His Great Adventure — Context and Discussion

From Failed Playwright to Visionary

The protagonist, Brainard, is introduced as a man whose life has been marked by theatrical failure. He carries a rejected play manuscript in his pocket and contemplates spending his last quarter on a saloon meal. Yet within four years, he has become wealthy enough to be interviewed in a Fifth Avenue hotel suite. The transformation is not merely financial: Brainard's inner shift is dramatized in a mountain scene where he laughs at his former self, "writing play pieces, making tiny scenes for a tiny stage." Now he declares, "The world was the great stage upon which he would present his masterpiece!"

This vision merges art and life: he wants to "write the play in life, as God writes upon the snows." The language becomes ecstatic—"all will—a vitalized mass of glorious energy to conceive, to create, to do!"—marking a sharp contrast with the opening's dejection. The excerpts show that Brainard's inheritance (from a figure named Krutzmacht, described as an "old buccaneer of the West") enables this shift, but the narrative emphasizes his will as the driving force.

Theater, Reporting, and the West

The excerpts include a secondary character, Farson, a former reporter who helped Brainard "crack the safe and get away with the contents" in San Francisco. Farson also aspired to be a playwright but sold only one melodrama based on their adventures, for fifty dollars. Now working for Bunker's Magazine, he is sent to interview Brainard about his "rapid rise into the limelight." This subplot ties together the catalog subjects of theater and adventure: the safe-cracking incident is a concrete adventure, and both men's theatrical ambitions are frustrated or transformed.

The interview takes place in the same hotel where Brainard once slunk away with his rejected play, emphasizing the reversal of fortune. Farson's presence also introduces a journalistic perspective, contrasting with Brainard's artistic vision. The excerpts do not reveal whether Farson's interview succeeds or how the mining subject connects, but the Western adventure is clearly a shared past.

Setting and Symbolism: Urban Gloom vs. Mountain Light

The novel's settings are sharply contrasted. The opening depicts a crowded, shabby Fifth Avenue at dusk, with Brainard moving "vacant of purpose" through traffic. The language is gray: "misty space," "discouraged pace," "the freedom of absolute poverty." Later, the scene shifts to a mountain landscape with "wonderful sea of blue sky" and "snowy peaks." Here, Brainard experiences a vision of will and creation, laughing "in the cloudless amplitude of snow and blue heavens."

This juxtaposition is not merely scenic but symbolic. The city represents failure and constraint; the mountains, liberation and possibility. The old miner who accompanies Brainard in the mountain scene hails him, and Brainard promises, "We'll make the Melody sing!"—a phrase that hints at a future project. The excerpts do not explain "Melody," but it likely relates to the mining subject. The shift from urban to natural settings mirrors Brainard's psychological transformation from dejection to grandiose ambition.

Readers should note that the excerpts cover only the beginning and middle portions of the novel (Parts I and II). The catalog lists "Mines and mineral resources" as a subject, which may connect to the "Melody" reference and the mining figure Krutzmacht, but this is not elaborated in the provided text. Similarly, the "Mystery fiction" subject is not evident in these excerpts. The novel's structure—moving from urban failure to Western adventure to a possible theatrical or mining enterprise—invites attention to how Herrick balances these elements. Pay particular attention to the role of will and vision in Brainard's transformation, and how the narrative handles the transition from realist detail to symbolic landscape.

I often think of Brainard, in Herrick’s quiet tragedy, shuffling through his inherited fortune as if life were merely a script awaiting its cue. There’s a restless seeking there, a longing for grand meaning. That same ache whispers through Joe Napyank; or, The River Rifles — Reading Notes, though its world is simpler, more river-bound. Both books share a peculiar loneliness, men reaching for something beyond the ordinary, never quite saying what it is.