 
 and at last fear her. She had a rich, strong, musical 
 voice that encompassed at least two octaves in 
 ordinary conversation, and when used in accents of 
 
MY SKIR:\nSH WITH MADNESS 51 
 
 command — for she was head nurse, though the 
 youngest of all — held a carrying power that sent it 
 to every comer of the ward and adjoining rooms. 
 When able to get up and watch her at her duties I 
 called her the Chief Mate — mentally. 
 
 When she had given me my sixth and last tablet 
 on that first day she took me by the hand. It was 
 always pleasant to hold a girl's hand, but this ex- 
 perience was especially so. A delicious, tingling 
 thrill went up my arm, and I reached for her other 
 hand, to hold that, too ; but she forestalled me by 
 clasping me gently by the wrist, while she smiled 
 at me. I did not know then that this gentle hand- 
 clasp was a jiu jitsu grip that would have dislocated 
 my shoulder had I deserved it ; but I did not deserve 
 it. Some inner consciousness had always protected 
 me in such emergencies, and I remained quiescent 
 with one small hand in my loosening fingers and 
 the other around my wrist. Then I seemed floating 
 away in the air, and when I wakened the supper 
 dishes were rattling, and I was steady of nerve, 
 rested, and ravenous. With a smile and a hand-clasp 
 she had given me nearly three hours of blessed sleep. 
 
 What is this marvelous power or emanation 
 from one human being to another which has 
 been called mesmerism, animal magnetism, odic force, 
 and seems to be the basic law of all the New 
 Thought cults.'* It is stronger than hypnotism, for it 
 does not demand the consent of the subject. Once, 
 in a Turkish bath, a big, red-headed Irishman laid 
 me out to rub me down. He had a low, retreating 
 
52 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 forehead, a brutal face, and apparently just enough 
 of intelligence to hold his job. He rubbed, kneaded, 
 punched, and thumped me. He hurt me ; I thought 
 I could feel my ribs cracking and my joints un- 
 coupling, yet I could not utter a word in protest, 
 and finally under his painful manipulations sank 
 into unconsciousness and was aroused by the cold 
 shower when he had finished. Whatever this mys- 
 terious force is, that big brute possessed it in com- 
 mon with this gentle, delicate girl. 
 
 But she did not use it on me again. That evening 
 the doctors went the rounds and I was put under 
 regular treatment, which included sedatives. I asked 
 for a smoke, and was told that, when able to get 
 up I could go outdoors and smoke, but not in the 
 ward. As for thirty-five years my pipe, practically, 
 had never grown cold, my craving for a smoke may 
 be imagined, especially as, when the ward had quieted 
 down at about nine, and lights were turned off, distant 
 shouts, whoops, and screams kept me awake. It re- 
 quired a second sedative to put me to sleep. 
 
 All that day, as I lay in bed, satisfied that I was 
 being cared for, I had been annoyed by a man clad 
 in a red and white striped bath-robe who would stop 
 in front of my door and peer in at me, sometimes 
 glaring wildly, again grimacing. As a matter of 
 fact there were several such men — patients able to 
 be up — ^but to me, as in the case of the two nurses, 
 there was but one. In the morning, however, while 
 waiting for my breakfast, I was able to differ- 
 entiate; I at least knew a black man from a white. 
 
MY SKIRMISH WITH MADNESS 53 
 
 and when a sad-faced man-and-brother looked in at 
 me I knew it was not the ill-bred person of the day 
 before, even though he wore a striped bath-robe. 
 
 But my new visitor went him one better. As he 
 stared at my recumbent figure the sadness left his 
 face ; it took on a wide, delighted smile ; then he 
 began to laugh, softly at first, then unrestrainedly. 
 Nodding and wagging his head, his eyes half closed 
 and his mouth wide open, he backed away from my 
 door, and his laughter died away as he went down 
 the ward. No doubt he was happy — and I like to 
 make people happy ; but I do not like to be laughed 
 at. Sensitiveness to ridicule has always been my pet 
 weakness, and I felt humiliated and hurt. 
 
 Again that sad, somber countenance appeared at 
 my door ; again it expanded to a huge smile, and 
 broke into fragments as his joyous laughter rang 
 out. He backed away again, apparently unable to 
 stand the sight of me, and I began to be annoyed. I 
 had no mirror at hand, but I looked at my shoulders, 
 arms, and hands — all that I could see of m3"self. 
 There was nothing to laugh at, I thought. But he 
 came again, looked me over, and as he began to 
 chuckle I felt ray hair tingle down to the back of my 
 neck. 
 
 "What are you laughing at.''" I demanded. 
 
 " I'se laughin' at you, boss," he answered, his smile 
 still with him, but in a state of arrested development. 
 
 " What's wrong with me? " 
 
 " I dunno, boss, but I jess got to laugh at you, 
 suh. You look so funny." 
 
54 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 " Get to h— 1 away out of this," I yelled, " or I'll 
 beat your brains out with this pillow." I sat up 
 and grabbed the pillow, the only missile at hand — 
 not a very hard pillow, but not so soft, I felt, as his 
 brain. He backed away with a frightened look in his 
 face, and I never saw him again. But he had given 
 me something to think about. 
 
 " Softening of the brain," I said to myself, as I 
 sank back, shaking in every limb from excitement. 
 Then I remembered the shrieks and screams of the 
 day before, and when one of the night nurses ap- 
 peared with my breakfast I asked her where I was. 
 
 " The psychopathic ward," she answered. " Didn't 
 you know? " 
 
 So, I had come to my Kingdom at last. I was in 
 the famous, or — as I had always thought — the in- 
 famous psychopathic ward of Bellevue Hospital, 
 the place where sane men were incarcerated for trivial 
 reasons and driven insane by the environment and 
 treatment. Did the darkness of desolation and 
 despair close down on my soul.'* Not a bit. I was 
 used to the thought, and had merely forgotten it re- 
 cently in view of my physical condition. I felt that 
 my life's work was done, and that while I had not 
 rounded out my life by forgiving all my enemies and 
 paying all my debts, this might be condoned in con- 
 sideration of the energy I had expended and the 
 penalty I had paid. The Medical Superintendent 
 had diagnosed my case correctly, and placed me 
 where I belonged — in a madhouse, to die. And they 
 
AfF SKIR:\nSH WITH MADNESS 55 
 
 were all good to me because I was doomed. So, I 
 was content ; but I did want a smoke. 
 
 After breakfast the day watch came on; and the 
 nurse appeared with her arms full of sheets and 
 pillow slips, and turned me out of bed. *' Go out in 
 the ward," she said, " and walk up and down a little, 
 while I change the sheets. Clean sheets every morn- 
 ing, here." I obeyed her, and had the first good 
 look at the place where I expected to end my days. 
 It was about a hundred feet long and sixteen wide, 
 bordered, as I have said, by rooms, five of which 
 were reading-room, linen-room, lavatory, kitchen and 
 bathroom, the rest sleeping rooms, each containing 
 two beds. Running down the center of the ward 
 was an eight foot wide length of fiber which, like 
 the hardwood borders, was given a dancing floor 
 polish with floor wax. About twenty patients, all 
 clad in striped bath-robes, pajamas, and slippers, 
 were cleaning up, sweeping and dusting, under the 
 direction of the male nurses, or orderlies. A few 
 were pushing square castings padded on the under 
 side back and forth from end to end of the ward, 
 polishing that more than slippery fiber mat. I 
 thought this was merely to exercise the patients, as 
 nothing, it seemed, could improve the polish. A 
 few eyes were staring or glaring, a few faces were 
 twitching, and some of the workers muttered unin- 
 telligibly; but there was no conversation. It was a 
 depressing spectacle, and I returned to my room, 
 where I found that my nurse now had an assistant, 
 
56 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 a middle-aged, very effeminate person, who chattered 
 volubly and seemed to hamper her more than help 
 her. 
 
 " Anything I can do ? " I asked, weakly, yet willing 
 to be of use. 
 
 " Yes," she answered, with a smile. " You can lie 
 right down on this bed and stay there. I'll cover 
 you up." 
 
 She chased the sissy out, and I stretched myself 
 on the bed. She spread the bed clothing over me, 
 arranged the pillows carefully, and tucked me in. 
 The situation brought back memories of my child- 
 hood, and as I looked up at her pleasant, sunny 
 face I almost involuntarily uttered the word 
 " mother." She smiled down on me, patted my cheek, 
 and left me. " Mother " was my name for her after 
 that. I could not pronounce her real name, and had 
 to call her something. She deserves to be a mother 
 — a happy mother, too. 
 
 But the utterance of the word " mother " threw me 
 into a mood unknown for years, and soon the tears 
 came, hot, copious and scalding, streaming down 
 my cheeks in two steady currents and wetting the 
 pillow. I shifted my head, and then turned the pil- 
 low, but not until the slip was soaked did the flood 
 cease. Then, ashamed of the weakness, I traded 
 pillows with the other bed, and when " mother " 
 came back with medicine she did not notice. But 
 the tears did me good. I know several other rough- 
 necks who would benefit by a few tears, brought on, 
 preferably, by physical distress. 
 
MY SKIRMISH WITH MADNESS 57 
 
 I slept most of that day, and was wakened by the 
 little Chief Mate, who brought me my supper and 
 gave TJie a name — one that I liked. I have been 
 called several different kinds of names in my journey 
 through this life, but I never liked them and never 
 accepted them. Now I received one that sounded 
 good. 
 
 " Here, OLD SOUL," she said, in her rich, musical 
 voice, " is something to eat. Will it be enough? " 
 
 It was a good invalid's supper, but I've been a 
 lifelong meat eater, and I asked for meat. She 
 brought it. Then I wanted to hold hands again, 
 but all I got was that gentle jiu jitsu grip. How- 
 ever, I was given a smoke next day, which, as I had 
 been forty-eight hours without one, did me nearly as 
 much good. The house doctor took me into the 
 office, and noticing my impatience while waiting for 
 my pipe and tobacco, gave me a cigar. " Kindness 
 to the damned," I mused, gloomily, as I puffed. 
 
 But I was mistaken. And I want to say before 
 going further, that while in that place I received 
 nothing but genuine sympathy and genuine kindness 
 from every member of the staff, from the head doctor 
 down to the cook, and not one word of criticism or 
 admonition. Meanwhile, my health was improving, 
 so much so that I began to take an impersonal interest 
 in the Annex. 
 
 The Annex is a small ward in the rear of the 
 large one, separated from it by a locked door at the 
 end of that long fiber mat. It is where the violent 
 cases are placed as soon as admitted, and is a place 
 
58 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 of punishment for those who break out occasionally. 
 From it emanated the whoops, yelps, shrieks, and 
 screams I had heard the first day and night, which 
 sounded like the barkings of a kennel full of collie 
 dogs, and which I had now grown used to. It was 
 given me to watch, on my first day out of bed, the 
 skill and celerity with which those trained orderlies 
 could shoot a " nut " into the Annex, or, as I called 
 it, the Booby Hatch. A tall, serious, intellectual 
 looking patient left his bed clad only in pajamas; 
 then seeking the middle of the ward, lifted his right 
 hand high above his head and began the Lord's 
 Prayer in a loud, sonorous voice. He had got as far 
 as " Thy Kingdom come ! " when at a signal from 
 the Chief Mate, two orderlies seized him by the collar 
 and arms, one each side. They pushed him ahead, 
 and naturally his knees stiffened; then they tilted 
 him back until he raked like the mainmast of an 
 old-fashioned schooner-of-war, and they slid him, feet 
 first, the prayer still going, and the little Chief Mate 
 running ahead with her keys, until, with a final roar- 
 ing " AMEN," he shot into the Annex and the door 
 closed on him. I never saw him again. It would 
 have been ludicrous had it not been so pathetic, and 
 no one seemed amused but a defective boy beside me 
 on a settee. He snickered, and I looked reprovingly 
 at him. 
 
 On the next day I was allowed liberty to go out 
 in the grounds and smoke all I wanted to and as 
 often. I'm afraid I was somewhat of a trial to the 
 nurses, who alone had keys to the locked doors, for, 
 
MY SKIRMISH WITH MADNESS^ 59 
 
 clad only in pajamas and slippers, with the uniform 
 bath-robe, I could not stay out long on account of 
 the cold, nor indoors long on account of my craving 
 for a smoke. I would stand near the rear side door 
 of the ward, waiting for a nurse to come near and 
 see me. Once, a nurse spied me from far up the 
 ward and called out to another, nearer to me ; " Miss 
 
 , let the dog out," and the door was opened for 
 
 me with injunctions not to bark loud or chase cats. 
 Again, one of them passed close while I patiently 
 waited, and eyeing me with mock sternness, opened 
 the door, and as I slipped out remarked, " S-h-s-s-s- 
 scat ! " 
 
 Outside, running along the full length of the two 
 wards, was a covered runway, floored with smooth 
 planking and lighted by windows. Though cold as 
 outdoors, it was sheltered from the wind, and made a 
 famous place for exercise. Still, in my slippered feet 
 and scant apparel I needed to walk fast and far to 
 keep my blood circulating. However, I got partial 
 relief one day. I stood for a moment at the en- 
 trance to this runway, and saw coming toward me 
 from the main building a patient whom I had noticed 
 a few days back walking up and down the ward, wild 
 of eye and holding conversation with himself. Then 
 I had seen him led to the Annex, and I suppose that 
 from there he had gone to a ward in the main building 
 for special treatment of some organic trouble. With 
 an orderly at each side of him he came along quietly 
 enough until they led him into the runway ; then he 
 broke loose with a torrent of profanity, and struggled 
 
60 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE IVIAN 
 
 furiously. Sane or insane, he knew he was being 
 taken to the Booby Hatch, and resented it. But it 
 did him no good — harm, rather, for he lost one 
 slipper. They had given him the preliminary push 
 ahead to make him stiffen his knees, then canted him 
 back for a long slide ; but the floor was rough, and 
 he would not slide ; so, his progress down the run- 
 way was a succession of jumps, in one of which he 
 lost the slipper. I secured it and finding it new, 
 thick-soled and warm, donned it, leaving my own in 
 its place. From that time on one foot was warm, 
 the other cold; but I was impartial, and changed 
 slippers occasionally. And, as I walked and pon- 
 dered on the incident there came to my mind the swift 
 transit of the prayerful man into the Annex, and I 
 knew now why they kept that fiber mat so shiny 
 and smooth. It was not only to give exercise to 
 the " nuts " but to make it easy to slide them 
 along. 
 
 The psychopathic ward is a clearing house between 
 the various police courts and the asylums. Patients 
 came in singly at all hours of the day and night, 
 and went out in bunches, to Central Islip, Ward's 
 Island, or elsewhere. In less than a week I was the 
 patriarch of the ward; all who had entered before 
 me had gone to some asylum except one, a quiet, 
 elderly man who went home in the care of his wife. 
 I do not know what trouble of mind brought him 
 there; perhaps it was like my own, for during my 
 stay he and I were the only ones to be released. I 
 will say in passing that I had not yet discovered what 
 
MY SKIRMISH WITH MADNESS 61 
 
 my mental trouble really was, even though I had 
 studied up the various 'phobias and manias, and 
 tested myself for the symptoms : I had them all. 
 
 No man is a judge of his own mental condition, 
 though he may judge the mental condition of others. 
 On the day when the very effeminate person was 
 scolding " mother," a heavy-set, middle-aged German, 
 with a serious, intelligent face, watched him awhile, 
 then, catching my eye, smiled and tapped his fore- 
 head. He could not speak English, but the world- 
 known gesture indicated his belief that the effeminate 
 person was insane. Yet, this man, after sitting 
 around in the chairs that day and part of the next, 
 apparently much interested in his surroundings, sud- 
 denly sprang to his feet and went berserk, roaring 
 out inarticulate words in German. The Chief Mate 
 was at lunch, but as it was a clear case for the 
 Booby Hatch, the nurse in charge signaled to the 
 only orderly on duty at the time, a powerfully built 
 young fellow named Sullivan. I give his real name, 
 for I like to give such a man credit and publicity. 
 It was he who had taken my dimensions when going 
 to bed on the first day. He was of Danish blood, 
 I was told, in spite of his name, and he had the 
 smooth, pink face and clear, steady gray eyes of an 
 intelligent boy. He took the lunatic by the arm, 
 and met resistance; then, so quickly that I could not 
 follow the maneuver, Sullivan was behind him, with 
 his right arm pinioning the two arms of the other. 
 The man was helpless ; he could not wrench his elbows, 
 drawn near together at his back, free from Sullivan's 
 
62 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 grip. He bellowed like an angry bull, and swayed 
 back and forth, dragging Sullivan around the floor. 
 I have read that the formula of a maniac's strength is 
 seven times the normal. If so, Sullivan exerted 
 seven times his normal strength, for he mastered 
 him. Not a word did he say, nor did he use his 
 left arm, hanging limply at his side; but his face 
 showed the strain he was under. The corners of his 
 mouth drooped, and his smooth brow corrugated to 
 tense, deep wrinkles. Back and forth they swung, 
 the madman roaring at every breath ; then he sud- 
 denly sank to the floor. Sullivan sank with him, 
 rested a moment, and with hardly an apparent effort, 
 stood erect, bringing that hundred and eighty pounds 
 of German lunacy with him. Then the incoherent 
 roaring was resumed, and it continued until the little 
 Chief Mate arrived. She laid her hand on his 
 shoulder, he quieted down, and Sullivan, bleeding 
 from four fingernail gashes on the back of his left 
 hand, that looked as though made by a Bengal tiger's 
 claws, released him, and the Chief Mate led him to 
 the Annex. 
 
 Hats off' to Sullivan, with the physical strength 
 of a maniac and the self-control and forbearance of a 
 gentleman. He painted his wounds with iodine and 
 resumed duty with nothing to say. 
 
 By this time I was thoroughly afraid of that Chief 
 Mate. She faced me in the middle of the ward that 
 day, smiled in my face, patted me on the chest, 
 poked me in the ribs, and for a moment fooled me 
 into the thought that she was affectionately caressing 
 
MY SKIRMISH WITH MADNESS 63 
 
 me. But she was not, she was going through my 
 pockets, looking for matches, knives, toothpicks, or 
 other implements by which I might do harm to myself 
 or other " nuts." 
 
 Like the girls, men nurses, or orderlies, seemed 
 to have been selected for temperamental qualities, 
 plus physical strength. Each one was intelligent, 
 good natured, and gentlemanly. One, a night man 
 in the Annex, was the largest human being I have 
 ever seen outside of a circus or a museum. He must 
 have been six inches over six feet in height and about 
 thirty inches across the shoulders : but he was so 
 correctly proportioned that at a distance, standing 
 alone, he seemed of ordinary size. It was only when 
 close to him that one could realize his enormous dis- 
 placement. In his white uniform he suggested a 
 battleship ; he moved slowly, but covered ground. 
 And a few nights after Sullivan's battle there came 
 a time when his strength was needed. 
 
 The defective boy I have spoken of had become a 
 nuisance. He was about eighteen, and full grown, 
 but had the innocent face of a nine-year-old child, 
 and the warm-hearted girl nurses made much of him. 
 I often thought that what he really needed was, not 
 the attention of alienists, but a rope's-end four times 
 a day, after meals and at bedtime. I may have 
 been prejudiced, but boys, especially noisy, singing, 
 whistling boys like him, were always my dearest antip- 
 athy. This boy suffered from exaggerated Ego. He 
 was the center of the universe, and the ward, the 
 whole staff, and the patients were made for his amuse- 
 
64 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 ment. He was never still a minute except when 
 asleep ; he shouted between mouthfuls at his meals ; 
 his special delight was in tormenting the weak, 
 helpless, and nervous old men who daily drifted in. 
 He would enter the reading-room and scatter the in- 
 mates to the outer ward. He would follow and 
 drive them back. He would not listen to admonition, 
 or requests that he be silent. He got so on my 
 frazzled nerves that when I learned that he was 
 going to Ward's Island I was nearly as pleased as 
 I was at my own release when it came. He was 
 strong as a bull, had been arrested on the street and 
 had taken the policeman's club away from him be- 
 fore being conquered. This had induced the magis- 
 trate to send him to the psychopathic ward for 
 examination. 
 
 On the day he learned that he was listed for 
 Ward's Island he grew worse, shouting, singing, and 
 whistling, entering the rooms and teasing the mental 
 wrecks in bed, and becoming so offensive that he 
 was several times led to the Booby Hatch for punish- 
 ment, always, however, to be taken back when he had 
 aroused the more violent inmates there to an uproar. 
 Only the little Chief Mate could quiet him; but at 
 seven in the evening she went off duty and the head 
 night nurse had charge. We had all turned in, 
 waiting for him to subside so that we could go to 
 sleep ; but he grew noisier as the evening progressed. 
 Then I heard, between his shouts and whoops, the 
 voice of the night nurse saying to an orderly : " Put 
 him in the Annex for the night." 
 
MY SKIRMISH WITH MADNESS 65 
 
 " I can't do it alone," came the answer. 
 
 " Get help, and when he quiets down give him a 
 cold shower." 
 
 A cold shower, be it known to those who have 
 not tried it, is the much misunderstood " water cure " 
 of the Philippines, and is an excellent sedative for 
 nerves, but something of a punishment to anyone 
 not accustomed to it. I now was interested, but 
 not in his nerves. I heard footsteps from the Annex, 
 and a terse command to the boy to " get up," fol- 
 lowed by his loud protest. Then there were the 
 sounds of a struggle, followed by a derisive whoop of 
 victory from the boy. Then more footsteps, then 
 more shouts, screams, and oaths from the boy. He 
 was now thoroughly insane; and it was not until a 
 third reinforcement arrived from the Annex that I 
 could tell by the sounds that he was being dragged — 
 not slid — back to the Booby Hatch, Hospital 
 etiquette forbade my getting up to witness his Water- 
 loo, but the uproar of sounds from beyond the door 
 told me that the lunatics in the Annex had joined 
 him in his mood. In half an hour the barkings 
 ceased, and I heard the splash of the shower bath, 
 and the grievous screams of the boy ; then cam.e his 
 whimpering plaint as he was led back to bed, then 
 silence, and I rolled over to sleep, happier than I 
 had been since I had held hands with the Chief Mate. 
 To such depths of hateful malevolence can a spoiled 
 child bring a sick man. In the morning a patient 
 who roomed near the Annex told me that it had 
 taken five orderlies, including the giant, to drag that 
 
66 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 animated pork past his door. He was a good bo}' all 
 next day ; he was asleep, on the reading-room floor. 
 
 Meanwhile I gained strength daily, taking longer 
 walks in the runway and cold showers every morning. 
 This brought a curious comment from a kind old 
 fellow-patient who noticed it. 
 
 " You know," he said, " that this is the observa- 
 tion room of the psychopathic ward, don't you.'' 
 Well, everything we do is observed by the nurses, and 
 an entry made in the books. If we argue, quarrel, 
 or do anything unusual, it counts against us, and if 
 they think we are in any way crazy they'll ship us 
 off to some place where we'll never get out. Don't 
 take any more cold baths." 
 
 I was half inclined to follow his advice; for the 
 psychopathic ward, compared to what I had heard 
 about asylums, was a very pleasant place. It had 
 been a haven of refuge to me, a place to come to and 
 die in, surrounded by sympathetic girls and men, who 
 had shown me more kindness than I had ever received 
 from strangers. But I had graduated physically 
 beyond the need and appreciation of this kindness; 
 the sight and sounds of my fellow-patients now 
 irritated me. The chief annoyances of my life since 
 I began writing have been noisy boys, barking dogs, 
 practicing musicians and soloists, and effeminate men. 
 Excepting the dogs, whose place was filled by the 
 lunatics in the Annex, I had all these annoyances 
 around me — close to me, and I could not escape them. 
 The ward became crowded about this time and I now- 
 had a room-mate, a talkative young man whose 
 
]VIY SKIRMISH WITH MADNESS 67 
 
 vocabulary was large. There was much conversation 
 in the evening before " lights out," but my share was 
 included in the two words : " Shut up." Yet in spite 
 of this mental friction my health and my nerves 
 steadily improved. But I still thought I was insane, 
 and was nearly floored one day when one of the 
 doctors told me I was to be discharged. 
 
 " Why," I gasped, " am I all right — all right in 
 my head? " 
 
 " Nothing wrong with you, but nerves," he said. 
 " You're the sanest man we ever had here." 
 
 " But what ailed me ? " I asked, remembering the 
 conviction of the years. 
 
 " The letter W, and what follows it." 
 "Women?" 
 
 " Women never bother you. You're too ugly." 
 "Work?" 
 
 " Work never hurt anyone. Whiskey and worry 
 are your trouble. Cut them both out, for one will 
 produce the other." 
 
 And so I was sane, and the haunting horror of 
 the long years was gone from me. I needed the 
 rest of the day and a night of sleep to assimilate 
 the gladness of it. My burden was lifted and the 
 whole world was changed. I had never been insane, 
 and never would be; for I had passed the acid test 
 of sanity; I had endured for two weeks the society 
 of madmen, had suffered in concentrated form every 
 nuisance and annoyance that had broken me down, 
 and had steadily recovered my health and steadied 
 my nerves against the down pull! Why? Because 
 
68 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 I had received bodily care and sympathy — almost un- 
 known to me in the outer world — and nothing to 
 drink. I resolved to continue the treatment. 
 
 But my next experience in the outer world told me 
 that sympathy could not be had for the mere need 
 of it. My first act on leaving the hospital gate was 
 to enter the nearest saloon and buy a drink of good 
 whiskey, which to the pained amazement of the bar- 
 tender I poured into the cuspidor. 
 
 " Where'd you come from.''" he asked. 
 
 " The psychopathic ward," I answered. 
 
 " How'd you get out?" 
 
 " The gate." 
 
 " Well," he said, as he took the bottle out of my 
 reach and wiped the bar, " you can always go back." 
 
 The drink habit has had several explanations. 
 Jack London lays it to availability and suggestion. 
 He is but partly right. It has been called a strong 
 man's weakness and a weak man's vice. This is a 
 contradiction in terms, for a strong man cannot be 
 weak, and a weak man cannot be vicious. It needs 
 weakness to be weak, and strength to be vicious. In 
 my judgment it is a sickness, or the symptom of a 
 sickness — in my own case, the latter. It is a sickness 
 as contagious to temperamental people as any germ 
 disease, and is curable by the same general treat- 
 ment — medicine and hygiene. 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON, HERO 
 
 By J. O'NEILL 
 
 This appreciation of Morgan Robertson was writ- 
 ten by an artist friend. As may be gained by reading 
 between the lines of this contribution, Morgan Robert- 
 son found the author a ready sympathizer with the 
 psychic beliefs that became so dominant in his later 
 years. 
 
 " T TE died standing up." 
 
 ■^ ■■■ Those words formed part of the message 
 flashed across the country from Atlantic City on 
 March 24, 1915, telling of the death of one of 
 America's heroes — Morgan Robertson, sailor, clock- 
 repairer, diamond-setter, sea-tale writer, and — hero. 
 
 My acquaintance with " Morg," as he was affec- 
 tionately called by his intimates, dates from a muggy 
 afternoon when I was introduced to him and his 
 eight-by-twelve room in a Twenty-fourth Street 
 studio building, New York City. I was walking up 
 the avenue when I met a model of mine, who told 
 me she was on her way to his studio, and, hearing that 
 I had never met him, invited me to accompany her; 
 I assented, for, having read some of his sea-tales 
 with great enjoyment, I was glad to have the oppor- 
 tunity of meeting the author. 
 
 His room contained a bathtub which he had had 
 
 raised from the floor high enough to serve the purpose 
 
 69 
 
70 MORGAN ROBERTSON, I'HE MAN 
 
 of a table, into which it was converted by the addition 
 of a thick drawing board. Hanging from the edges 
 of this board was drapery of some kind — denim, I 
 think — which hid the ugly bathtub from the gaze of 
 the profane. A lounge-bed, sadly dented in the middle 
 where the springs had given way under the frequent 
 impact of his friends who used it to sit on, a small 
 table on which was a typewriter, a gas range, and 
 two chairs occupied the remainder of the floor space, 
 with the exception of a strip of floor about two feet 
 wide, forming a sort of runway for Morg to walk 
 on while doing his thinking. On the walls were a 
 United States weather chart, showing the tides and 
 winds, a couple of drawings made to illustrate one 
 of his sea-tales, a hanging cupboard, and a shocking 
 caricature of Morg himself dashed ofi' in a spirit 
 of fun by one of his newspaper friends, and labeled 
 (libeled is the correct term) " Reversion to Type." 
 Morg, who fortunately had a keen sense of the 
 ludicrous, took special pride in drawing his visitors' 
 attention — and admiration — to this caricature. 
 
 After the usual introductions were over, the visitor 
 was put completely at his ease, for Robertson had 
 the traditional hospitality of the sailor, a hospitality 
 that was his own undoing, for he was taken advantage 
 of at every opportunity. 
 
 On the occasion of my first visit I noticed a savory 
 smell coming from the direction of the gas range. 
 Morg, following my look of inquiry, informed 
 me his supper was being cooked, and invited me to 
 stay and take " pot luck " with him, remarking that 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON, HERO 71 
 
 my friend, the model, did not need an invitation, for 
 if his guess was correct, she had come with the in- 
 tention of sharing his supper, an accusation she 
 cheerfully and laughingly admitted. Being a Bo- 
 hemian, and also curious to know what kind of supper 
 cooked by a mere man attracted our friend the model, 
 I accepted, and inquired what it consisted of. 
 Morg said he had about ten pounds of white beans 
 (haricot blanc), boiling merrily in the big pot on 
 the range, on the top of them being a chunk of 
 fat pork to give the necessary flavor, while in the 
 oven were some " Murphies " baking. Looking at 
 his watch, he said it was almost supper time, and 
 commenced to brew a big pot of black coffee, 
 quantities of which, so I discovered later, formed 
 the basis of the inspiration of his sea stories, and 
 which was to lay the foundation of stomach and 
 nervous troubles from which he suffered in his later 
 years. While the coffee was cooking, he " laid the 
 table " (which was a small table used by dressmakers) 
 with cups and saucers, etc., which he fished out of 
 the recesses of the cupboard hanging above his bath- 
 tub table, and then he helped us to as savory and 
 appetizing a meal as ever Bohemian ate. 
 
 Morgan Robertson not only could cook up yams, 
 he could also cook beans — believe me. I found out 
 later that Morg's beans were known from one 
 end of New York's Bohemia to the other. 
 
 While we were doing justice to his supper, 
 Morg told me that when my model friend needed 
 a real meal, she always dropped in to see him about 
 
72 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE IMAN 
 
 supper time so as to get some of his celebrated beans 
 " under her belt," and in consequence he had given 
 her a nickname, " Beans," a name she was always 
 known to us ever after. I did not know until a couple 
 of days later that poor old Morg was going 
 through one of his periods of " hard times." I cer- 
 tainly would not have guessed it from his lavish 
 generosity of the little he had — but that was Morgan 
 Robertson. 
 
 As I passed near his place every morning on my 
 way to my studio, which was but a few blocks away, 
 I was a frequent caller. Having studied and worked 
 along lines that Morg had perhaps touched but 
 lightly — if at all — we were strongly attracted to each 
 other; also, I had tasted of the bitterness of exist- 
 ence with the same disappointments due to the short- 
 comings of myself and our friends the magazine 
 editors ; I knew what it was to seek in my pocket 
 for the non-existent nickel, and to wonder where 
 the next meal was coming from, when a dollar bill 
 looked as big as the map of Europe, and " ten 
 dollars " sounded like a fairy tale ; I knew what it 
 meant to pull my belt in another notch so that the 
 muscles surrounding the hiatus in the region of my 
 solar plexus could have something on which to get a 
 purchase — hence, I belonged! Morg and I had 
 little need of an introduction. 
 
 At the time I speak of he was harassed by the 
 want of money, also by the fact that his brain was 
 fagged and weary from the continued strain of crea- 
 tive work. 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON, HERO 73 
 
 His method of work led to curious results. He 
 would lie on his lounge-bed, sometimes for hours at 
 a time, in a semi-sleeping state. His ideas would 
 gradually marshal themselves into a coherent, con- 
 secutive narrative up to a certain point, and then — 
 they would stop — whether he liked or not, and that 
 stopping, sometimes in the middle of an exciting situa- 
 tion, was the plague of his literary existence. He 
 would then sit at his typewriter and pound out his 
 story in a steady stream of words until he had finished 
 what he had gotten in his somnolent state. Then 
 he would be obliged to wait for the rest of the narra- 
 tive, which sometimes would not come for days, 
 sometimes not for weeks ! In the meantime Morg 
 would be worried sick thinking of his debts, a frame 
 of mind hardly conducive to turning out good creative 
 work, but which was, unfortunately, the condition 
 he usually had to work under. We little realize what 
 the work of a creative artist costs its author. 
 
 This problem of the stopping short of his in- 
 spiration was the source of many arguments between 
 us. He had read extensively on psychology, and had 
 worked out a solution of the matter for himself 
 which seemed to him to be the true solution. It was 
 this : 
 
 Years ago, when he first took up literary work, he 
 had come in touch with a young lady who had the am- 
 bition — but not the " stickativeness " — to be a great 
 writer, and having a great admiration for her pro- 
 ficiency in the use of flowing language, got (to use 
 his own words) en rapport with her " mind-state " 
 
74. MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE AIAN 
 
 and thought waves, and, himself supplying the dog- 
 gedness and stickativeness which she lacked, the com- 
 bination made Morgan Robertson the writer. While 
 my opinion may not be of great value, I am con- 
 vinced that he was a very sensitive psychic, and the 
 semi-comatose condition of his strong physical body 
 was necessary for the psychic part of him to mani- 
 fest; the alternative being, that he was used (as a 
 medium) by a discamate man functioning on what 
 the mystics of the Middle Ages and also the modem 
 Theosophists call the " Astral Plane " — the next 
 world above us, or the " spirit summer-land " of the 
 spirituahsts ; that this discamate man was — or is — 
 a writer, and used Robertson as a channel for his 
 literary talents and output on the physical plane. 
 
 This latter solution is not so far-fetched or im- 
 probable as the man in the street may imagine, for 
 many writers of note more than hint at the prob- 
 ability of that same method being used in their own 
 cases. When we are thinking along a definite line 
 of thought, a totally foreign thought will insert itself 
 into our consciousness, a thought that has absolutely 
 nothing in common with our previous chain of think- 
 ing, and which, so far as we can see, has not been 
 the result of or stimulated by that previous thinking. 
 Where has that new thought come from? Psychol- 
 ogists affirm it has seeped up from our sub-conscious- 
 ness, which Is a possibility, but the question still 
 remains, why should that particular thought come at 
 that particular time, unasked, and when the waking 
 consciousness was busily engaged along a totally dif- 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON, HERO 75 
 
 ferent line of thought? We say, " a thought came to 
 us," and, in saying it, we are unaware that uncon- 
 sciously we have uttered a truth, for we are con- 
 stantly affected and influenced by the thoughts of all 
 our fellow-humans, whether they be on this plane or 
 other planes of life. And it is not an unreasonable 
 idea to suppose that a young man, full of ambition, 
 cut off in the middle of his career (by what we call 
 "death"), carries with him into the next plane of 
 existence the same ambition, the same longing to give 
 forth his message, but which he now is unable to 
 give on the physical plane because he has been di- 
 vested of his physical body. What is more likely than 
 that such a one would use a physical man of sensitive 
 psychic makeup as a channel to give that message 
 to physical plane inhabitants? Mystics of all ages 
 have asserted that not only is it possible, but that it 
 is of more frequent occurrence than the average man 
 wots of. 
 
 The writing of one of his stories is a case in point. 
 About ten or eleven years ago, he wrote the tale called 
 " Fifty Fathoms Down," which told of a United 
 States submarine torpedo-boat being run down at 
 night, shipping a lot of water which put the ma- 
 chinery out of business, with the result that the boat 
 sinks to the depth indicated by the title. The lieu- 
 tenant in command clearly sees that it is a matter 
 of but a short time before suffocation will put an end 
 to their activities, and finally to their lives, and 
 decides to eject the crew one after another through 
 the torpedo tubes, he himself, after ejecting the last 
 
76 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 man, remaining to wrestle with the problem of re- 
 membering the chemical formula of a drying agent 
 for gases — " something he had studied years ago at 
 school " — and also other chemical combinations which 
 would enable him to dry out his motors and so raise 
 the boat to the surface. 
 
 He [Robertson] had gotten this tale (along with 
 the chemical formulae) en bloc during one of his semi- 
 sleeping states, and as he knew as much about chem- 
 istry as he did of the man in the moon (according to 
 his own statement), he took his manuscript to a pro- 
 fessor of chemistry at Columbia College for verifica- 
 tion. Although he had never seen it worked out just 
 that way, the professor opined the formulae were 
 0. K., which vastly amused Morg, who was tickled 
 at the idea of him, a sailor, presenting new chemical 
 formulae to a professor of chemistry. 
 
 Whatever the solution — Robertson at this par- 
 ticular time was in a ferment of distress. He had 
 a couple of tales started but which would not con- 
 tinue; he needed the money badly which those tales, 
 when completed, would bring; add to his troubles 
 a gay young spark who occupied the next room and 
 who persisted in coming home all " lit up " — generally 
 accompanied by a boisterous companion who helped 
 to make things lively — just at the time when poor 
 old Morg was trying to connect the scattered threads 
 of his tales, and one has a faint picture of what he 
 went through for about six weeks of nerve-racking 
 torment. 
 
 Desperate and not knowing which way k> turn, 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON, HERO 77 
 
 he came to the conclusion that hypnotism would per- 
 haps help him. Full of this notion he interviewed 
 a prominent and well-known physician who used 
 hypnotism in his practice. He frankly told the M. D. 
 of his lack of funds and also of his other troubles, 
 saying that he thought if he was put into the 
 hypnotic state and while therein given the suggestion 
 to invent plots for his stories, he would be in the 
 position of being able to get to work with renewed 
 vigor. The physician, who is a fine type of man — 
 physically, mentally, and morally — consented to do 
 what he could to help him, and, after a couple of 
 failures, succeeded in putting Morg into the hypnotic 
 state and gave him the asked-for " suggestion," viz. : 
 to invent. And now a curious thing made itself 
 evident. Robertson began " inventing " — not along 
 the line of literary but of scientific work. 
 
 One morning, shortly after his experience with 
 hypnotism, I called and discovered him hard at work 
 on his bathtub table making an elaborate mechanical 
 drawing that would have done credit to an engineer- 
 ing draughtsman, and, with but a nodding acquaint- 
 ance with geometry, was calmly tackling a problem in 
 optics ! He was inventing his periscope for use on 
 submarines. 
 
 The periscope lens in general use on submarines 
 (so I am given to understand) is a segment of glass 
 of 60 degrees, which, placed on top of the tube 
 rising perpendicularly out of the submarine, is the 
 *' eye " by which (when the submarine is partly 
 submerged) the craft is steered. As 60 degrees will 
 
78 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 take in only a certain part of the scene it points 
 at, the lens must be turned to the various points of 
 the compass to " see " the whole horizon. Robertson 
 was engaged in inventing a periscope lens which 
 would take in the whole circular field of 360 degrees 
 at once, a problem others had tackled and given up 
 in despair. 
 
 Amazed at the cleverness he displayed in handling 
 strange tools like an expert, I examined the drawing 
 with a critical eye, Morg meanwhile explaining the 
 meaning of the maze of intricate lines. He told 
 me he had run against a snag. The inside curve of 
 his lens did not give the correct shape necessary to 
 reflect the image properly ; he said that vaguely hum- 
 ming in his cranium was something that sounded like 
 " kartsun curve," and asked me if I recognized it. He 
 had looked up in his encyclopedia all the words he 
 could think of that sounded anything like " kartsun," 
 but couldn't hit it; I was at a loss to know what he 
 was trying to get at, for while the name had a some- 
 what familiar sound I couldn't place it, so left him 
 cudgeling his brains over the problem, for I had 
 pressing problems of my own which demanded my at- 
 tention. However, desiring to help him, I devoted 
 'part of that evening to looking through a big dic- 
 tionary, and after exhausting the " K's " turned to 
 the " C's," with the result that I found the " Carte- 
 sian curve " drawn and explained, and which is a 
 curve plotted from three centers and named after the 
 French philosopher Descartes. As I lived some miles 
 away from Robertson I had to wait until the mom- 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON, HERO 79 
 
 ing to acquaint him with my discovery. He made 
 a new drawing incorporating this curve, and when he 
 had finished it was satisfied that, theoretically at all 
 events, he had invented that which other inventors 
 had failed on, a perfect periscope lens, and laugh- 
 ingly remarked that in six months he would be cutting 
 coupons (his royalties), with the prospect of being 
 a bloated millionaire and be in a position to help 
 all his " down-and-out " friends, myself included. 
 That was the sailor in him talking, money being of 
 no value to him except to spend on his friends. 
 
 He got in touch with the Submarine Boat 
 
 Company, who requested him to communicate imme- 
 diately with their naval expert, Lieutenant , of 
 
 the United States Navy. This he did, to the joy 
 of the aforesaid lieutenant, who said he had been 
 working on that same problem for three years without 
 success and had given it up in despair in (nam- 
 ing a certain month). Morg's curiosity was aroused, 
 and inquiring the exact day the lieutenant had 
 throA\'n out his chvmks of glass models and had 
 given the game up, found that the following day was 
 the day he [Robertson] had had the impulse to take 
 up the problem; which to Morgan's way of thinking 
 was another argument in favor of his pet theory re- 
 garding his getting another's " mind-state." I 
 pointed out to him that he should have at the same 
 time gotten the lieutenant's mind-state of despair and 
 relinquishment of the idea, but he couldn't — or 
 wouldn't — see it that way. 
 
 The lieutenant's report to the Submarine Boat 
 
80 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 Company was so favorable they advanced Robertson 
 $50.00 (if my memory serves me) a week to go ahead 
 and make a working model of his lens. He put the 
 problem of grinding the glass up to one of our large 
 manufacturers of lenses, but when they saw what was 
 required of them, they balked and said they could 
 not do it ; that was another setback. Robertson, 
 however, was not the man to give up, and calling on 
 him some days later, I found he had built a rough 
 structure from the top of which hung an arm which 
 carried a weight made of some material necessary to 
 grind the chunk of glass underneath into the sem- 
 blance of his future lens; he had worked out the 
 problem of this arm swinging so that it would de- 
 scribe the required Cartesian curve. When he had 
 his glass almost ground and ready for polishing, 
 through some unforeseen cause (possibly a flaw in 
 the glass or a sudden change of temperature), the 
 thing cracked, and the result of his weeks of labor 
 was ruined. Nothing daunted, he got another chunk 
 of glass and started all over again. With this second 
 one he was more fortunate and, while not perfectly 
 polished, on being mounted on the end of a mailing 
 tube it gave a fairly clear picture of the surround- 
 ing landscape, and showed that the making of a better 
 and perfect periscope lens was but a matter of a 
 more solid apparatus than Morg had made to grind 
 his chunk of glass. The lens was to all intents 
 and purposes an accomplished fact. Robertson was, 
 naturally, delighted with his success, and felt that he 
 saw at last the end of his monetary troubles, but 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON, HERO 81 
 
 Fate, in the shape of the United States Patent 
 Office, stepped in and prevented his dream being 
 realized. 
 
 As I understood the matter from him, a French- 
 man had written, in a French magazine, an article 
 on the periscope lens of the future, pointing out the 
 lines of construction the inventor would have to 
 follow in order to make a perfect panoramic periscope 
 lens. Strangely enough, although Robertson had not 
 even heard of this particular article or magazine 
 (which had appeared some years before), his lens 
 followed the lines of the theoretical one of the French- 
 man, and the Patent Office held that no patent could 
 be taken out for Robertson's invention. Although the 
 setback was a serious one, for Robertson was fully 
 convinced his literary work of story-spinning was 
 over forever, his heroic quality of soul was equal 
 to the strain. He put his wasted time, energy, and 
 work on the periscope problem behind him as an un- 
 fortunate incident, and again set to work evolving 
 sea-tales. 
 
 Mixed up in his thought-currents were a lot of 
 suggestions that came from — he knew not where; 
 and questions regarding chemical rays, heat rays, 
 actinic rays, and such like were hurled at me with a 
 view to finding out what I knew about them. As 
 my professional work had carried me into investiga- 
 tions regarding colored light, some of the questions 
 I could answer and give him more or less definite 
 information on, but most of them were of too 
 abstruse a nature for me to help him. Gradually, 
 
82 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 form began to come out of the chaos of suggestions, 
 and then I discovered he was at work inventing an 
 invisible searchlight. When he told me what he was 
 doing, I confess I scooted the proposition as being 
 paradoxical, but when he got through explaining his 
 idea I realized that he was on the threshold of an 
 invention that would astound the world and be a 
 powerful factor in banishing war from off the face 
 of the globe. It was one of those simple things that 
 strike us as being remarkable no one had thought of 
 it before, and, although simple, it was an idea that 
 would be incalculable in its far-reaching effects. 
 
 He worked out the idea theoretically in a drawing, 
 combining it with his periscope, and it looked most 
 promising until he butted against the usual snag, 
 which, in this case, was the problem of heat in the 
 searchlight. His money problems were such he had 
 to lay his searchlight idea aside, and gradually lost 
 interest in the matter, for apparently the obstacle 
 could not be surmounted, handicapped as he was by 
 lack of technical knowledge. Some years after (last 
 year, to be precise), I told him I thought I had 
 found the solution to that particular problem, and he 
 seemed to think that it would work out successfully, 
 but at that time his health had broken down and 
 he was headed for a hospital. Anyway, his disap- 
 pointment over the periscope affair had left a deeper 
 wound than he had been willing to admit, and he 
 didn't care to run the risks of again going through 
 the same experience. 
 
 Although Robertson respected and admired certain 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON, HERO 83 
 
 of the magazine editors, there was a class of editor 
 who — to use a colloquialism — " got his goat," and 
 roused his ire to the nth. degree. One day last year 
 he came to my studio and told me he had just had 
 a peculiar experience. It seemed he had left the 
 manuscript of a story with a certain metropolitan 
 magazine (which shall be nameless here), and on this 
 particular day he had called to see the editor regard- 
 ing it. The editor, who was a young callow individual 
 of twenty-odd years, gave the manuscript — which he 
 said he couldn't accept — to Robertson with the re- 
 mark that as he [Robertson] was evidently trying 
 to make sea-tale writing his line of work he would 
 give him a tip. Pointing to a book standing on his 
 desk, the young editor said he should read it carefully 
 and endeavor to model his st^^le on that man's story. 
 Morg looked at the book indicated and read the 
 title ; it was " Sinful Peck," by Morgan Robertson ! ! ! 
 I interrupted Morg's recital of this interview to ex- 
 claim : " Oh ! what a chance ! What did you say ? " 
 He took his pipe out of his mouth, wiped his lips 
 with his finger, tried to smile his old humorous, 
 quizzical smile — but which was a failure for the ex- 
 perience had cut him to the quick — " I just thanked 
 him and walked out," was all he said. He felt that 
 as such an ignoramus as this pert young chap was 
 in the place of power, and who evidently had not 
 even noticed his name at the top of his manuscript, 
 it was wasting good energy to bandy words with him, 
 so he " just thanked him and walked out." 
 
 Talking, as we often did, over the " magazine 
 
84. MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 game," as we called it, Robertson said that with all 
 his experience he knew no more about what the 
 editors wanted than he did when he first entered the 
 literary field, and instanced a story he had written 
 a couple of years ago on order for a magazine who 
 wanted a " strong " story. He wrote the story, 
 sent it to the editor, who returned it as being unac- 
 ceptable. Then followed the weary work of trying 
 to sell it to another magazine. It was turned down 
 by every editor he submitted it to except one, who 
 was the editor of the most conservative magazine in 
 the field, and who, in Robertson's mind, would be the 
 most unlikely man to accept it. Without the faintest 
 hope in his heart he sent the manuscript to this par- 
 ticular man, and nearly fell in a faint next day to 
 hear that not only was his story accepted, but that 
 one of the biggest illustrators in the country was to 
 be commissioned to make the pictures for it. When 
 it was published the story made a tremendous sensa- 
 tion in magazine circles, and heartened Robertson to 
 write a story he long had desired, but which he had 
 hitherto been afraid to, fearing it would be too strong 
 for salable purposes. He outlined the synopsis of 
 his proposed tale to the magazine that had accepted 
 the one just mentioned, and the editor commissioned 
 him to go ahead and write it. He took as the basis 
 of his tale the well-known case of the Marie Celeste, 
 a ship that had sailed for a port which it never ar- 
 rived at, the only clew to its fate being one of its 
 boats found drifting in the open sea and containing 
 only a chronometer and an oar. The solving of this 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON, HERO 85 
 
 mystery of the sea had fascinated him for a long 
 time, so he hailed with delight this commission as 
 being just the chance he wanted. 
 
 I happened to visit him as he was completing the 
 manuscript, and read the story while he sat and 
 smoked the pipe of satisfaction, which he well might 
 do, for it was one of the most powerful stories I had 
 ever read. Expressing a desire to have the oppor- 
 tunity of illustrating the story, I was told that he 
 had absolutely no say in the matter but would recom- 
 mend me to the editor with a view to getting me the 
 job. A couple of days later he told me that his 
 story had been refused as being too powerful! As 
 in the other case, he took it the rounds of the maga- 
 zines. One editor refused it saying that it was too 
 weird and horrible ; " Why," said he, " do you know 
 I couldn't go to bed because I had to finish that 
 blamed story and see how it ended ! " " Well, I con- 
 sider it a compliment that a hardened old sinner of 
 an editor like you was interested to the extent that 
 you say," was Robertson's retort. " That's all very 
 well," said the editor, " but my readers would not 
 stand for anything like that." Finally it was landed 
 on a magazine whose owner was interested in an 
 evening paper, which not only reprinted the story 
 but printed almost a column of enthusiastic comment 
 by one of the highest paid editors in New York, 
 who flattered Robertson to the extent of saying that 
 E. A. Poe had written nothing to equal it. 
 
 So, year in and year out, Robertson worked, 
 struggling with poverty and the gradual decline of 
 
86 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 his physical powers. Blessed with a magnificent con- 
 stitution and strong vitality which called for an 
 outdoor life, he sapped it by his sedentary work and 
 mode of living ; and when later he had to pay the price 
 that Nature demands, he was handicapped by ills of 
 various kinds. 
 
 During an attack of inflammatory rheumatism I 
 introduced to him a friend of mine, a physician (and 
 one of the salt of the earth), who went up to Mount 
 Vernon to treat him. My friend found Robertson 
 propped up in bed with his typewriter on a board 
 resting on two uprights to keep the weight of the 
 machine off him, trying to write a story in between 
 the twinges of pain that racked him from head to 
 foot. 
 
 Full of failings (like the most of us), yet fuller 
 still of heroic qualities was Morg, for, as he often 
 used to say, he had had the training of a sailor, and, 
 like the sailor, he had the traditional attitude of the 
 seaman, which was to keep on doing the best he 
 could with a stiff upper lip, depending on the Great 
 Pilot that in the end all would be well; which to 
 him was the true heroic attitude. He said, in an 
 unsigned article published in a popular weekly, " I 
 am a sailor " ; that utterance meant more than the 
 open-handed generosity of the seafaring man ; it 
 meant also the qualities that went to make Morgan 
 Robertson a hero. Here's to you, Moyg — HERO ! 
 
THE ART OF MORGAN ROBERTSON 
 
 By CHARLES HANSON TOWNE 
 
 The author of the following slcetch of Morgan 
 Robertson is the editor of McClure's, and a magazine 
 man of wide experience. 
 
 I KNEW Morgan Robertson, I should say, over a 
 period of about twelve years. When I was at The 
 Smart Set he used to bring us stories — stories of 
 power and distinction, but almost always, because of 
 our limited policy, unsuited to our needs. Only on 
 two or three occasions was it possible for us to pur- 
 chase his manuscripts; and he and I used to laugh 
 and say that it was easy enough for an editor and 
 a contributor to remain friends so long as the former 
 was buying the latter's offerings. But in our case 
 I like to think that Robertson and I understood each 
 other, and so could continue our friendship, even 
 though our business relations were not always as we 
 would have had them. 
 
 Looking back now, I begin to realize that Morgan 
 Robertson may have been too great an artist to know 
 much about the magazine markets ; and it makes me 
 happy to recall that on several occasions when we 
 guided him to the proper channels for the sale of 
 his work, he met with success, and came back, like 
 a boy, and told us of his achievement. 
 
 87 
 
88 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 He was a man not meant to cope with life in a 
 sounding city. He should have lived and worked in 
 the open spaces that he loved, the pages of his manu- 
 script touched by the salt of the sea, or lightly blown 
 by the wind. I never could reconcile that sailor gait 
 of his with Broadway or the corridors of Fifth Ave- 
 nue hotels. One night I suddenly encountered him 
 in the lobby of the Knickerbocker. The place was 
 thronged, and as we came close to each other in the 
 crowd I heard his deep voice boom: " Towne, be a 
 pickpocket, a murderer, a pirate — but don't you ever 
 trust to mere writing for your living ! " And he was 
 gone. Not another word — ^just that, so amazingly 
 characteristic of the man. He had evidently been 
 holding the thought, alone in that lobby with so 
 many fashionably dressed people around him, and 
 seeing someone he knew, he hurled out just what was 
 on his mind. I was the convenient instrument for 
 his thought's release; and Robertson, the man of 
 monosyllables, knew, I believe, that I would under- 
 stand his hyperbole, yet grasp the underlying truth 
 of his words. 
 
 He was pessimistic. He had cause to be. He could 
 write of one big phase of life — a phase through which 
 he had passed with many adventures, and the cold- 
 ness with which his transcriptions were received at 
 first amused, then appalled, and finally hardened him. 
 He wanted recognition — who does not? — and his fail- 
 ure to gain what he knew was his due embittered 
 him. 
 
 He dramatized the submarine ; he made the torpedo- 
 
THE ART OF MORGAN ROBERTSON 89 
 
 boat literally come ashore for us stay-at-homes. He 
 put the miracle of wireless into his narratives in such 
 a way that a thrill went up your spine as you read. 
 The terrors, not only of the sea, but of that world 
 under the sea, he got on paper with all the power 
 and force of a great writer. He did not like calm 
 and quiet, and he could not get them into his yarns. 
 Man of action, hero and participant in many brave 
 adventures, he loved to record action and tumult ; and 
 he had the gift to make another see what he had 
 seen. 
 
 I have just been re-reading Clark Russell's " The 
 Frozen Pirate." Admirable as that lonely story is, 
 cold as the ice-bound sea it tells of, I cannot think 
 it as great as any of Robertson's records of the deep. 
 To me, at least, the modernity of our American puts 
 him in a place of his own. That was the big advan- 
 tage, of course, that he had over Russell, with whom 
 his name will, through necessity, always be linked. 
 He saw in every invention, in every thrilling bit of 
 iron and steel, the material for big plots ; and Rus- 
 sell, poet that he was in many a singing phrase, never 
 touched Robertson when it came to a description of 
 burly encounters, or a passage involving some sharp, 
 incisive scene between husky men of the sea. And 
 Robertson had humor — a quaint, wonderful humor. 
 He had the power of making you remember some sud- 
 den phrase that he injected, apparently on second 
 thought, to save a highly wrought situation. Take 
 this, from that rattling tale of " The Torpedo." The 
 men aboard are wondering if war has been declared. 
 
90 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 and are beside themselves to know if they ought to 
 fire. The suspense is as great as in a Grand Guignol 
 thriller. Then says Robertson : 
 
 "And so was reached the decision that sent the Argyll 
 into battle, that menaced integrity of boundaries, the owner- 
 ship of isthmian canals, the peace, the purpose, and the 
 progress of the world for a hundred years — not because 
 England's dignity was in danger, but because Old Man Fin- 
 negan got drunk." 
 
 I will recall Finnegan along with Mulvaney; and 
 I venture to say that every devotee of Robertson will 
 do the same. 
 
 Crammed with action, crowded with laughter and 
 tears, filled with the peril and purpose of the life he 
 loved, I think Morgan Robertson's sea-tales will live 
 when most others are lost. He wrote nothing of 
 a considerable length — he was essentially a writer in 
 flashes. But who forgets forked lightning against 
 a black sky? 
 
 Mr. Howells has said that the reason more short 
 stories are not gathered together in volume form 
 is because the book publishers labor under a delusion 
 that there is no sale for them. True; but short 
 stories as brilliant, as swiftly moving, as climactic 
 as Morgan Robertson's need no apology, no explana- 
 tion for their appearance between covers. They speak 
 bravely for themselves. 
 
 One personal word, and I am done. 
 
 When I went to McClure's I found Morgan — and 
 I was glad to see his face — sitting at a desk auto- 
 graphing, autographing, autographing. Hundreds 
 
THE ART OF MORGAN ROBERTSON 91 
 
 of times a day he was putting his name on the title- 
 page of the uniform edition of his works. I used 
 to speak to him every day ; but I was as busy as he 
 in those first few months. I used to say to myself: 
 " Some day soon — to-morrow, I hope — I will have 
 time to ask him to lunch with me, and we will talk 
 over old times and his present happiness." I re- 
 marked how well he looked, yet how strangely differ- 
 ent. I wanted to get acquainted with him all over 
 again, for some years had elapsed since our last real 
 meeting. I suppose the knowledge that I could ask 
 him any time caused me to postpone my invitation. 
 We have all had that experience. 
 
 Then came the day when, a bit broken and tired, 
 he went, unknown to me, to Atlantic City for a rest 
 — his last, indeed. I never saw him again ; but a pic- 
 ture of him as a pilot — the best he ever had taken — 
 is on my desk. 
 
 Oh, that untasted luncheon with Morgan Robert- 
 son ! It is like Tennyson's " never-lighted fire." I 
 can never forgive myself; and I shall remember it 
 when many another that I shared with him is for- 
 gotten. 
 
THE MORGAN ROBERTSON I KNEW 
 By ARTHUR T. VANCE 
 
 The author of the folloxdng article, now editor of 
 " Pictorial Review," has the distinction of having 
 accepted for publication more of Morgan Robertson's 
 stories than any other magazine man with the possible 
 exception of George Horace Lorimer, editor of the 
 " Saturday Evening Post." The acceptance of Ms 
 first story began a friendship that lasted for many 
 years. 
 
 THEY don't make them any more like Morgan 
 Robertson. They have lost the mold, forgotten 
 how, or something. Probably the styles have changed. 
 At any rate, he was unique among present-day 
 writers. He sensed this fact himself. He always 
 seemed to feel that he didn't quite belong to the 
 easy-writing, high-priced author set of to-day, who 
 reap financial rewards from their work in ways un- 
 thought of fifteen years ago. Why, when Robertson 
 began to write, one cent a word was real good pay. 
 The main trouble with him was the fact that he never 
 quite got reconciled to the ten and twenty-cent-a-word 
 regime. He didn't think he, or anyone else, as far 
 as that goes, was worth such fancy prices. This 
 is no reflection on his surviving brothers of the pen. 
 They are most of them good fellows, most of them 
 
 92 
 
THE MORGAN ROBERTSON I KNEW 93 
 
 do good work, all of them are better business men 
 than he. Morgan never had a commercial sense. He 
 didn't know how to barter. When he tried, it was 
 almost humorous, so he generally took the first price 
 offered, and considered himself lucky at that. His 
 best stories — those great romances of the sea that 
 will live and be remembered for years to come — he 
 often sold for a song. I don't think he ever got more 
 than $350 for a story, and that was an event — an 
 epoch, and he thought the editor must have been easy. 
 To-day there are a dozen editors who would pay, 
 and are paying, four times that price for stories 
 that aren't a bit better. 
 
 Morgan was about the last of the old-time sea-story 
 writers. He didn't have to dream his salt-water at- 
 mosphere. He had lived it. He knew the ropes. 
 He knew every trick and twist of a sailing ship. 
 And when the day of the submarine and battleship 
 came, he learned their innards, too. It was while 
 grinding out a story of a submarine that he came 
 to realize the limitations of the periscope. As soon 
 as the story was off the ways, he started out to in- 
 vent a better periscope, and he did. He didn't 
 know much about optics and physics, and calculating 
 the curves of lenses required a far greater knowledge 
 of mathematics than he possessed, so he started out 
 to learn. His revised periscope needed a lens ground 
 on a parabolic curve. He wrote to all the leading 
 opticians in the world to make such a lens for him, 
 but found out there weren't any machines in exist- 
 ence to grind a lens on a parabolic curve, so he had 
 
94 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 to invent one. In many ways, the months he spent 
 in developing these inventions were the happiest in 
 his life. He quit writing entirely. 
 
 And then when he had perfected the periscope, 
 and got it on a working basis, the submarine company 
 had financial troubles, and he never got his reward. 
 He went back to writing, of course, but I don't think 
 he ever had quite the same heart in it — this despite 
 the fact that some of his best stories came after that. 
 
 I shall never forget the first Morgan Robertson 
 story I read. It appeared in Harper's, I think, and 
 was called " The Derelict Neptune," the first of a 
 series of pseudo-scientific yarns of the sea at which he 
 was such a wonder. This was way back in 1897, 
 as I remember it, when I was the editor of a little 
 magazine up the state. We didn't have much money 
 to buy original stuff, so we used to ask the other 
 magazines to let us reprint their best stories, with 
 credit. I remember I got permission from Harper's 
 to reprint " The Derelict Neptune." I wondered 
 how they came to say yes so readily, and found out 
 afterward that the sea captain with whom Robertson 
 had first gone to sea still lived in my town and 
 Robertson was glad to have the story printed in the 
 local magazine, so as to show him what his old ship's 
 boy could do. A year or so afterward, when I moved 
 to New York and brought the magazine with me 
 (it didn't take up very much room), Robertson looked 
 me up, and thus began a warm friendship which 
 lasted throughout all these years. 
 
 Lord! How Robertson did hate that old sea 
 
THE MORGAN ROBERTSON I KNEW 95 
 
 captain ! He said he starved him, treated him like 
 a dog, and stunted his growth. He was the prototype 
 of all the " bucko mates " and " hell-ship captains " 
 that Robertson was so fond of depicting. Yet — 
 and this shows the big heart of the man — when this 
 sea captain died a few years back, the editor of my 
 home-town paper asked me to get Robertson to write 
 a little something about his recollection of the man. 
 Robertson was busy on a story at the time, and he 
 needed money, but he stopped work and wrote gratis 
 a two-thousand word appreciation of this youthful 
 enemy of his that was a model of Christian charity — 
 not a word of bitterness in it. In its way, it was one 
 of the finest bits of writing he ever did. 
 
 It was never easy for Morgan to write. I have 
 seen him sit at his typewriter by the hour waiting for 
 the right word to come. The consequence was that 
 when the manuscript left his typewriter it was 
 finished, but it was the hardest kind of mental effort 
 for him. This necessitated his giving up trying to 
 write home, and taking a little studio down on 
 Twenty-fourth Street. It was a little studio — a gem 
 in its way. I don't think it was as big as the pro- 
 verbial hall bedroom, about ten feet long by seven feet 
 wide. In this tiny room he had everything that was 
 necessary to housekeeping. Let's see if I can re- 
 member it. Back of the door, as you opened it, was 
 a gas stove and a clothes closet. Then came a sleeping 
 sofa, a chair by the one window, then down the other 
 side was a hand basin, a bathtub which he installed 
 himself (he had a wooden cover for this and used 
 
96 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 it for a table), and then came a typewriter and desk, 
 a sectional bookcase, and in the center was a little 
 table. The whole room was fixed up like a ship's 
 cabin, with fancy knots and door pulls, cabin lights, 
 and in fact he had everything ship-shape but a rudder 
 and side lights, and I knew he would have had these 
 if he had had room to hang them. Here is where 
 most of his big stories were written, in this tiny 
 little room looking over the back yards of some old- 
 fashioned houses toward Broadway. Here he " doc- 
 tored up " those famous welsh-rabbits of his that 
 never got stringy, for the inner circle of his friends. 
 He was just as proud of those rabbits as of the 
 best story he ever wrote. 
 
 Writing wasn't the natural life for Robertson. He 
 was full-blooded, strong as a bull, with a 46-inch 
 chest, better fitted for an outdoor career. Writing 
 made him nervous and fidgety. Sometimes he would 
 get so on edge that he couldn't write at all, and 
 then he used to dress up and stand on the corner 
 of Sixth Avenue and Twenty-third Street and watch 
 the shoppers go by. This soon grew into a habit. 
 If you wanted Robertson around three or four o'clock 
 in the afternoon, here was the place to find him. 
 He said it rested his brain and gave him inspiration. 
 
 One summer Mrs. Robertson closed up their apart- 
 ment up-town and took a vacation in the country, 
 leaving Morgan to take care of the family cat at 
 the studio. Now a Twenty-fourth Street studio isn't 
 exactly the best place to keep track of a strange 
 cat, and so it proved. Despite Morgan's careful 
 
THE MORGAN ROBERTSON I KNEW 97 
 
 watching, the cat crept out and disappeared. He 
 told me he spent the whole night looking for it, had 
 the pohce on the job, and even asked the aid of the 
 fire department, and finally inspected every tree in 
 Madison Square to find that cat. He never found 
 it. But he was so upset that he couldn't work for 
 a couple of days. 
 
 Another time he came to me with the proposal to 
 make some fancy sailor knots. He said he wanted 
 to do it just for the fun of it, to rest his nerves. 
 He thought it would be good stuff to run on the boys' 
 page of The Woman's Home Companion, of which I 
 was then the editor. It sounded good to me, and he 
 went ahead and made some of the most wonderful 
 knots I have ever seen. I am treasuring some of 
 them home now. 
 
 It was about this time that I bought " The 
 Chemical Comedy," which, I believe, was the first of 
 the famous " Finnegan " stories. The rest of the 
 staff didn't think " The Chemical Comedy " was quite 
 the story for a woman's magazine. Possibly it wasn't, 
 but I took a chance, and now I am glad I did. 
 
 We used to have great discussions about his interest 
 in psychic things — hypnotism, telepathy, sub-con- 
 scious mind, and all that sort of thing. I never took 
 much stock in the occult, but here is a strange thing. 
 The same time Morgan made those fancy sailor knots 
 for me, he braided me a watch fob out of a leather 
 shoe string. It was a gem of its kind, with all sorts 
 of fancy twists and turns and decorative knots that 
 only a real old-time sailor knows how to make. I 
 
98 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 wore this watch fob daily for ten years; yet when 
 I got back to the office after attending his funeral at 
 The Little Church Around the Corner, the watch 
 fob broke. Just a coincidence, of course, but it made 
 me wonder. 
 
 Poor old Morgan! He never got his reward. If 
 he could onlj^ have lived to reap the benefits of his 
 moving-picture rights, and from the remarkable sale 
 of his collected works ! It was the kind of prosperity 
 he had always dreamed about; yet he had to die just 
 as the dream was about to be realized. It is a queer 
 fact, but as true as the hills, that a man in the literary 
 game has to die before folks really begin to realize 
 how big he was. Now that Morgan is dead and gone, 
 everybody is glad to say they knew him. I am, I 
 know — and I always was. 
 
THE PSYCHIC MYSTERY OF 
 HIS TIME 
 
 By henry W. FRANCIS 
 
 The folloxcing article icas written hy a journalist 
 and an admirer of Morgan Robertson. It shozcs that 
 side of Morgan Robertson which was unknown to his 
 many readers and which was the subject of much 
 debate among his friends. This article was originally 
 published in the Philadelphia " Public Ledger." 
 
 ONE night, forty years ago, as the brig Palmetto, 
 bound, lumber-laden, to New York from Fer- 
 nandina, lay becalmed off the Charleston Light, Mor- 
 gan Robertson spun his first yarn. One day last 
 week as the ebb tide washed the Atlantic City sands 
 he spun the last. 
 
 Both were told to the sea alone. To the first story, 
 a painstaking recital of " The Tempest," studiously 
 memorized, the Palmetto's crew paid no attention. 
 For the last — a story of a broken spirit — the world 
 had no ears. 
 
 And so Morgan Andrew Robertson, sailor, jeweler's 
 errand runner, clock repairer, diamond-cutter, inven- 
 tor, and foremost American sea-stor}^ writer of the 
 generation, died as he had wished, standing up, his 
 " last breath a salty one." 
 
 He was the psychic mystery of the decade. An 
 unlettered sailor, he grinned at the grammarians and 
 
 99 
 
100 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 wrote " Sinful Peck," a marvel of precise English and 
 inimitable st^'le; awed by the subtleties of long divi- 
 sion he nevertheless smiled at the savants, solved 
 problems in a few weeks with which they had struggled 
 vainly for years and invented his improved periscope. 
 Knowing nothing of the properties of light, he stirred 
 the scientific world with the " invisible searchlight." 
 
 His paradoxical personality amazed all who knew 
 him, but no more than it astounded Robertson him- 
 self until he postulated an explanatory theory to 
 which he held until his death. 
 
 He implicitly believed that some discarnate soul, 
 some spirit entity with literary ability, denied physi- 
 cal expression, had commandeered his body and brain 
 for the purpose of giving to the world the literary 
 gems which made him famous. 
 
 He regarded himself as a mere amanuensis, the tool 
 of " a real writer," whose shadowy fingers could not 
 grasp the pen and grip the multitude with the ad- 
 ventures of a Finnegan or a Captain Bilke. In his 
 role as inventor, Robertson regarded himself as a 
 laboratory underling, whose ears happened to be 
 sensitive enough to hear the whispered orders of a 
 " master " in the Great Silence beyond. 
 
 And " Morg," as his intimates knew him, rebelled 
 against the order of things. 
 
 " I am a sailor who has been transformed into a 
 writer, Inventor, and several other things," he said 
 shortly before his death, " but now I feel myself going 
 — slipping back to the sea where I belong — getting 
 back to the old mental state, but without the old 
 
THE PSYCHIC MYSTERY OF HIS TIME JQl 
 
 physical state to back it up. From the deck I was 
 put at the desk, from the desk I was shoved into 
 the laboratory, then I slipped back to the desk, and 
 now — now I've slipped back to the sea." 
 
 Radical as was Robertson's theory, it was borne 
 out by his life and method of work. For months at 
 a time, although mentally alert, he was incapable 
 of correctly writing a single sentence. Every mail 
 would bring editorial injunctions to " please hurry " 
 manuscripts already ordered or to submit others, to- 
 gether with " final " requests to " please remit and 
 obviate the necessity of legal action." 
 
 Robertson, torn by the impossibility of acquiescence 
 to either, and the even more presshig problem of pro- 
 viding food for himself, would pace his cabin studio 
 pleading with his astral helper until patience lan- 
 guished and then the " psychic partner " would be 
 showered with all the fiery imprecations ever wafted 
 over the seven seas. 
 
 Life was hard for Robertson at such times and he 
 would sink to the lowest depths of depression. Ob- 
 durate landlords, dunning creditors, supersympa- 
 thetic acquaintances and heavy-footed messengers 
 from insistent editors were the bane of his existence. 
 
 A stout Chubb lock on his studio door was his 
 salvation. Sheltered behind it, he was always " out " 
 to the uninitiated, while the initiated knew he was 
 not " at home." 
 
 For weeks he would wrestle with his " mind 
 states " in this manner, and then, suddenly, a muffled 
 gatling-gunning sound would stir the silence of the 
 
ab^ vMOHQ An ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 studio halls. Robertson's old, very old typewriter 
 was being manipulated at high speed. Finnegan was 
 adventuring. Morgan was at work. 
 
 Such spurts of effort would last from two days 
 to a week or more, and during some of them Robertson 
 would write two or three stories. 
 
 His " Ghost of the Gun Deck " was written in an 
 afternoon. At one o'clock he was prone on his 
 " bunk," without an idea — without a hope. At six 
 o'clock he was in a gilded restaurant radiating pros- 
 perity and " eating up the gundeck " as he put it. 
 
 Once started, he wrote rapidly, unhesitatingly, as 
 writes a stenographer taking dictation. One story 
 finished, he would often immediately start another, 
 not pausing until the end was reached. Sometimes, 
 however, he would arise from his lethargy with a 
 start, rush to his typewriter and — write next — no 
 clew to the climax of a false alarm. 
 
 Not infrequently a story half-done would remain 
 so for weeks, Robertson declaring he had no idea 
 what to write next — no clew to the climax of the tale. 
 
 Needing the money which the story completed 
 would bring he attempted once to finish one without 
 the help of his astral " boss." The result was abso- 
 lute failure. Misspelled and amateurish, the " unin- 
 spired '* addition had nothing in common with the 
 rest of the story. Morgan never tried again to 
 write " alone." 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 By BOZEMAN BULGER 
 
 The folloxiing sketch of Morgan Robertson was 
 originally published in the " Metropolitan.'' Mr. 
 Bulger is the Baseball Editor of the New York 
 " Evening World." In the most trying years of his 
 career, he was Mr. Robertson's dependable friend. In 
 appreciation of what he had done, Morgan Robertson 
 bequeathed to Mr. Bulger a scarf-pin that O. Henry, 
 dying, had given to the sailor-author. 
 
 A PEN picture of Morgan Robertson would be 
 as inadequate as a photograph, and I shall 
 not attempt it. Portraits of him hang in nearly 
 every magazine office in the country, and yet not one 
 of them conveys any idea to the casual visitor as to 
 just what kind of a man he was. They show the 
 contour of his strong, square-jawed face, a fixed 
 expression and — that's all. 
 
 No portrait and no pen picture could compre 
 hensively describe Morgan Robertson's intense 
 masculinity ; that twinkling expression in his eyes, 
 changing to one of ferocity as his mind flitted from 
 one phase of a subject to another. Nothing could 
 describe his vanity and pride of accomplishment, 
 even while relating a tale of personal woe. A men- 
 tal picture of this remarkable man is next to im- 
 
 103 
 
104 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 possible unless you knew him in life and associated 
 with him frequently. His grufFness, for instance, was 
 one of his charms. 
 
 Try to think of Robertson as a sailor. If you 
 know sailors, that will suffice. He was of a short, 
 stocky build that carried with it an expression of 
 great muscular strength. He walked like a sailor, 
 talked like a sailor, and thought like a sailor. And 
 he was partially bald, if that helps. 
 
 No matter how painstaking his efforts, Morgan 
 Robertson's clothes never appeared to fit. His 
 squatty, and still angular, figure was no boon to a 
 tailor. To him the blending of shades of color in 
 dress meant nothing. With a black suit he would 
 wear a waistcoat of brocaded tan, if it happened to 
 be the most convenient, and the necktie might have 
 been maroon, old rose, green or blue, for all he cared. 
 
 At the same time, as incongruous as it may seem, 
 Robertson was intensely fond of good clothes. He 
 doted on expensive overcoats and velour hats. He 
 would spend his last cent on either of these articles 
 and walk home, no matter if the distance was five 
 miles. 
 
 A few weeks before his sudden death at Atlantic 
 City, where he had gone to rest and build up, Rob- 
 ertson came to see me one night with the gladsome 
 news that his books were beginning to sell and that 
 already his royalties had amounted to nearly five 
 hundred dollars. For two years prior to this he 
 had not earned as much as twenty-five dollars a week 
 and was penniless. 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE IMAN 105 
 
 " They are going to advance me $200 to-morrow," 
 he told me, and his plans for disposing of that money 
 were as enthusiastic as those of a schoolboy. 
 
 His first expenditures were $2.50 for a pair of 
 shoes, $12 for a velour hat and $115 for an overcoat ! 
 
 That overcoat, by the way, he exhibited along 
 Broadway with the greatest pride, and it was not 
 fur, either. It was with utmost care that he laid 
 it across his arm as he started for Atlantic City. He 
 also bought a cane. Being fifty-four j'ears old, and 
 having suffered exposure at sea, he was troubled with 
 rheumatism at times and explained that, fearing an- 
 other attack, he might need the stick in walking. His 
 friends — those who loved him — accepted the unneces- 
 sary explanation with a smile, knowing full well his 
 delight in twirling a cane as he called on the editors 
 to tell them of his new prosperity. 
 
 Though he had a keen sense of humor, Morgan 
 Robertson, in temperament, was either hard or harder. 
 There was little of tenderness in him. His masculinity 
 forbade that. He could be generous, kind, and fair, 
 but never tender. His love was permanent and his 
 hate undying. Morgan Robertson talked in a deep 
 bass voice that reverberated about the room in a 
 way to make one picture him on the deck of a ship 
 giving orders through a megaphone. 
 
 Robertson began to write, not for the love of it, 
 but because he got the impression, after reading one 
 of Kipling's stories, that it was an easy way to make 
 money. At first he knew nothing of style or diction, 
 but having a sea-tale in mind that he thought might 
 
106 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 be worth some money, he sat down and wrote it on 
 the top of a washtub — the kind used in New York 
 flats. This story was " The Survival of the Fittest," 
 and it came close to being a sea masterpiece. 
 
 Morgan Robertson always regretted a lack of 
 education and was doubtful of his literary English. 
 As a matter of fact, from studious reading, he was 
 better educated than the average writer, and an editor 
 described his English to me one day as " ninety-nine 
 per cent pure." 
 
 Though a sailor by instinct and a lover of all 
 things Bohemian, Robertson was extremely pains- 
 taking in his study of a subject before he undertook 
 to embody it in a story. It was through his deter- 
 mined efforts and long study to get things right 
 that he incurred his well-known enmity toward 
 magazine editors in general. There were a few 
 editors — a very few — that he regarded great men, 
 but his dislike for the others was absolutely sincere. 
 It was not assumed for the purpose of amus- 
 ing his hearers, though it usually had that effect. 
 He could never reconcile the idea of a young editor, 
 just out of college, perhaps, glancing over his man- 
 uscript carelessly and turning it down with the 
 comment that the situations therein described were 
 impossible. On some of these situations the writer 
 probably had spent weeks. Robertson was a very 
 glow writer and seldom ever turned out more than 
 one story a month. 
 
 On one occasion when he lived near me he began 
 to develop a story that dealt with a subject 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 107 
 
 scientific and technical. He had not studied physics 
 or chemistry and was not quite sure of his ground. 
 Seeing but one way out of the difficulty, he tossed 
 aside the few pages of manuscript, went downtown 
 and purchased a text-book on physics — Steele's, I 
 believe it was — and studied it diligently for more 
 than a month. At the end of that time he had a 
 rather thorough idea of the principles of physics 
 and resumed his story. In the meantime, the story 
 and the pay therefor having been delayed, he had 
 done without things to eat, so determined was he to 
 be technically correct. 
 
 " Then," he said to me as he returned from a 
 magazine office in thorough disgust and disheart- 
 ened, "a little popinjay of an editor returns my 
 manuscript because he doubts the correctness of my 
 theories." 
 
 Later the story was accepted by another magazine 
 and attracted wide attention. 
 
 " It is not my contention," he remarked to a 
 party of us one night, while in one of his rampant 
 moods, " that an editor should be able to read Latin 
 and Greek and understand the sciences, but I do 
 contend," and he slapped his fist on the table with 
 a resounding whack, " that he should be able to read 
 and write." 
 
 After he had been writing awhile, Morgan Robert- 
 son took up the study of psychology and became 
 obsessed with some very queer theories. To him 
 there were no such things as coincidences. All 
 those he could trace to " psychic telepathy." He 
 
108 INIORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 firmly believed that the editors had a sub-conscious 
 enmity toward him and that preyed on his mind 
 until he felt that it would be impossible for him to 
 get fair treatment in the consideration of his writings. 
 
 The editors understood these whims and eccen- 
 tricities of Robertson and, realizing that it would 
 be impossible to disabuse his mind of such ideas, 
 humored him as best they could. As a matter of 
 fact, most all editors liked Morgan Robertson, 
 despite his belligerent attitude toward them, biit 
 try as I would, I could never convince him of their 
 friendship. 
 
 This great narrator of sea-tales was under no 
 misapprehension as to the quality of his work. It 
 was good, and he knew it, and at no time would 
 he hesitate to so express himself. As a matter of 
 fact, even during his long spell of misfortune and 
 poverty, Robertson was very vain. 
 
 He knew that rival writers occasionally took his 
 themes or plots and revamped them into other forms, 
 and at this he would fly into indignant rage. 
 
 " Yes, and they are rewriting my stories and 
 selling them for two and three hundred dollars, 
 when the best I could get for the original was some- 
 times less than one hundred," he would declare with 
 vehemence. Vehemence in Robertson meant more than 
 in the ordinary person. With that powerful voice 
 and equally powerful fist he could emphasize a point 
 in a most convincing manner. 
 
 Even while in belligerent moods it was his utter 
 candor that made Morgan Robertson amusing to his 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 109 
 
 friends. Though vain and proud over his writings, 
 he would explain in detail domestic hardships with 
 no apparent embarrassment. 
 
 One night he called to borrow a dollar, explain- 
 ing that he had walked all the way because he had 
 no carfare. He candidly told me that there had not 
 been a penny in his home for two days and that 
 he had been unable to establish credit or find friends. 
 
 "How did you eat?" I asked him. 
 
 " We had ordered some chopped meat for my wife's 
 collie," he said, " and as it was excellent meat I acted 
 with a firm hand and decided that dog should eat dog 
 biscuit, regardless of consequences, until I could get 
 downtown. I took that meat and made one of the 
 finest dishes of Hungarian goulash that you ever 
 tasted. By the way," he added, " you want to learn 
 how to make that." Then he carefully explained the 
 method of preparing his favorite dish. (The recipe 
 is given with others at the end of this volume for the 
 benefit of those who may enjoy his stories.) 
 
 When Robertson's first book was published and 
 had appeared on sale in the larger bookstores, his 
 pride knew no bounds. In later years he often told 
 of how this pride was given a severe and unexpected 
 jolt. 
 
 Armed with a cane and attired in what he regarded 
 as very stylish clothes, the author visited the best 
 known bookstore in New York and stood around for 
 a few moments expecting to be the recipient of many 
 congratulations. He was smoking that old pipe, so 
 familiar to his acquaintances — he always smoked it — 
 
lia MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 and asked casual questions, awaiting the denouement 
 of his visit. Presently an important looking young 
 lady spied him and came down the aisle as if to offer 
 the congratulations that he expected. His chest ex- 
 panded and then fell. 
 
 " You'll have to throw that pipe away if you 
 remain in here," she said to him. " Smoking is not 
 allowed — especially pipes." 
 
 Robertson could never be persuaded to enter that 
 store again. Not only had he not been recognized, 
 but he had been insulted, according to his way of 
 thinking. 
 
 Though fourteen volumes of the Robertson books 
 were published at intervals, it is one of those peculiar 
 caprices of fate that none of them sold until a short 
 time before his death, when they were republished in 
 a uniform edition. 
 
 With a grim touch of humor, Mr. Robertson had 
 framed a statement he received from his publishers 
 two years ago. Just one copy of " Sinful Peck " 
 had been sold that month, and his royalty check 
 was for 12^ cents. 
 
 Morgan Robertson was intensely proud and would 
 accept no charity, though he would borrow money 
 in small sums. I have in my possession now a mem- 
 orandum book which he left. In it are the names of 
 more than twenty persons who had advanced him 
 small amounts on various occasions, some of them 
 as low as twenty-five cents. None are higher than 
 five dollars. It was his earnest wish, in case of his 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE IVIAN 111 
 
 death, that these be paid out of his royalties, which 
 will be done, provided the creditors will accept. 
 
 I have never seen Robertson show emotion but once. 
 His iron will held back any display of helplessness. 
 
 Knowing that he needed at least $150 to be made 
 comfortable, temporarily, Irvin S. Cobb and myself 
 made a tour of the clubs and other places where 
 writers and theatrical people gather. We assessed 
 each man five dollars and thirty of them responded — 
 in fact, everybody that we asked. Many of them 
 had never known Robertson, but admired his writings 
 and were glad to contribute to what we had to call 
 a loan so that it would be accepted. 
 
 Very cautiously I had to explain to the old author 
 that these men, knowing that he was temporarily 
 embarrassed, had asked that he accept this loan until 
 he was on his feet. 
 
 " Let me see the names," he demanded. 
 
 Some of them he did not know, but as his eyes 
 glanced over the list he turned away and his shoulders 
 shook. Morgan Robertson was actually crying ! 
 
 " I never thought that my friends would have to 
 take up a collection for me," he said. " But give 
 me that list," he added, his old-time vigor returning, 
 " and I'll see that every one of them is paid." 
 
 While he was in the hospital a little later on he 
 wrote me a note in which he said that he realized these 
 men would never take the money or, perhaps, he would 
 never be able to pay it. 
 
 "If I should not get well," he added, "I want 
 
112 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 each of them to be presented with an autographed 
 set of my books. That, I beheve, will square the 
 debt, and at the same time they will have something 
 to remind them of how grateful I was." 
 
 In the course of his psychic studies Morgan Rob- 
 ertson had acquired a belief that he would some day 
 go insane. This preyed on his mind so, at intervals, 
 that he would figure out schemes to test himself and 
 determine if he really had lost his mind. 
 
 We finally induced him to go to Bellevue Hospital, 
 mainly for a rest. 
 
 With a cunning that was as amusing as it was 
 pathetic, he took advantage of it in a way least ex- 
 pected. He insisted on going alone. 
 
 Arriving there, he told the physician in charge of 
 his belief that he would some day go insane. He 
 would give no particulars and that explained why 
 none of us heard from him for two weeks. They had 
 placed him in the psychopathic ward ! 
 
 It was a week before he knew that they thought 
 him an insane patient and had him under observa- 
 tion. The experience thoroughly cured him of his 
 morbid belief — fad, it really was. 
 
 Upon his discharge from the hospital Robertson 
 walked across the street to a saloon, ordered a drink 
 of whiskey and paid for it. He then deliberately 
 poured the whiskey into a cuspidor and started to 
 walk away. The bartender looked at him in astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 " What's the matter with you? " the barman de- 
 manded to know. " Ain't that whiskey all right ? " 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE JMAN 113 
 
 " I just wanted to test my will power," Robertson 
 replied. 
 
 " There's a hospital for lunatics across the street," 
 suggested the boniface. " Maybe you'd better go 
 over and test that. You're off your nut." 
 
 With a triumphant smile Morgan then drew from 
 his pocket a certificate, showing that he was of sound 
 mind. 
 
 He was very proud of that certificate and exhibited 
 it frequently. 
 
 About this time there appeared in the Saturday 
 Evening Post an anonymous autobiography called 
 " Gathering No Moss." It was the life of Morgan 
 Robertson written in the first person. It attracted 
 such attention to his years of struggling as an author 
 that a movement was started to publish his stories 
 in a uniform set of books. 
 
 The books began to sell immediately and Robert- 
 son's troubles were nearly over. 
 
 One afternoon, as this era of prosperity was dawn- 
 ing, Robertson joined a party of us in a billiard- 
 room where one of his friends had just won the 
 tournament cup. A dozen or more were sitting at a 
 round table, drinking out of the cup to celebrate 
 the victory. Morgan sat down and took a sip of 
 the wine. 
 
 "How goes it, Morgan?" one of his friends in- 
 quired. 
 
 " Boys," he announced in that bellowing bass voice, 
 " I'll never have to write another line. I'm no longer 
 a slave to magazine editors. My books are selling 
 
114 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 and I have here " — he reached into an inside pocket 
 — " a certificate showing that I am not insane." He 
 was deadly serious. 
 
 A few of the party, unfamiliar with the eccentrici- 
 ties of Robertson, began to edge away. To them it 
 was uncanny. 
 
 " Still," one of them suggested in a side whisper, 
 " he's got something on us at that. We've got no 
 certificate." 
 
 Robertson overheard the remark and laughed 
 heartily. He often related that incident as his one 
 best joke. 
 
 As Morgan Robertson grew older his longing to go 
 back to the sea was intensified. He got out his papers 
 as first mate and was prepared in case an oppor- 
 tunity should arise. 
 
 One of the most satisfying incidents of his late 
 days was the taking of a moving picture with him 
 at the wheel of a big sailing vessel. He had sold one 
 of his sea stories to the picture concern and it was 
 a condition that he had to appear in it personally. 
 Such a provision, in writing, was unnecessary. He 
 was delighted. 
 
 The photograph of Robertson at the wheel, in his 
 shirt sleeves, which was sent to friends all over the 
 country, was absolutely the best likeness of hira 
 ever taken. His whole spirit was in that photograph 
 and he never tired of looking at it. He would have 
 lived on that boat continuously if the owners had so 
 desired. 
 
 The gradually increasing sale of his books enlivened 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE ^lAN 115 
 
 Robertson's spirits wonderfully, but he was not well 
 physically. He found great difficulty in sleeping. 
 He began to look haggard and worn- 
 It was suggested that the old writer take a trip to 
 Atlantic City, where he could rest up and get strong. 
 At first Robertson would not go without his wife, 
 but she finally persuaded him that it would be better 
 for him to go alone so that he could make arrange- 
 ments for her to join him. later. 
 
 He went away carrying that precious overcoat 
 across his arm and in his hand was a cane. On his 
 head was the slouch hat that he loved. 
 That was the last his friends saw of him. 
 They found Morgan Robertson dead, standing 
 almost erect with his hand resting on the side of an 
 oak dresser. Near him was an open window through 
 which came a breeze from the Atlantic. 
 
 It has pleased me to think that, when the hand of 
 death struck him, he was looking out at the sea. I 
 know that is the way Morgan Robertson would have 
 liked to die. 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON 
 By ARTHUR B. MAURICE 
 
 The following article originally appeared as an 
 editorial in " The Bookman." It contains an inter- 
 esting appreciation of the sincerity of Morgan 
 Robertson's work. In all his efforts, as a sailor and 
 a skilled mechanic, and later as a writer, Morgan 
 Robertson showed a painstaking thoroughness that 
 was notable for its rarity in a hurly-burly world. 
 
 T N the daily papers of March 25, 1915, there ap- 
 ■*■ peared a news story telling how Morgan Robert- 
 son, the writer of sea stories, had been found dead 
 leaning against a bureau in a hotel in Atlantic City, 
 New Jersey. Just a year before, almost to a day, 
 there had been printed in the Saturday Evening Post 
 of Philadelphia an article entitled " Gathering No 
 Moss," which told with pathetic detail all the compli- 
 cations, the ennuis, the disappointments, and heart- 
 aches of the writer's life. So effective was the article 
 in its tragic simplicity that it brought responses from 
 all parts of the country. Here was a man reduced 
 almost to penury, not because he lacked either talent 
 or industry, but through a congenital inability to 
 retain what he had won. The case was so clear, 
 it recalled so pitiably the traditions of the Grub 
 Street of other days. " Can't you do something.'' " 
 
 116 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON 117 
 
 wrote one novelist very near the apex among con- 
 temporary American story-tellers. " It wouldn't be 
 a pity if he weren't the real thing; readers are miss- 
 ing something. It isn't sensible that he should be 
 left out." Something was done, and it is pleasant 
 to recall that the last twelve months of his life were 
 far happier in reward and recognition than the pre- 
 ceding years had been. But want and physical suffer- 
 ing had exacted their toll. The respite was only 
 respite. 
 
 The Bohemia which Morgan Robertson knew and 
 in which he suffered was not confined to city attics. 
 It was a Bohemia of far horizons. With that Bo- 
 hemia he threw in his lot when, as a lad of sixteen, he 
 ran away to sea, fired by an ambition to be first 
 mate. His father was a captain on the Great Lakes, 
 but he had wished his son to follow the career of a 
 landsman. But Morgan's mind was made up, and, 
 leaving his home in New York State, he found his 
 way to the seacoast and shipped as cabin-boy and 
 general fag, doing his own and everyone else's work 
 at the gentle urging of fists and belaying pins. Twice 
 round the world he sailed, shipping with all sorts of 
 crafts, from sailing vessels to transatlantic liners, 
 until his early ambition to become first mate was 
 finally realized. During that period he had most 
 of the adventures which befell his heroes. Sometimes 
 he was half-starved, and more than once he had hair- 
 breadth escapes from death; while his exploits fight- 
 ing bullies would make reading more interesting than 
 polite. Once he went ashore, disgusted with sea- 
 
118 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 faring, and became a cowboy on the plains. Then 
 he drifted to sea again, and for a time was skipper 
 of a millionaire's yacht. Once he taught young ladies 
 how to swim, and once he even thought he was an 
 Anarchist. But nobody believed him. 
 
 By this time Morgan Robertson's illusions were 
 all gone. The futureless life of the sailor appealed 
 less and less to him. One day he rolled into the 
 office of a phrenologist to have his " bumps " read. 
 The phrenologist said he was " constructive," and 
 urged him to learn a trade. The sailor looked about 
 him, and decided to become a watchmaker. When 
 he learned that he could wear a white shirt all day 
 while at work he apprenticed himself on the spot. 
 The ambition to be first mate transformed itself into 
 a dogged determination to become an expert artisan. 
 The watchmaker's apprentice became a diamond and 
 pearl setter, earning expert's wages. When, from 
 constant chiseling of bright metals, his eyes gave 
 out, he turned to writing, and almost instinctively 
 to the sea for inspiration. His first effort, however, 
 was a poem, now dead, for which he cherished an 
 unusual tenderness. Then grimly he settled down 
 to the construction of his tales of life in strange 
 scenes. But at first success was slow in coming. 
 
 Once, during his darkest days of publisher hunt- 
 ing, after one of his best stories had been returned 
 with regret, Robertson went in despair to his old 
 " shop " in the diamond district of New York City 
 to ask for work. An order had come in that needed 
 the finest and most delicate workmanship — a necklace 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON 119 
 
 of diamonds. The writer took the little packet of 
 diamonds and tramped home with them, as he had 
 tramped down to the shop — for reasons of economy. 
 Weary and worn, his brain seething with the adven- 
 tures of that other struggle whose story, " The Sur- 
 vival of the Fittest," he afterward wrote, the dim- 
 eyed artisan set to work. All night he cut and 
 engraved, growing blinder every hour, but sticking 
 to the task until the diamonds were one line of 
 shining white before him, without form or meaning. 
 The last few stones were set by feeling alone. The 
 stone was worked into place, the tool, dipped in tur- 
 pentine to make the cutting bright, did the delicate 
 chiseling guided by instinct. In the morning Rob- 
 ertson took the necklace back to the shop, almost 
 certain that he had wrought its ruin. To his amaze- 
 ment, it was passed from hand to hand — a perfect 
 piece of work. Then the man who had toiled all night 
 went home to write about a ship's carpenter who 
 brought the ship to port in the teeth of a gale, despite 
 the fact that he knew nothing about navigation. 
 
THE MAN I KNEW 
 By grace miller WHITE 
 
 The writer of the following reminiscences is the 
 author of " Tess of the Storm Country," one of the 
 recent best sellers and a big success when dramatized 
 for the movies. Miss White writes of the days when 
 both she and Morgan Robertson were struggling for 
 recognition. Womanlike she remembers the softer 
 side of the gruff sailor-author, which is the least 
 known to many of his friends. 
 
 THIS was the man who died with his boots on, as 
 he had often hoped and prayed that he would, 
 and many's the man and woman living to testify to 
 his generosity and manliness. I recall now episodes 
 of his charity during my studio life, and at that 
 time, for him to extend charity to others, was to 
 take bread out of his own mouth. 
 
 I remember one winter morning Morgan came to 
 me and asked me if I would make him some coffee. 
 He looked rather seedy and tired, and while prepar- 
 ing him some breakfast, I listened to his night's 
 experience. 
 
 It seems the night before, a terrible blizzard had 
 struck New York, and Morgan had just settled down 
 to his inevitable baked beans and coffee. His studio, 
 by the way, was a very small one. In one comer he 
 
 120 
 
THE MAN I KNEW 121 
 
 had a cot at the foot of which was a gas stove, the 
 conventional size, oven and all. Near the gas stove 
 on the other side of the door was the telephone. Op- 
 posite the cot was a large bath-tub Morgan had pur- 
 chased from a second-hand man, and being somewhat 
 of a plumber, had rigged up a shower. He often said 
 that every one of those cold water showers added min- 
 utes and days to his life. At any rate, this wild 
 night he sat eating his beans and drinking his coffee, 
 when a timid knock on his studio door interrupted 
 him. Opening it, he saw a slip of a girl, a model by 
 trade, standing before him, drenched to the skin. 
 
 At Morgan's gruff " Come in ! " she stumbled into 
 the room and burst out crying. 
 
 " What's the matter.-^ " demanded the man. 
 " Come on ! shut up now ! be a sport ! eat some 
 beans." 
 
 After the tears were dried and the small model 
 had partaken of the ever-ready beans and coffee, she 
 told her simple tale of deprivation, and this was it : 
 
 " I've no home nor any bed to sleep in to-night." 
 
 And that was all. 
 
 Then, Morganlike, the Man sucked on his old pipe 
 and blew out rings of heavy tobacco smoke until the 
 studio was one gray mist. Perhaps through the 
 smoke some way to help the mite would present itself, 
 or a way to find another bed would loom out of the 
 night ; and so the model sat and waited and Morgan 
 sat and puffed, and the blizzard outside raged in 
 greater fury. 
 
 After a while Morgan said, " Take off your shoes 
 
122 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 and stick your feet in the oven. They must be cold. 
 . . . Here, wait a minute. I'll take out the beans." 
 This done, the small red feet were wrapped in an 
 old shawl and put into the gas oven. 
 
 " It feels so good," sighed the model. 
 
 " You bet," answered Morgan. 
 
 And then once more they sat in silence, miles of 
 smoke coming from the old man's pipe. After an 
 hour or so Morgan came to a conclusion. 
 
 " Guess I won't sleep here to-night." 
 
 " Where will you sleep ? " asked the girl. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. A man, you see, can sleep 
 most anywhere, but I was thinking I'd find a bed, and 
 you just tote off your clothes after I'm gone and go 
 to sleep. You're tired, ain't you?" 
 
 " Yes, awful tired," answered the mite. 
 
 " All right then," soothed the Man. " I'm going 
 to go now. Here, I'll take another bean and another 
 drink of coffee. Pretty bad outside. What you cry- 
 ing for? " 
 
 " I s'pose it's because you're so awful good to me. 
 I think I'd have frozen if I'd stayed out any longer, 
 and I'm so tired." 
 
 " Well, then, shut up, and I'll climb out and you 
 get in bed." 
 
 And Morgan, suiting the action to his words, 
 placed his fingers on the handle of the door. " But 
 I'll tell you one thing, Miss, I don't want you hang- 
 ing around my studio after nine o'clock to-morrow 
 morning. Do you hear?" 
 
THE IlIAN I KNEW 123 
 
 " Yes," murmured the girl sleepily. " I'll sure 
 be out by nine o'clock." 
 
 Then Morgan went out into the hall, and closed 
 the door. Suddenly he turned back and knocked. 
 
 " Oh, I was going to tell you something," said he, 
 as the door opened. " Of course if it's terrible cold 
 out in the morning, — I mean about nine, — you could 
 stay a bit and wait until the blizzard's over. . . . 
 That's all." 
 
 And the door closed again, and Morgan, the Man, 
 went out into the blizzard. He stood still on the 
 street for a few moments wondering where he was 
 going. He had no money and no friends any better 
 off than himself. But he suddenly remembered an 
 artist who worked on Madison Avenue and sometimes 
 this friend stayed in his studio all night instead of 
 going to his country place. So Morgan plowed his 
 way through the snow to Madison Avenue, which 
 was a long walk (Morgan never had carfare) and 
 mounting the five flights of stairs, to his friend's 
 studio, he knocked on the door. He knocked once, 
 and he knocked twice ; three times ; four times ; and 
 five times. And then hearing a sound within, he knew 
 his friend was there. The door opened just a crack. 
 The artist spoke before Morgan had a chance. 
 
 "Don't make a noise," he said, softly. "My 
 wife and kid are down to-night and they are both 
 asleep. They came in town to shop and the blizzard 
 lasted so long they stayed here with me." 
 
 So the Man went down the five flights of stairs with 
 
124 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 no idea where he was going to spend the night. It 
 was impossible to escape the eyes of the burly police- 
 man in such a storm, for no matter how poor the 
 pedestrian was, he always had the appearance of 
 hurrying home. But Morgan had no home, so he 
 did not appear to hurry. The policeman demanded 
 of him a reason why he was out in the storm, and 
 threatened to arrest him if he did not " move along 
 quick." But Morgan had no place to move. Be- 
 sides, he was very cold. So because he was sure that 
 he might buck up against this same cop again, he 
 said, 
 
 " Got a studio over here on 21st Street, but some- 
 body is in it." 
 
 " That's a likely story," answered the policeman. 
 " I got to have proof that you ain't hanging around 
 to carry out some job. Guess I better run you in." 
 
 Morgan thought a minute, and then told the story 
 of how he had been to a friend's house on Madison 
 Avenue and that he thought he could go back there 
 for proof that he was of honorable intentions. This 
 satisfied the policeman, so together they went to the 
 Madison Avenue address and once more Morgan as- 
 sailed his friend's studio door. This time no answer 
 came, and after much knocking, the policeman took 
 him by the arm and walked him downstairs. 
 
 " I knew you was stringing me," he said gruffly. 
 " You come along with me now." 
 
 And for a little while Morgan did walk along with 
 him, his thoughts busy with the predicament in which 
 he found himself. Then he stopped. 
 
THE MAN I KNEW 125 
 
 " I don't blame you," he began, " for running me 
 in, for the story I told you is about the lamest thing 
 a man ever put over, but I was just wondering if you 
 would come along with me to my studio and I'd prove 
 what I said to you." 
 
 " Sure," said the cop. " I'd like to have you prove 
 to me that you're on the level," and so they turned 
 their faces the other way and went slowly through 
 the blizzard to Morgan's building and were soon 
 standing in front of his studio door. It was then 
 that Morgan spoke in a very low tone. 
 
 " The kid that's sleeping in here is a bit of a girl 
 without a house or home, and I s'pose probably she's 
 dead to the world, and I was wondering if I just 
 opened up the door and you peeked in and saw her 
 if that would be enough for you to let loose your hold 
 on me? " 
 
 " Sure," said the cop. " Open her up." 
 
 So Morgan took out his key and dextrously threw 
 back the lock without a sound. And then he said, 
 " I know she's in there, and there ain't no use in my 
 looking in, so you peek in and satisfy yourself." 
 
 This the policeman did, and his head came back 
 as quickly as it had been shoved through the aper- 
 ture. Then Morgan softly closed the door. 
 
 " She's there, all right," said the policeman in a 
 very thick voice. " Now I'd like to know what in 
 hell you're going to do. Ain't you got any money.'' " 
 
 " No," said Morgan. " Haven't got a cent." 
 
 " You can't stay out in a blizzard all night even 
 if you have done a good deed. And I don't like to 
 
126 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 rush you in as a vagrant either, so I guess it's up to 
 me to let you have fifty cents and you can get a bed 
 with that." 
 
 Then Morgan smiled one of his wide, broad smiles 
 and stuffed his old pipe full of tobacco and replied: 
 
 " I don't want fifty cents. Twenty-five will get me 
 a good bed, — as good as any sailor ever slept on, and 
 that's good enough for me." 
 
 And so the two, the officer of the law and the Man, 
 went down the long flights of stairs and out into the 
 blizzard again where, in one of the many cheap hotels, 
 Morgan found a twenty-five-cent bed, and the police- 
 man went back to his beat. 
 
 As Morgan told me this story, he continued it 
 thus: 
 
 " I went to my door a minute ago and rapped, 
 and by ginger, she's still breathing deep and the 
 fact is I thought I'd let her sleep a while. It's still 
 snowing, and I thought you'd give me a cup of coffee 
 and a piece of bread. I got plenty of beans in there 
 all right, but " 
 
 " Of course j^ou can have all you want to eat, 
 Morgan," I replied, very near tears, for it seemed 
 to me as he told this simple tale it showed the solid 
 character of the old sea-story writer more than any 
 other thing could do. 
 
 Morgan believed he had many enemies, and espe- 
 cially did this belief grow in the last few years of his 
 life. A small compliment, especially if paid by a 
 woman, would raise his spirits to bounding point. 
 It might be interesting to read the man's idea of 
 
THE MAN I KNEW 127 
 
 wooing a woman. In spirit, Morgan was born about 
 a thousand years too late ; in genius, possibly at the 
 right time, or a little too early. He could never 
 figure out why a man should be compelled to woo a 
 woman in the ordinary, civilized way. In Morgan's 
 idea, a man was a superior, dignified being, and in 
 every way more highly developed than a woman. If 
 by chance he made this argument of man's superior- 
 ity to some person who cared enough to combat him, 
 he would haul out an old weather-beaten Bible and 
 hunt through its pages until he had found some verse 
 which held up as a beacon light to the world the su- 
 periority of men and the inferiority of women. I can 
 remember his using some pretty strong words to me 
 at times trying to persuade me that every man was 
 pre-eminently superior to every woman, and one day 
 in a great rage he expressed his views thus : 
 
 " I believe," said he, " that the good old days when 
 a man made his cave, slung on the floor the skin of a 
 beast, and roasted over the fagots its flesh, and then 
 went to his neighbor's house to find the woman upon 
 whom he had centered his aff'ections and took her back 
 with him by force will return again before many years 
 have passed by." Morgan informed me that if the 
 woman did not smile upon the cave-man's suit, that 
 made no diff'erence at all, nor would it make any dif- 
 ference to Morgan if he had lived in those days, for 
 he said to me, straight-eyed and with a firm setting 
 of that bull-dog mouth, " I believe that a woman 
 likes a man much better if he knocks her down now 
 and then and gives her a whipping and then makes 
 
128 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 love to her afterwards, than she does if he follows the 
 beaten path of civilization." 
 
 At this point I ventured, " Is that the way you woo 
 women, Morgan?" 
 
 " No," said he, sighing deeply, " I don't know how 
 to woo 'em and I never have known how." 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON'S FAMOUS 
 RECIPES 
 
 Reference is made, in some of the foregoing 
 memoirs, to Morgan Robertson s famous dishes pre- 
 pared by him in his studio cabin, which was the scene 
 of many a midnight banquet. As a result of con- 
 siderable searching and with the help of Mrs. Robert- 
 son we are able to present to admirers of Morgan 
 Robertson recipes for some of the well-known dishes 
 that friends of Morgan Robertson enjoyed in the 
 good old days. We publish these feeling that many 
 readers will be glad to avail themselves of some of 
 the dishes that made Morgan Robertson's reputation 
 as a cook par excellence in New York's Bohemia. 
 
 BAKED BEANS 
 
 SORT and soak beans overnight. In morning par- 
 boil with a large piece of salt pork. When con- 
 siderable salt has been extracted from pork and beans 
 rid of strong taste, strain and wash in cold water. 
 Return to fire to boil, together with pork, for an- 
 other hour. When tender, add a tablespoonful of 
 salt, a tablespoonful of sugar, and a half tablespoon- 
 ful of paprika (or black pepper). When seasoning 
 has become thoroughly mixed with beans, place in 
 oven and cook until ready to serve. 
 
 129 
 
130 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 WELSH RAREBIT 
 
 Morgan Robertson's Favorite Recipe 
 
 Take one-half pound of rich New York State 
 cream cheese, break into small pieces, and melt in 
 same quantity of milk, to which add a flat table- 
 spoonful of cornstarch as they mingle. Prepare 
 toast. Add to cheese and milk one large tablespoon- 
 ful of sap sago (or green cheese grated). When 
 this mixture shows an indication of thickening add 
 a tablespoonful of soda or saleratus. When these 
 ingredients have been cooking for another minute 
 pour over toasted bread and serve. 
 
 WELSH RAREBIT 
 
 Simple Formula 
 
 For this recipe New York State cream cheese is 
 best, which should be strong and old, but not too 
 hard. Break into small pieces and melt in ale over 
 fire ; proportions being half a cup of ale to each 
 half pound of cheese, with a saltspoonful of soda. 
 Stir constantly while dissolving and when mixture has 
 reached the proper consistency pour over toasted 
 bread and serve. 
 
 Instead of cooking the higher seasonings in his 
 rarebits, Mr. Robertson prepared a mixture of mus- 
 tard and paprika as a side dish so that the condiment 
 might be used as sparingly or plentifully as desired 
 by each individual. 
 
MORGAN ROBERTSON'S RECIPES 131 
 
 HUNGARIAN GOULASH 
 
 Peel and slice one onion. Cook until brown in 
 about three tablespoonsful of fat from salt pork. 
 Take onion out and place in pot two pounds of lean 
 beef, cut into one-inch pieces. Stir and cook the 
 meat until slightly browned. If any fat is left dis- 
 card. Place meat in agate dish. Add one pint of 
 boiling water and one teaspoonful of paprika. Cover 
 dish and place in oven. Add more fat to the frying- 
 pan. When hot brown one dozen small potatoes (cut 
 in balls) and an onion. When well browned add 
 onion to meat. After onions and meat have been 
 cooking one hour add a teaspoonful of salt and the 
 potatoes. 
 
 POT ROAST BEEF 
 
 Take three pounds of beef (preferably round). 
 Cut a little fat away. Fry in an iron pot a few 
 minutes on all sides. Cut gashes in beef and place 
 in gashes small pieces of salt pork. Tie firmly. Sea- 
 son, cover tightly (previously shaking a little flour 
 over it and adding enough hot water to half cover 
 the beef). Add after one hour slices of carrot, cubes 
 of turnip, if so desired. Add a little boiling water 
 at intervals to prevent burning. Cook slowly for 
 about three hours. Remove meat and vegetables to 
 platter, add gravy and serve. 
 
 For gravy, have your flour mixed, ready to stir 
 in juices of meat. Stir until quite smooth, and serve 
 as above. 
 
132 MORGAN ROBERTSON, THE MAN 
 
 GRAVY THICKENED 
 
 Remove meat and vegetables to platter. Add two 
 tablespoonsful of flour to water and mix to a thin 
 paste. Stir in juice of meat and cook slowly for 
 three to five minutes, stirring slowly to prevent 
 burning. 
 
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