Page:Weird Tales Volume 9 Number 5 (1927-05).djvu/138

 but stylistically old-fashioned and uninteresting. Give us reprints, but when you select them be guided by their style. Some of the old stories read as if they had been written only yesterday, but others assuredly bore us to death. The days of the great Walter Scott, who was permitted to describe a hillside through sixty pages or so, are over. We want action these days, not long-winded descriptions."

"You may say what you wish about the reprints," writes John D. Howell, of Lawrenceville, New Jersey, "but you can hardly give a stronger argument for them than Lazarus in the March issue. On the other hand, Hawthorne's stories are as good an argument against them. Hawthorne writes well, but his weird stories contain too much moralizing."

And yet as many readers voted against Lazarus as voted for it!

John R. Springfield, of Philadelphia, writes to The Eyrie: "Mordieu, but is La Magazine Magnifique! When a story makes me go four stops past my station while going to work I am ready to give it due credit. Jules de Grandin and Seabury Quinn should become synonymous with the immortal Poe. Long live both of them! It is not often that I 'rave' over a magazine, but the February issue has my recommendation for the Nobel Prize in weird literature. The Man Who Cast No Shadow, The Atomic Conquerors, and Drome—what more could one individual, no matter who he be, want to keep him on pins and needles? All this is in addition to a superb reprint: Washington Irving's The Lady in the Velvet Collar. It is a seventh heaven, n'est-ce-pas?"

Writes Gerald C. Hamm, of East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania: "I wish to congratulate you on your thrilling serial, Drome. I have been a constant reader of your magazine for two years now and I have never yet read a story so breath-taking and weird as Drome. The writer, John Martin Leahy, is an artist and a master of weird tales. The story keeps one in suspense until one can not wait until the next issue of your magazine."

Donat De Lisle, of Montreal, Canada, writes to The Eyrie: "I have been reading your wonderful magazine nearly two years. I am an orchestra leader in Montreal's most popular cabaret, and I am glad to mention that every man in the band is a constant reader of . I hope you will give us more stories by Seabury Quinn, who is my favorite author."

Writes Stephen Bagby, of New York City: "Let me congratulate you, as a reader of, for the making of such an excellent magazine. That you are doing a good job is attested by its increasing popularity in New York. It is easy to understand why Weird Tales is capturing readers, since the 'tired business man' today is bored to death with humdrum reading matter. He wants something to make him 'sit up and take notice,' and that is what does. Ordinary story magazines are tame, in comparison. More power to you! For four years I have been a sort of unofficial missionary for , especially among newspaper men, and have found making steady readers easy. It is only necessary to let them read it once, and they're waiting at the news stands for the next issue."

Mrs. Molly Smith, of Akron, Ohio, writes: "Please do publish more genuine ghost stories and those of werewolves. Keep WEIRD."

Writes Roland Jackson Hunter, of Denver, Colorado: "In The Eyrie you ask your readers if they wish you to continue the policy of including a reprint in each number. There are so many good old stories with weird manner and bizarre themes that I do not think one a month is too many. But if any considerable number of your readers disagree with me, I suggest that