Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Man in the Open
The characters wish me to tell you that they are all Imaginary Persons, and therefore very sensitive. The persons of a drama are protected by footlights, by the stage doorkeeper, not to mention grease paint and scalps by an eminent artiste; but the characters in a novel are thrust defenseless into a rude world, with many reporters about. In a page fright, worse even than stage fright, their only comfort is that absence of body which is their alternative to your great gift, presence of mind.
So they make their bow under assumed names. There we come to the point. The proper names were all dealt out to worldly grasping persons, and not one was left unclaimed. The name department is like a cloak-room when the guests have departed, a train from which all passengers have alighted, an office on Christ mas day. Can you blame the characters in fiction who come after you, if they assume the noblest names, such as Smith, and try to be worthy of their borrowedplumes? Surely you would not have them wear a numeral such as the number of your house, or tele phone.
The Chances are that they give you no offense. Sup pose that gentlemen named Jesse Smith number one in each million of English-speaking people, there would be one hundred in North America, half of them adults, with a moiety in wedlock, and, of these twenty five, 3 hundredth part may be stockmen, of whom say one per cent. Have a ?aw in their Claim to wedlock. To this residuum, the 0025 part of a perfect gentle man, whom he has not the honor to know personally, our Mr. Smith tenders profound apologies.
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