WE might also head this paper "Titles by Quotation," as it was a consideration of this phenomenon in literature that first moved us to weigh the possibilities of plots from proverbs, fables, and fairy tales. The Bible has ever lent great aid to fiction writers in the matter of titles. Kipling is perhaps its most obvious debtor. A title like Edith Wharton's "The Valley of Decision" is a case in point. But the discussion of that is old ground. Our thought progressed from it to consideration of other aids to the harassed author. After all, no matter how well you can write, what the outrageous public demands is that you shall have something to write about. Here the invention of many writers flags. We offer a Great Cure, a Millennial Discovery. Hear! Hear! Oyez! Oyez!

      To trespass upon the ground of Constant Reader, whose memories of old books follow our own attempt to be sprightly upon this page, our attention was recently called to a work published in 1874 and penned by Thackeray's daughter, Anne Isabella Thackeray, Lady Ritchie. It was entitled "Bluebeard's Keys." Its little novels or long stories were in reality new illustrations of old fables and fairy tales. The title story was a variation of the Bluebeard theme.

      Now there is no reason why the magazine writer whenever hard up for a plot should not turn immediately to the fables and fairy stories of his youth. The whole thing is merely to change the seetting, modernize the version. The Cinderella motif is, of course, a common one in all fiction, constantly recurring. "Little Red Riding Hood" often serves a renewed purpose, in the perduring story of Innocence beset by Craft — or, to be modern, Krafft-Ebbing. Elizabeth Robins some time ago put forth a sensational variant in "My Little Sister." Many changes could be rung upon "Beauty and the Beast," also — and so on.

      Yet it is in the Proverbs of all Nations that, we feel, an even greater mine of material lies. They are specially qualified to jog genius or even talent to renewed narration. Keep books of proverbs nigh to supply plot germs and additional complications for that story you are writing! Consider how many modern business stories involve such adages as "A rolling Stone gathers no Moss," "All that Glitters is not Gold." "Money Makes the Mare go." With such simple and homely foundations to build upon, your tale is sure to take the public, whose lives, after all, are rooted in ancient adages and who comport themselves largely according to the dictates of proverbial wisdom handed down from generation to generation.

      Think how many times in moments of crisis your own expression regarding a given situation has been in words approximating those of some proverb stored away in your memory from early parental injunctions! Then let us consider the possibilitie of a few of these. Here are some English proverbs:

      A crooked stick will have a crooked shadow.

      Some have been thought brave because they were afraid to run.

      What a dust I have raised, quoth the fly upon the coach.

      A wreck on shore is a beacon at sea.

      The fire in the flint shows not till it is struck.

      Does not each one of these suggest a situation, perhaps a number of different situations, according to the differences of the minds pondering them? Our suggestion is to start with the situation indicated by one proverb, and, whenever ingenuity slackens, have recourse to another. We could do very well with these:

      Jemmy Wiggle's father was a crooked stick, so Jemmy grew up a pickpocket. He was not only a crook but a coward. One day he was confronted by a runaway. Afraid to flee, frightened by the thundering hoofs approaching, he sprang for the bridle and thus rescued the daughter of Silas Vile, the richest man in Manhattan. The daughter had been riding in Central Park, where Jemmy was lurking to "reef leather." Jemmy became very proud of himself and believed he was all he seemed. He began to feel his own importance and reform — the one always brings about the other! He is on the eve of marrying the daughter of Silas Vile. Then comes his father's death, which, through deathbed injunction to honesty, proves a beacon to the starved soul of Jemmy now blossoming into — all sorts of things. But Silas Vile discovers that Jemmy's father has been a notorious bootlegger and Silas Vile is running for office on a ticket strictly blue. Therefore he is about to kick Jemmy out. Jemmy, however, comes up to the scratch manfully in standing up for the "old man," now passed over the Great Divide. He demonstrates unfaltering filial devotion. This is one quality old Silas Vile admires more than anything else. He capitulates. After a terribly dramatic and emotional scene, Silas places Jemmy's hand in that of Myra Gwendolynne.

      A story with poignant possibilities isn't it? And yet the amount of thinking involved to create it has been entirely supplied by a sequence of proverbs taken at random! Take any number of proverbs and shake them all up in a hat! That's what we're going to do the next time we write a yarn. You can make them symbolical of so many different things. And in this hot weather one just naturally hates to do much independent ratiocinating.

      We have hardly begun to develop Jemmy Wiggle's story. Of course we gave you the barest outline! But it should be a real pleasure to you, if you are a real writer, to fill in with deft characterization and vivid, throbbing description, the framework we furnish. And never let us hear you say again that you don't know what to write about, not so long as there are handy books of proverbs to be bought for a few cents at any reputable bookstore!

A. K. TUTLER.