Motion Picture Magazine (Feb-Jul 1919)

M°E ION piCTURF MAGAZINE L Easy to Write Stories fr Plays STARTLING New Photoplays, Easy Method of writing 'Stories, Articles; the wonderful New Irving System, just out! Simplest, easiest, surest known; many old obstacles of writing readily overcome; means new hope for thousands of eager, ambitious writers! Mr. James Irving, the Originator of this improved system of writing, is Editor-in-Chief of one of the largest and most successful literary institutions in America; over 100,000 writers helped by his newly-revealed, easy. method, now made public; fascinating System is sa simple it astonishes and delights everyone! Not only shows HOW TO WRITE stories and plays, but also HOW TO GET IDEAS for them and HOW TO SELL THEM. The New Irving System is easy to get, easy to learn; no experience needed; anybody can understand it. Why be a failure when through this easy method you might utilize thousands of daily incidents to weave thrilling photoplays and stories! Simply send your name and address. "THE WONDER BOOK FOR WRITERS" will be mailed to you absolutely free. Just address AUTHORS' PRESS Dept. 2 Auburn N.Y. w ZS Y&t/tS THE STANDARD TflAIMNO SCHOOL FOR THEATRE ARTS ai^vjobiwb SCHOOL DRAMMIC ARTS FDUP SCHOOLS IN ONE. PRACTICAL STAGE TRAINING. THE SCHOOL'S STUDENTS STOCK «*' THEATRE AFFORD PUBLIC STAGE APPEARANCES * Write for catalog mentioning study desired to Secretary ALVIENE SCHOOLS, Suite 3 225 West 57th Street, New York City Does Your Hand Itch for a Pencil? VOU don't have tobeajrenius, •*■ If you have that liking for drawing-, you may have in you the making* of a successful cartoonist or illustrator. Write today for your free copy of "A Road to Bigger Things" tellinghow America's 32 greatest cartoonists will help you develop your talent profitably. Federal School of Applied Cartooning 9420 Federal Schools Bldg. Minneapolis I i M ^ht -nnrkable Ca ■ :• '*■"■'.-•''' "■'■'■'". -'■years i at solutely Jheipless A mans iWho was helpless, unable to V ,«rise f rornlhis chair, .'was nd 1 c ; . : . .-V ■ out the house after wearing a F :;&wee : successfully lari 30!;000 cases the past 17 yes Trial ^104 1aG£ elastic / : Philo . ance is— how irom the : 1 a s t e r, leath jkets. Every sufferer with a deform spine owes it to hirris to investigate ^thorough Send If you will a case J.jt^will aid ua in giving you *djSftnute info: once. PHILO BURT W2390dd Fellows , N.Y. The Sacrifice {Continued from page 44) and her eyes, in the pallid moon-flood, had been bright with unfallen tears. "To God's man, John Sterling," she said, "to God's good man." And Henry Rowland had thought it all sacramental. Acolyte to priest. Devotee to living shrine. He thought differently now. It had been a woman, a woman profoundly stirred, to the man, to the one man, who had so moved her. It had been Helen's awakening heart, Helen's quickened soul, speaking with Helen's shaken voice. It had been love — love. Henry Rowland was a man of action. A man of quick, decisive action. He went at once to John Sterling. "Sterling," he said, "I asked you to help me with my wife — to point out to her that beauty is not all, the froth of life, the insubstantial " Sterling nodded his vigorous, closecropped black head. His dreamer's burning eyes focussed, rather bewilderedly, on the man before him. He sensed the potential. "Yes," he said. "I didn't stipulate that you make her fall in love with you," said Rowland. There was a vibrant silence. "You are terribly mistaken, Mr. Rowland," said the minister. Henry Rowland laughed, harshly. "You may have your eyes on the stars, Sterling, or you may not," he said, "but my wife has fallen in love, not with your God nor your church nor your idealism, but with you." John Sterling winced. Had he a quick? "How do you come by your knowledge, Mr. Rowland?" he asked. "I had a talk with my wife. Women in love are women transparent. The}' give betrayals. My wife prated on about your mission in life. About your apostolicism. You and your reforms have colored her life till the rest of the world does not exist for her. She loves you. I, who love her, know this to be so." There was another silence. John Sterling raised his face, grown suddenly haggard, and faced the man who was accusing him. "What would you have me do?" Henry Rowland brought his plutocratic fist down on the shabby desk. "Cure her," he said. "How?" "By acting a part, acting it as cleverly as a clever man like you could act it. Make love to her. Fall from the shrine on which she has placed you. Cease to be the remote priest to whom she whispers in the incense and the sanctuary of some dim confessional ; become of the flesh fleshy, the earth earthy. Let her see you inebriated. Pay her compliments. Take off your cloth. Better, desecrate it. She worships 3rou. Come down to the plane she knows. Be of the herd she has known." John Sterling was white-lipped. "You ask the impossible," he said. Henry Rowland leaned forward. "Be merciful," he said; "be merciful ..." His unnourished soul shone out of his eyes. His gaunt youth. His sear desire. John Sterling drew a deep breath. "It shall be as you ask," he said. "What are you doing?" There was no answer. Helen Rowland stood in the doorway, and her fingers, free of all jewels, clutched the chiffons against her heart, grown suddenly cold. The man in the black cloth lurched over the table, and groped with long, singularly powerful fingers for the whis key bottle that stood, half emptied, before him. "Sho — you've — you've caught me " he stuttered. "Caught . _. . oh, God!" John Sterling came over to her. He put his hands upon her shoulders, ran them down her arms till his fingers gripped hers. He took her in his arms. He kist her — not on the mouth. All the while her terrorized eyes were not on his flaming face, but on the priestly cloth. She shuddered from him with strong breaths. "Oh-h-h!" she gasped; then again, "oh — oh — God!" The man was speaking. "Away," he muttered, "you and I. You were right. Beauty — beauty — you and I — the moon and the flowers — the sea — and song — twilights and early dawnings — you were right — my beautiful, my beau " Helen Rowland struck him. "Stop this !" she cried. "You — jrou are breaking ■ — oh, I have worshipped you — worshipped you so !" She fled out of the room, rank with the whiskey fumes. She ran down the insecure stairway, into the coming of dusk. "How dared he!" she gasped between bitten lips; "he who was sacred to God ! Sacred — sacred — to — me " There were items in the newspapers about the return of the wealthy, beautiful Mrs. Rowland to society. She entertained again. Surpassed herself. Some few mentioned that her face had taken on a "sculptural look." Others said plain "frozen." Then it became known that both Mr. and Mrs. Rowland had gone for an extended tour of Mexico. "Such an odd place," said her friends. "Helen was never the same after her slumming fever," said others. Few knew that John Sterling was in Mexico. Sent there by his bishop in disgrace, to a little mission town, to expiate his supposed fall from grace in loneliness and exile. He had been there three months when it came to Henry Rowland that, for the first time, he had paid too big a price for the thing he had hoped to achieve. He had broken a man's spirit, crushed his life work, and maimed a woman's heart. There was nothing big enough for such a purchase price. Certainly not his own personal happiness, which he had hoped to attain. He begged Helen to make the trip with him, and not until they reached the town of expiation did he tell her of what he had done. Much was stripped from him. The hardness, too long tried, gave way. "You see," he ended, miserably, "I love you. I didn't know what to do — where to turn — I felt that I had tried everything That it was not enough. This man seemed to stand between us like a pillar of fire. I begged him to lower himself in your eyes. When even that failed to turn you to me — I — I knew." Helen Rowland looked at him. "Knew what?" she asked. "That you could never love me. I knew it. The great things have passed me by. All the great things ..." "Not all, Henry. Think." "I have thought. Yes, all. You." "You have had me." "No." "Why not?" "Not really. "You wanted"Just that." Not essentially." ?"