Donald Ogden Stewart

A Model Young Man — He Dresses and Writes With Care

It must be difficult to be a good humorist and still remain a human being. Irvin Cobb has done that; but, after all, his humor is Brobdingnagian. It partakes of brown gravy, and of cream puffs thrown wantonly. F. P. A. is occasionally human, though at times he seems to become the war sage looking at life through the war glasses of an ironist. Robert C. Benchley is almost human. Perhaps if I could see him weep once, I should actually believe in his humanity. Thomas Masson is human; but his humor is the genial story. He is the raconteur. He is not a nifty hound like Marc Connelly, nor a worshiper of the sentimentally bizarre like Heywood Broun. Of course, my favorite humorist is Donald Ogden Stewart. He is a friend of mine, and I am not ashamed to write about it. Quite well, I remember a breakfast at the Yale Club when Don, having given up his job of selling bonds, told me that he was about to earn his living by the pen …

“But—,” I protested, “how do you know that you can—”

The author-to-be of The Parody Outline of History, et cetera, bit into a muffin viciously, interrupting me at the same time. “Of course I can write!” said he, and, thereupon, went and did.

Mr Stewart has just returned from Europe. He is now engaged in writing his jaded memories of that trip, most of which he spent in growing a beard, which, for the sake of those who admire his tall, lean face when smooth, I assure you he has now removed. In addition to his travel episodes, he is writing Aunt Polly’s History of Mankind.

Mr. Stewart was born in Ohio and is fond of his mother. That is why he is an authority on etiquette. He has that faculty of telling you exactly where your trousers should be creased. He dresses with as much care as Hugh Walpole; but by a regular adherence to the rules of the daily dozen, his weight has remained that of a young man of grace and poise.

Though he spends his life poking fun at the foibles of mankind, he seldom makes a bitter remark about a friend. As an after dinner speaker, he is successful; but not at Rotary Clubs. I think of him as a combination of H. L. Mencken and Martin Luther. Yet he is not fanatical in his humorous creeds. He is writing a serious novel in which he firmly believes, and has written a play which, he tells us, was neither humorous, serious nor good; but then, Mr. Stewart, among many other things, is a modest man.

He takes his work seriously, and he writes and rewrites his humorous paragraphs with deliberation and care. Quite a model young man, then, whose one vice seems to be an overwhelming desire to be an author of large and serious reputation. He wishes to be anything but funny, and yet he is certainly funny. Just what can be done about it, I don’t quite know. J. F.