The Captains Toll-Gate | Page 5

caused such an interesting discussion in the society that he
published it in the Century Magazine. It had no especial announcement
there, nor was it heralded in any way, but it took the public by storm,
and surprised both the editor and the author. All the world must love a
puzzle, for in an amazingly short time the little story had made the
circuit of the world. Debating societies everywhere seized upon it as a
topic; it was translated into nearly all languages; society people
discussed it at their dinners; plainer people argued it at their firesides;
numerous letters were sent to nearly every periodical in the country;
and public readers were expounding it to their audiences. It interested
heathen and Christian alike; for an English friend told Mr. Stockton
that in India he had heard a group of Hindoo men gravely debating the
problem. Of course, a mass of letters came pouring in upon the author.
A singular thing about this story has been the revival of interest in it
that has occurred from time to time. Although written many years ago,
it seems still to excite the interest of a younger generation; for, after an
interval of silence on the subject of greater or less duration, suddenly,
without apparent cause, numerous letters in relation to it will appear on
the author's table, and "solutions" will be printed in the newspapers.
This ebb and flow has continued up to the present time. Mr. Stockton

made no attempt to answer the question he had raised.
We both spent much time in the South at different periods. The
dramatic and unconsciously humorous side of the negroes pleased his
fancy. He walked and talked with them, saw them in their homes, at
their "meetin's," and in the fields. He has drawn with an affectionate
hand the genial, companionable Southern negro as he is--or rather as he
was--for this type is rapidly passing away. Soon there will be no more
of these "old-time darkies." They would be by the world forgot had
they not been embalmed in literature by Mr. Stockton, and the best
Southern writers.
There is one other notable characteristic that should be referred to in
writing of Mr. Stockton's stories--the machines and appliances he
invented as parts of them. They are very numerous and ingenious. No
matter how extraordinary might be the work in hand, the machine to
accomplish the end was made on strictly scientific principles, to
accomplish that exact piece of work. It would seem that if he had not
been an inventor of plots he might have been an inventor of instruments.
This idea is sustained by the fact that he had been a wood-engraver
only a short time when he invented and patented a double graver which
cuts two parallel lines at the same time. It is somewhat strange that
more than one of these extraordinary machines has since been exploited
by scientists and explorers, without the least suspicion on their part that
the enterprising romancer had thought of them first. Notable among
these may be named the idea of going to the north pole under the ice,
the one that the center of the earth is an immense crystal (Great Stone
of Sardis), and the attempt to manufacture a gun similar to the Peace
Compeller in The Great War Syndicate.
In all of Mr. Stockton's novels there were characters taken from real
persons who perhaps would not recognize themselves in the peculiar
circumstances in which he placed them. In the crowd of purely
imaginative beings one could easily recognize certain types modified
and altered. In The Casting away of Mrs. Leeks and Mrs. Aleshine he
introduced two delightful old ladies whom he knew, and who were
never surprised at anything that might happen. Whatever emergency
arose, they took it as a matter of course, and prepared to meet it. Mr.
Stockton amused himself at their expense by writing this story. He was
not at first interested in the Dusantes, and had no intention of ever

saying anything further about them. When there was a demand for
knowledge of the Dusantes Mr. Stockton did not heed it. He was
opposed to writing sequels. But when an author of distinction, whose
work and friendship he highly valued, wrote to him that if he did not
write something about the Dusantes, and what they said when they
found the board money in the ginger jar, he would do it himself, Mr.
Stockton set himself to writing The Dusantes.
I have been asked to give some account of the places in which Mr.
Stockton's stories and novels were written, and their environments.
Some of the Southern stories were written in Virginia, and, now and
then, a short story elsewhere, as suggested by the locality, but the most
of his work was