Tales from Bohemia

by Robert Neilson Stephens

That was the beginning of Bob's career as a dramatic critic, a career in which he gained authority and in which his literary faculties, his felicity of expression and soundness of judgment found adequate scope.

In the following two or three years the cultivation of the field of dramatic criticism occupied his time to the temporary exclusion of his ambition for creative work. He and I read independently; but our tastes had much in common, though his preference was for imaginative literature. Meanwhile I was writing short stories with plenty of plot, some of which found their way into various magazines; but his taste lay more in the line of the French short story writers who made an incident the medium for portraying a character. Historical romance had fascinations for me, but Alphonse Daudet attracted both of us to the artistic possibilities that lay in selecting the romance of real life for treatment in fiction as against the crude and repellent naturalism of Zola and his school. This fact is not a little significant in view of the turn toward historical romance which exercised all the activities of Robert Neilson Stephens after the production of his play, “An Enemy to the King,” by E.H. Sothern.

Still our intimacy had prepared me for the change. Through many a long night after working hours we had wandered through the moonlit streets until daybreak exchanging views freely and sturdily on historical characters on the philosophy of history, on the character of Henry of Navarre and his followers, and on the worthies of Elizabethan England, in the literature of which we had immersed ourselves. Kipling had recently burst meteor-like on the world, and Barrie raised his head with a whimsical smile closely chasing a tear. Thomas Hardy was in the saddle writing “Tess,” and in France Daudet was yet active though his prime was past. Guy de Maupassant continued the production of his marvellous short stories. These were the contemporary prose writers who engaged our attention. A little later we hailed the appearance of Stanley J. Weyman with “A Gentleman of France,” and the Conan Doyle of “The White Company” and “Micah Clarke” rather than the creator of “Sherlock Holmes” commended our admiration. We were by no means in accord on the younger authors. Diversity of opinion stimulates critical discussion, however. I had not yet become reconciled to Kipling, who provoked my resentment by certain coarse flings at the Irish, but “Bob” hailed him with whole-hearted enthusiasm.

We were not the only members of the staff with literary aspirations. Others, like the late Andrew E. Watrous, had achievements of no mean order in prose and verse. Still others were sustaining the traditions of “The Press” as a newspaper office which throughout its history had been a stepping stone to magazine work and other forms of literary employment. Richard Harding Davis was on the paper and “Bob” Stephens was one of the two men most intimately in his confidence regarding his ambitions.

Finally Bob told me that “Dick” had taken him to his house and read to him “A bully short story,” adding, “It's a corker.”

I inquired the nature of the story.

“Just about the 'Press' office,” Bob replied,

Among other particulars I asked the title.

“'Gallegher,'” said Bob.

Three years elapsed after our first acquaintance before Bob Stephens began writing stories and sketches. The “Tales from Bohemia” collected in this volume represent his early creative work. We were in the better sense a small band of Bohemians, the few friends and companions who will be found figuring in the tales under one guise or another. Many a merry prank and many a jest is recalled by these pages. Of criticism I have no word to say. Let the reader understand how they came into being and they will explain themselves. “Bob” Stephens took his own environment, the anecdotes he heard, the persons whom he met and the friends whom he knew, and he treated them as the writers of short stories in France twenty years ago treated their own Parisian environment. He made an incident the means of illustrating a portrayal of character. Later he was to construct elaborate plots for dramas and historical novels.