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Emerson and Hawthorne, far as they had escaped from the bonds of their ancestral religion, still utter the word "soul" with awe. But in the popular sermon and hymn and story of our day, with their search after the sympathetic and the sentimental, after what is called in magazine slang "heart-interest," the word has lost both its intellectual distinction and its literary magic.
It was one of those broad-brimmed Panamas, full of heart-interest, that made him look like a romantic barytone, and when under that gala façade he came tripping into the office in his white duck clothes, with a wide Windsor tie, Miss Larrabee, the society editor, who was the only one of us with whom he ever had any business, would pull the string that unhooked the latch of the gate to her section of the room and say, without looking up: "Come into the garden, Maud."
"Suppose it does!" exclaimed Ward; "anybody can collect type-written speeches and lists of names. That's a messenger boy's job. Where's there any heart-interest in a Wall Street broker like Flagg waving a silver trowel and singing, 'See what a good boy am! and a lot of grownup men in pinafores saying, 'This stone is well and truly laid. Where's the story in that?"
The distinguished character-study that makes genuine the personal emotions in the legitimate drama, has no chance. People are but types, swiftly moved chessmen. More elaborate discourse on this subject may be found in chapter twelve on the differences between the films and the stage. But here, briefly: the Action Pictures are falsely advertised as having heart-interest, or abounding in tragedy.
That was all from me, mind you, and yet I'd gone out there with the idea in my head of getting material for a long newsy piece out of him what we call in this business heart-interest stuff.
In truth, the American editor plays safe, constantly and from conviction; and playing safe in the short story means the adoption of the "formula," which is sure to be somewhat successful; it means restriction to a few safe themes. He swings from the detective story to the tale of the alien, from the "heart-interest" story to the narrative of "big business."
Carlotta, who like most women took no interest in politics because it lacks "heart-interest," came to me with eyes swimming and cheeks aglow. She had just been reading about Burbank's heroism. "Isn't he splendid!" she cried. "I always told you he'd be President. And you didn't believe me." "Be patient with me, my dear," said I. "I am not a woman with seven-league boots of intuition.
Sylvia had read countless novels, for her father had been insatiate of them; but she had been so confident of her own charm, and so busily engaged in picturing the manner in which she should discourage or make happy her suitors, that the possibilities of her own active heart-interest had not absorbed much of her thought. The coming of John Dunham into her life had changed all that.
In exchange for one penny its five hundred thousand readers received every week a serial story about life in highest circles, a short story packed with heart-interest, articles on the removal of stains and the best method of coping with the cold mutton, anecdotes of Royalty, photographs of peeresses, hints on dress, chats about baby, brief but pointed dialogues between Blogson and Snogson, poems, Great Thoughts from the Dead and Brainy, half-hours in the editor's cosy sanctum, a slab of brown paper, and the journal's leading feature Advice on Matters of the Heart.
A girl down and out, a waif in a city ward, in her delirium calling upon Peter Champneys for help, didn't sound at all good to him. In connection with that penciled slip which seemed to imply that she had a right to expect help, it smacked of possible heart-interest sob-stuff so dear to enterprising special writers for a yellow press.
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