afraid of Pan, be he
ever so shaggy, and redolent of the herd.

Structurally, where most young novelists are weak, Mr. Norris is
very strong. He has studied the best French masters, and he has
adopted their methods quite simply, as one selects an algebraic
formula to solve his particular problem. As to his style, that is,
as expression always is, just as vigorous as his thought compels it
to be, just as vivid as his conception warrants. If God Almighty has
given a man ideas, he will get himself a style from one source or
another. Mr. Norris, fortunately, is not a conscious stylist. He has
too much to say to be exquisitely vain about his medium. He has the
kind of brain stuff that would vanquish difficulties in any
profession, that might be put to building battleships, or solving
problems of finance, or to devising colonial policies. Let us be
thankful that he has put it to literature. Let us be thankful,
moreover, that he is not introspective and that his intellect does
not devour itself, but feeds upon the great race of man, and, above
all, let us rejoice that he is not a "temperamental" artist, but
something larger, for a great brain and an assertive temperament
seldom dwell together.

There are clever men enough in the field of American letters, and
the fault of most of them is merely one of magnitude; they are not
large enough; they travel in small orbits, they play on muted
strings. They sing neither of the combats of Atriedes nor the labors
of Cadmus, but of the tea-table and the Odyssey of the Rialto.
Flaubert said that a drop of water contained all the elements of the
sea, save one--immensity. Mr. Norris is concerned only with serious
things, he has only large ambitions. His brush is bold, his color is
taken fresh from the kindly earth, his canvas is large enough to
hold American life, the real life of the people. He has come into
the court of the troubadours singing the song of Elys, the song of
warm, full nature. He has struck the true note of the common life.
He is what Mr. Norman Hapgood said the great American dramatist must
be: "A large human being, with a firm stomach, who knows and loves
the people."

_The Courier_, April 7, 1900

_When I Knew Stephen Crane_

It was, I think, in the spring of '94 that a slender, narrow-chested
fellow in a shabby grey suit, with a soft felt hat pulled low over
his eyes, sauntered into the office of the managing editor of