CONTENTS
Return to yesterday
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Author: Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939)
Year: 1931
(Stephen Crane)
Crane could use a spade all right. He could, that is to say, lift a heavy, wrought steel, sharp implement and, bringing it down from the full extent of his uplifted arm, smash into the yellow clay between a couple of rocks with accuracy and all his small weight duly in operation...
One did not credit writers and particularly American journalists with much practical knowledge or skill. But Crane was all right. He could use a spade or an axe; he rode well. And he had, as I have said, an enviable trick with a gun. He would put a piece of sugar on a table and sit still till a fly approached. He held in his hand a Smith and Wesson. When the fly was by the sugar, he would twist the gun round in his wrist. The fly would die, killed by the bead-sight of the revolver. That is much more difficult than it sounds. One may be able to use a gun pretty well, but I never managed to kill a fly with the barrel, much less with the bead-sight...
In the Middle Ages they used to say that a proper man was one who had written a book, built a house, planted a tree and begotten a child. I don't know that Crane ever built a house. He avoided having children because he was afraid of giving them the heritage of tuberculosis. But as a writer of books he was incomparable, and the Limpsfield tree that he planted is alive to this day to testify to his handiwork.
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