A final bit of Tarkington's thoughts on Fort, also reprinted in _The Fortean_. I've seen some correspondence that involved Tarkington and concerned Fort, but almost none of that includes copies of the letters he wrote; the few that do lack any assessment of Fort. And so these fragments from _The Fortean_ are what we have.
Given that Tarkington's letter to _The Bookman_ may not be what it seemed--no actual letter to _The Bookman_ has been found--it is worth asking about the provenance of this last bit. The conclusion is that there is stronger reason to believe it exists, although the case is not as clear-cut as Tarkington's introduction to _New Lands_.
Thayer gives the citation as From “Booth Tarkington Recalls" _New York_ SUN. The bibliography of Tarkington's writings does include a reference that might be the same: “Booth Tarkington Recalls: That It Is Very Difficult to Be Unorthodox Concerning a Piano,” New York Sun June 19, 1930. The subtitle obviously gives some pause about this column having anything to do with Fort, but it is certainly possible. Unfortunately, the _Sun_'s archives are at Rutgers University and I have not had a chance to get a copy of the article.
The other reason to believe that this is an authentic depiction of Tarkington's thoughts is that the column accords with the introduction to _New Lands_, spending a lot of time quoting Fort and talking about his 'staggering' imagination without necessarily approving Fort's conclusions. It is also true that in 1930 Fort's only two books were _The Book of the Damned_ and _New Lands_.
Here is the excerpt as it appeared in _The Fortean_:
“Few of us nowadays have the wit or the temerity of Mr. Charles Fort. ‘Granted that there will be posterity,’ Mr. Fort says in his book New Lands, ‘we shall have predecessors. Then what is it that is conventionally taught today that will in the future seem as imbecilic as to all present orthodoxies seem the vaporings of preceding systems?
‘Well, for instance, that it is this earth that moves . . .’
Mr. Fort speaks convincingly of the ‘swiftly moving sun,’ and he notices ‘successive appearances in local skies of this earth that indicate this earth is stationary.’
Mr. Fort, however, as the title of his book implies, is less interested in this unmoving earth than in the new lands that move or are rigidly set in the sky. ‘A Balboa of greatness now known only ti himself will stand on a ridge in the sky between two auroral seas.
‘Fountains of Everlasting Challenge.
‘Argosies in parallel lines and rabbles of individual adventurers. Well enough may it be said that there are seeds in the sky. Of such are the germs of colonies.’
Mr. Fort would have the young man of today go not West but Up. ‘He will, or must, go somewhere,’ he says. ‘If directions alone no longer invite him, he may hear invitation in dimensions. . . . Stay and let salvation damn you--or straddle an aurorial beam and paddle it from Rigel to Betelgeuse.’
Any one who is interested in unorthodoxics, who is ‘air-minded,’ who enjoys having his imagination staggered and his mind dazzled by visions of a future on the constellational scale, should read Mr. Charles Fort’s vigorous and astonishing books: New Lands and The Book of the Damned.”
‘Well, for instance, that it is this earth that moves . . .’
Mr. Fort speaks convincingly of the ‘swiftly moving sun,’ and he notices ‘successive appearances in local skies of this earth that indicate this earth is stationary.’
Mr. Fort, however, as the title of his book implies, is less interested in this unmoving earth than in the new lands that move or are rigidly set in the sky. ‘A Balboa of greatness now known only ti himself will stand on a ridge in the sky between two auroral seas.
‘Fountains of Everlasting Challenge.
‘Argosies in parallel lines and rabbles of individual adventurers. Well enough may it be said that there are seeds in the sky. Of such are the germs of colonies.’
Mr. Fort would have the young man of today go not West but Up. ‘He will, or must, go somewhere,’ he says. ‘If directions alone no longer invite him, he may hear invitation in dimensions. . . . Stay and let salvation damn you--or straddle an aurorial beam and paddle it from Rigel to Betelgeuse.’
Any one who is interested in unorthodoxics, who is ‘air-minded,’ who enjoys having his imagination staggered and his mind dazzled by visions of a future on the constellational scale, should read Mr. Charles Fort’s vigorous and astonishing books: New Lands and The Book of the Damned.”
