Edgar Saltus: The Man

by Marie Saltus

"You are a brilliant man,—an artist and a stylist. You are a poet, an historian and an essayist; but a novelist—never. Your psychology of humans is oblique, your plots improbable when not impossible, and your characters ink."

In moments of wrath I had flung the same words in his face and been told, "Ignorance, when it speaks, speaks loudly."

Instead of the explosion I expected, it took Mr. Saltus off his feet. He sat down. His affection and admiration for the Colvilles could not be called in question after that, and he began at once to take stock of himself seriously.

The lease of the house we were occupying having expired, another one on Grand View Street off Westlake Park was taken. The beauty of this little park, and the pleasure of sitting out under the palm trees, book in hand, Toto lying at his feet, soothed and relaxed Mr. Saltus amazingly. The idea of rewriting "The Monster" and weaving Theosophy into it suggested itself. Mrs. Besant spoke in Los Angeles at this time and we attended a private lecture. He heard her speak many times again in London in the Queen's Hall, but from that first glance he declared her to be in his estimation the most wonderful woman incarnate on earth to-day. "The Monster" was put aside in order that he might have more leisure to study Theosophy.

Mr. Saltus was now in his fifty-fifth year, and for the first time he began to show symptoms of breaking. Extreme irritability with attacks of giddiness were followed by periods of depression. His Theosophical studies helped him to keep his poise. The physician who was consulted gave no cause for alarm. He said that Mr. Saltus was undergoing certain physiological changes and that he must abstain from prolonged mental work. A rough draft of "The Monster," including a certain amount of Theosophy, was in hand, so he said he would do no more creative work for a time.

That time was a long one. Mr. Saltus never did any entirely original work again. His creative faculty became semi-detached from his work in a desire to study. He wrote several novels after the lapse of years, but each of them was elaborated and improved from central situations he had used before either in novels or in short stories. In many of these, as in "Lords of the Ghostland," Mr. Saltus felt that he had not made the most of his material, and the desire to re-write, amplify and do justice to the subject in a new and big way was tucked away in a corner of his mind. During the last years of his life, when the necessity for finding forgetfulness of the physical was paramount, the opportunity to use this material presented itself.

At the end of that summer we went on to Warner's Hot Springs. Mr. Saltus was left at loose ends, and he went to a hotel, hoping to join us again when we decided on a house for the winter.

While we were at the Hot Springs Mr. Saltus met a young girl, Miss S——. So weird, wild and fantastic are the stories which have been circulated about her, so malicious and untrue, that in justice to all, a plain statement of the facts is called for. It was during this stay at Warner's Hot Springs that a letter from Mr. Saltus referred to meeting a young girl. So seldom did he meet anyone sufficiently worth mentioning that I was interested. In the letter he said that he had been introduced to a girl, Miss S——, who reminded him very much of myself. This was, he explained, not only because of her features but her nature, which was highly emotional, and that she adored animals to such a degree that I would find in her a kindred soul. I was much interested and wrote him that I would like to meet her.

Mr. Saltus' next letter was from San Francisco, where, at the request of the Examiner, he had gone to write up the Portola Festival. His next letter, however, was from Los Angeles again, giving the news that the Los Angeles Examiner had retained him to write a series of editorials to boom Southern California. Urging us to return, he said that he could not work without a background and was like a man without arms or legs. Telegrams and long distance telephone messages followed.

Soon afterward we took a house in Los Angeles again, centrally located in what was then a fashionable location in Pico Heights, and Mr. Saltus got to work at once. It was neither sustained nor creative like that of writing a novel. It consisted in compiling information and statistics and presenting them in entertaining and acceptable form. The final draft of "The Monster" was done and ready for the typist. The compiling of material for two-page editorials each week kept him so occupied that his usual afternoon walks with Toto were shortened or neglected altogether. All his life he had walked a great deal. It was his way of keeping fit. With the physiological change in his constitution his desire to walk decreased, and the beginning of the breakdown began without either of us suspecting it. An inveterate smoker always, he then consumed almost twice as many cigarettes a day as before,—strong Cuban ones of the most insidious kind. This, too, was paving the way for the obscure and deadly disease which later gripped him like a vise.