Thomas Wolfe is best known for his long, autobiographical novels, but he also wrote many short stories. Wolfe often later incorporated material from his short stories into his novels. The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe, edited by Francis E. Skipp and published in 1987, collects all 58 of Wolfe’s short stories.
I recently read Wolfe’s 1934 short story “The Four Lost Men.” In the story, Wolfe recalls when he was sixteen years old, and the United States was about to enter World War I in 1917. The story becomes a jumping off point for an extended flight of fancy about Presidents James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, and Rutherford B. Hayes: the four lost men. These four U.S. Presidents have become more lost to the mists of time than they were in Wolfe’s boyhood. Even as a devotee of American history, I can’t tell you very much about these four men.
In the story, the narrator’s father goes on a monologue about American history, mentioning the different presidents, and when he mentions these four men together, that sets the narrator off on a journey. He imagines what their Civil War service was like—each of the four became a general during the war.
Wolfe writes: “Had Garfield, Arthur, Harrison and Hayes been young? Or had they been born with flowing whiskers, sideburns, and wing-collars, speaking gravely from the cradle of their mother’s arms the noble vacant sonorities of far-seeing statesmanship?” (p.113) I love those sentences, it’s impossible for me to think of men from that era as having ever been young. But of course, they must have been.
Wolfe goes on to query: “Did they not, as we, when young, prowl softly up and down past brothels in the dark hours of the night, seeing the gas lamps flare and flutter on the corner, falling with livid light upon the corners of old cobbled streets of brownstone houses?” (p.113) Wolfe paints such a vivid picture of this scene—we can easily imagine young Chester A. Arthur pacing up and down the street, steeling his nerve to enter the dimly lit brothel, with faded purple fabric covering the walls, and in a trembling voice ask for Louisa, the short, dark-haired girl that sets his soul aflame. Or we can imagine young James A. Garfield, walking past the Italian restaurant again and again, getting up the tense courage to enter and order an entire lasagna, the better to satisfy his craving for this rare ethnic dish. Once seated, he gobbles the whole pan, grabbing the lasagna with his hands, disdaining silverware, barely pausing before his ravenous hunger is satiated. Upon finishing the lasagna, Garfield lets out a wail that seems to come from some animal instinct deep within his soul. Oh, wait, I’m thinking of another Garfield.
One of my favorite sentences in the story is this one: “Had they not, as we, then turned their eyes up and seen the huge starred visage of the night, the immense and lilac darkness of America in April?” (p.114) I love the phrase “lilac darkness,” it’s just so beautiful and evocative of the springtime.
F. Scott Fitzgerald referenced the story in a letter to Wolfe. Wolfe had written to Fitzgerald, praising his new novel Tender Is the Night, and Fitzgerald addressed his reply to Wolfe, “Dear Arthur, Garfield, Harrison, and Hayes.” He signed the letter “F. Scott Fitzgerald and Arthur, Garfield, Harrison and Hayes,” a fun example of Fitzgerald’s playfulness, which was often expressed in his letters.
“The Four Lost Men” was originally published in Scribner’s magazine in February, 1934. That same issue of the magazine also featured the second installment of Tender Is the Night, which was serialized in Scribner’s before being published in book form in April. Fitzgerald wrote to a friend, asking “did you notice that in the second issue of Scribner’s that really great story by Tom Wolfe,” which was “The Four Lost Men.” (Correspondence of FSF, p.323)
Fitzgerald also expressed his enthusiasm for “The Four Lost Men” in a letter to Maxwell Perkins, who edited Fitzgerald and Wolfe—and Ernest Hemingway! Fitzgerald wrote: “I like ‘Only the Dead’ {Only the Dead Know Brooklyn, another Wolfe short story} and ‘Arthur, Garfield, etc.’ {The Four Lost Men} right up with the tops.” (Letters of FSF, p.316) Obviously, the story made an impression on Fitzgerald.
Like so much of Wolfe’s writing “The Four Lost Men” becomes poetry, an incantation, an invocation of the spirits of the four lost men. A meditation on the very nature of America, with the four presidents finding four women to represent the four regions of the country, North, South, East, and West. There’s a wry humor in imagining these colorless men as passionate, vibrant beings with rich and complicated inner lives. The story is an excellent example of Wolfe’s skill as a writer, his ability to paint a rich and vibrant portrait from the most unlikely of sources.
