Transcriber’s Note Italic text displayed as: _italic_ Joseph Hergesheimer An Essay in Interpretation Joseph Hergesheimer An Essay in Interpretation By James Branch Cabell “_And we dreamed a dream in one night, I and he: we dreamed each man according to the interpretation of his dream._” [Illustration: Decoration] CHICAGO THE BOOKFELLOWS 1921 _One thousand small paper and ninety-nine tall paper copies of this monograph have been printed for_ THE BOOKFELLOWS _in August, 1921. The edition is the first; Mr. Cabell the author is_ BOOKFELLOW _No. 513 and Mr. Brewer the printer is_ BOOKFELLOW _No. 14_. _Copyright 1921 by James Branch Cabell_ To JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER with friendship and large admiration as goes the past, and with cordial faith in what is to come. ONE So say they, speak they, and tell they the tale, in “literary gossip,” that Joseph Hergesheimer “wrote” for a long while before an iota of his typing was transmuted into “author’s proof.” And the tale tells how for fourteen years he could find nowhere any magazine editor to whose present needs a Hergesheimer story was quite suited. It is my belief that in approaching Mr. Hergesheimer’s work one should bear constantly in mind those fourteen years, for to me they appear, not uncuriously, to have shaped and colored every book he has thus far published. The actual merit of the writing done during that period of “unavailability” is—here, at least—irrelevant. It is not the point of the fable that he high-heartedly wrote a story to which, when completed, his unbiased judgment could not quite honestly deny such deference as is due to a literary masterpiece; and which, through some odd error, was rejected by a magazine that every month was publishing vastly inferior stories; and which was later declined by another magazine, and by a host of magazines, with a dispiriting bland unanimity not unsuggestive of editorial conspiracy. Meanwhile—of course—he had written another tale, which was much better than the first, and which proved to be an equally faithful chaperon of return postage. So story followed story, each dreeing the same weird.... And he used to wait for the postman, no doubt, and to note from afar that it was a large envelope; and would open the damned thing with a faint hope that perhaps they just wanted some slight changes made; and would find only the neat, impersonal, and civilly patronizing death-warrant of hope. So Joseph Hergesheimer kept on with his foolishness, without any gleam of success, or even (they report) any word of encouragement. And doubtless his relatives said the customary things....