It seems to us that Booth Tarkington belongs at the top or thereabouts in American letters. We will be surprised and disappointed if Penrod does not persist for a century or so. And yet much of Tarkington's work is flawed by a curious failing. Almost invariably the novels are carefully thought out to a certain point, and then they weaken. This point occurs, as a rule, within a chapter or so of the end. The story "hangs," as the racetrack reporters express it, in the last few strides. In _Ramsey Milholland_, for instance, it seemed to us that Tarkington, after a minute development of a theme, cut it off abruptly. He was, according to our impression, a little tired and anxious to have it over with before he had actually reached the finishing mark. To-day we received a story which may provide an explanation. "Booth Tarkington," says a publisher's note, "probably uses more lead pencils than any other writer in America. Always he has disdained a typewriter. "He works at an artist's drawing table, and," the story continues, "with a little stock of paper before him he then sets about the actual business of composition very slowly, very carefully. Every phrase--almost every word--is pondered, balanced, scrutinized before it is permitted to pass. As often as not a dozen phrases have been rejected before the final one, which seems to readers to come so trippingly, has been arrived at. Individual words are scored out again and again." All this makes the slackening of vigor toward the end of a long novel comprehensible. Though a man begin with a dozen well sharpened pencils catastrophes are sure to occur in the course of fifty or sixty thousand words. Finally, the author finds himself with an aching wrist and only one pencil, which has grown a little dull. If he is to add another chapter he must pause to find a safety razor blade and sharpen up. And so instead he rounds off the tale while lead remains. * * * On the other hand, we feel certain that Harold Bell Wright composes on a typewriter, pausing only once every twenty-four hours to oil the machine with a little treacle. * * * Robert W. Chambers uses an adding machine and Theodore Dreiser favors an ax. * * * "Man is a machine," writes Dr. David Orr Edson in _Getting What We Want_, "with the directions for use written on his physiognomy--which society in general neglects to read. Through this omission much of the unrest in the world has developed, and psychologists have been forced to recognize and attempt to cope with the protests of the psychophysical against unendurable conditions of life." To us these seem true words. It isn't only that society neglects to read, but also that it reads awry. Again and again our legible physiognomy has been taken to mean, "Shake well before using," when anybody with half an eye ought to know that it says, "Lay on its side in a cool, dry place." * * *