LIFE EVERLASTING
and Other Tales of Science, Fantasy and Horror
To Celia Keller
INTRODUCTION
AFTER consulting a number of standard dictionaries, I find there is a certain amount of overlapping in the definitions of the two words, writer and author. Just as irrefutably, there are certain meanings and added inferences that apply only to one or the other. Anyone can be a writer, conceding his education is sufficient to place understandable words on paper. An author, however, must, in addition, be a creator, an originator, and an elaborator. He must have something new to say, a novel way of saying it, and some definite reason for writing it. There have been periods in the life of David H. Keller, M.D. when, under the spur of necessity, he wrote as a professional writer, yet without ever "slanting" his stories toward a particular editor's viewpoint; but for the past fifty years, he has also tried to become an author.
For thirty years, he wrote simply for the pleasure of writing, with the definite objective of finding a satisfactory form of expressing his thoughts. This search finally produced a style, later noted for its simplicity and beauty, which became his trade-mark. While for many years he was the leading writer of science fiction, he never produced a trend, no one being able to imitate successfully either his style or the authenticity of his human understanding.
In an interview published in Science Fiction Digest, July, 1933, Doctor Keller thus sums up his ambition to become an author:
"I like to write beautifully—to string words together like a necklace of pearls, each word having a definite relation to the word before it and the word following, and all together forming a well balanced sentence; and when I write this way, I have nothing in mind except the pleasure of writing."
It is generally accepted that only authors write literature. Since most great literature is about people, then the more fully a man has lived, the closer his association with, and understanding of, people, the deeper his emotional experiences and the more he has traveled, the greater is his chance of creating a genuine masterpiece of literature. However, in addition to all these, he must have at least some degree of literary talent.
Throughout the ages, scholars have plumbed the most intimate depths of the lives of writers who have become acknowledged authors. They have searched through rare sources for facts concerning background, heredity, environment, emotional stresses, and, in fact, any information which would explain the source of the vital sparc of divine fire that gave to the author's writings the shape of permanency.
The life of David H. Keller, M.D., is as interesting a one as can be found in the annals of literature. Born and educated in Philadelphia, he practiced medicine for ten years as a horse-and-buggy doctor in a small country town. In 1915, he became interested in psychiatry, which specialty he practiced until his retirement in 1945, after serving as Assistant Superintendant in state hospitals for the insane in Louisiana, Illinois, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania. In May, 1917, he became a First Lieutenant in the Army Medical Reserve, serving through both World Wars, being retired after twenty-eight years of commissioned service with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. During these years, he gradually accumulated a variety of interesting experiences which interpenetrated everything he wrote. Although many of his stories wear the guise of fantasy, few are of the stuff from which dreams are made, and most of them have a basic foundation of personal adventure; for to him all life is adventure. Thus, often he wrote about the actual life of real people. If a man has lived largely and richly, it is unnecessary for him to draw on his imagination for plots, though he may embroider them as he will. The elements of his life provide enough literary wool to weave keller-yarns until eternity.
In a small glass-doored bookcase in Doctor Keller's library, in his spacious home at Underwood, in South Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, are two rows of unpublished novels and stories. Many of these will, perhaps, never be published, at least not in his lifetime; and yet they are, in a way, more interesting than his printed work, for they tell in a most intimate manner the story of one man's life. As a psychiatrist, he found that the personal analysis of life, as he had lived it, was extremely interesting. This study he incorporated into many of his novels, and made no attempt to publish them.
It has been my privilege to read many of these books, such as "Shadows and Realities," "Wanderers in Spain," "The Lady Decides," "Through the Back Door," "The Fighting Woman," and his published book of poems, "Songs of a Spanish Lover." Of these personalized stories, "The Fighting Woman" is, to me, the most interesting, because it reveals the answer to many questions that can be asked about David H. Keller. In sheer reading entertainment, this novel is exceptional, but it is far more than entertaining. It tells the story of three generations of the Keller family, as scientifically evaluated by a well-trained, mature, psychiatrist.
Until David H. Keller reached the age of six years, he talked little English. His language could be understood only by his sister, eighteen months older. When she died at the age of seven, the little boy lost all verbal communication with the world. This part of his life was the basis of Doctor Keller's story, "The Lost Language," in the January, 1934 issue of Amazing Stories. In the story, the question is raised as to whether the factor of ancestral memory could be considered as the origin of the jargon he used as a child.
At the age of six years, he was sent to public school from which he was sent home the first day as being language-deficient. His mother, a proud woman, realized for the first time that this retardation might cause her son to be considered mentally defective, so she began intensive efforts to teach the boy to talk English. For years of her daughter's life, she had been completely absorbed by and with this lovely child, doing only those things which were absolutely necessary for the son whom she did not consider an integral part of her life. She had failed to either care or understand that nearly all children have a language of their own; and because it was easier for his sister to translate his thoughts than for her to spend time trying either to understand or teach him, he was now, to her amazement, a potential disgrace.
For three years, this indomitable woman supplemented his private schooling, so that when he again entered public school he had a vocabulary far in advance of other children of his age and grade.
The great importance of this childhood experience lay in the fact that he had to be taught English as a foreigner would. Every new word learned represented a magnificient victory, bringing ever closer an easy medium of expression. He came to understand the value of simple words and short sentences. Thus in later years, when he began to write, his compositions were distinguished by an exemplary economy of bi-syllable words and a use of short sentences. This resulted in a literary style which has never been duplicated by any other science fiction writer.
Many of Doctor Keller's stories deal in some form with the conflict between the sexes in which the men often lose the battle for supremacy. In his novel, "The Eternal Conflict," which will be published in a few months, he sums up in a magnificient allegorical fantasy, his life-long conclusions concerning the never-ending strife between man and woman, which he feels has existed from earliest times and is becoming more aggravated in the present. This novel is the master thesis repeated in part in "The Feminine World," in which society becomes completely dominated by women, and only a few men are saved by the unwillingness of some women to destroy their own beloved men. "The Feminine Metamorphosis," published in Science Wonder Stories, August, 1939, tells of an international group of women who scientifically change themselves into males with the purpose of destroying male supremacy. Fortun
ately, Taine of San Francisco, Doctor Keller's counterpart of Sherlock Holmes, is able to defeat their purpose.
The women in most of his stories are not pleasant companions. They seem dominated by an inferiority complex compensated for by a determination to destroy those they love or envy. In his fantasy, "The Golden Bough," is shown the inability of the husband to satisfy his wife. She strangles him with her hair, and then follows the demi-god, Pan, to her destruction. The story ends with Pan's comment:
"These mortals are never happy. They always try to gather moonbeams, and even I cannot do that."
In "Bindings De Luxe," a beautiful Spanish woman lures male book-binders to her home, drugs them, tattooes their backs, and uses the skins to bind her Encyclopedia Brittanica. Fortunately, her twenty-sixth visitor turns the tables and binds the last volume in a skin of a more delicate texture. In "Seeds of Death," the woman feeds her admirers seeds which grow inside them, and when these plants flower, the men die. In "The Tiger Cat," the woman blinds her would-be lovers, chains them in her cellar, sings to them, and beats them until they applaud her.
It is, however, in "A Piece of Linoleum," that this feminine dominance reaches a climax. This is not a tale of beautiful daemons in faraway lands, but of a very ordinary woman who, through years of commonplace married life, so thoroughly dominates her husband that he finally escapes through suicide. Not all husbands seek such release, but every man seems to understand the story.
Judging from these tales, it would appear that David H. Keller does not like women. Perhaps it is because he is basically afraid of them. It may be that the answer to this pronounced complex can be found in his unpublished novel, "The Fighting Woman." It seems evident that he was early conditioned by the unflagging efforts of his mother to completely dominate, control, and possess, his every thought and act. A brilliant woman, she either dominated everyone in her life-sphere or eliminated them forthwith. Not until he became a psychiatrist, could he fully understand the conflict between mother and son. This may easily have been the cause of his distrust of all women. Later, in state hospitals for abnormals, he always served on the female wards, and there he met women who, because of their psychoses, had lost all repression, becoming completely primitive. This gave him keen insight into the multitude of tragedies women brought into the lives of their men folk.
This viewpoint is one of the most powerful influences evident in his writing, expressing itself subtly or forcibly in dozens of his published stories, though occasionally, as in "Life Everlasting," softened by his deep compassion for any human in distress, regardless of sex.
David H. Keller entered the Central High School, Philadelphia, at the age of fourteen. Here he wrote his first science fiction novel and many short stories. The original long-hand manuscripts remain in his collection, but will probably never be published. They show little except the desire to write.
As a medical student at the University of Pennsylvania, this urge to write continued. Some of his stories were published in the college paper, the Red and Blue, and in the religious journal, the Presbyterian. While in college, he joined a group of literary-minded juveniles, and with them produced seven issues of a magazine patterned after the Black Cat, and appropriately called the White Owl. Five of Doctor Keller's stories appeared in this magazine under the pen-name of "Henry Cecil." The stories are not important, but the experience made a lasting impression. He has never refused a request from an editor of a science fiction fan magazine who had nothing to offer in payment except thanks.
Doctor Keller has written largely of his ancestors, the Kellers from Alsace, the Hubelaires from France, and the Cecils from Cornwall. In all the stories woven around these families, especially the Cornwall Stories, it is evident that he is the hero reliving some fancied adventure of a long-dead ancestor. Some might call this "wish fulfillment," while others may feel it is the inherited memories dug up from the subconscious. The fact is that whether he is writing of life in the twelfth century, or in the year 1947, David H. Keller enjoys writing about himself, and when he writes thus, he writes well. If anyone doubts this, I would advise their reading The Devil and the Doctor. No one knowing him and talking to him at his home at Underwood can doubt who is the hero of The Sign of the Burning Hart, the retired army officer in his new novel, "The Homonculus," or the book lover in "The Gentle Pirate."
All the quarter morocco bound novels and stories in his library are credited to "Henry Cecil." This is also true of his privately printed book of poetry, "The Songs of a Spanish Lover." His personal volume of these poems is illustrated in exquisite water colors by a patient of his, a lovely paranoiac, who believed she was the rightful heir to the Spanish throne. In this book is a letter in Spanish, and those who read that letter can gain insight into the reason for the writing of these poems.
In his published stories, the lead character is often named Henry Cecil. It appears in "The Thirty and One," "The Life Detour," "The Key to Cornwall," and "The Doorbell." In this latter tale, he uses the pen-name, "Amy Worth," a name under which he wrote many stories for Ten Story Book. This story is one of unique horror. Fish hooks, very small, are placed in capsules. The victims are given these capsules by an innocent doctor who cares for his patients in a small infirmary. On the floor above, directly over the bed, is a large magnet. When the doorbell rings, the magnet begins drawing the fishhooks; certainly an unusual use of accredited scientific machinery, and a unique method of continuing a feud between two Southern families.
As a horse-and-buggy doctor, David H. Keller found life something far different from his boyhood fancies. There were years of struggle to support the family, in course of time increased by two daughters. After ten years, satisfied he was facing financial failure, he accepted a position as Junior Physician on the staff of the Anna State Hospital in Illinois, and thus began his life as a psychiatrist. One published story, "The Bridle," tells of the little town he served for those hopeless years. The real story, however, is told in his "Wanderers in Spain," an unpublished novel.
Doctor Keller's experiences in mental hospitals are detailed in his unpublished autobiography, "Through the Back Door." In this work, he shows the impression such an environment made on an essentially sensitive personality. He studied thousands of abnormals, lived with them, in some strange way became their friend. Each of his patients had a story, ever new, always fantastic in novelty and horror. This close observation of, and association with, the abnormal mind with its indelible background of sheer terror, could not help but condition the physician. Undoubtedly, his writings were influenced by this association. There is an underlying horror and morbidity in much of his writing, after he became a psychiatrist. Even as he strove to write beautifully, as in "The Sign of the Burning Hart," "The Golden Bough," "The Eternal Conflict," and "The Thirty and One," an actual under-current of insufficiently repressed horror flowed through. This element was not the manufactured bogy, part and parcel of the stock in trade of the weird tale hack, but part of the man's mental outlook; at times, barely noticeable, at other times, ominously surging toward the surface and held in check only by a counter-balance of deep understanding of, and sympathy and love for, humanity, gained through the years of service to the unfortunates of life.
In no long story that Doctor Keller has written, has horror predominated over human understanding and humor. It was not in him to maintain the gloomy face overlong or look at the sorry aspect of life forever. But in his short stories there have, on occasion, been instances where sheer horror predominated. This type of horror can only be developed by an experienced psychiatrist pressing relentlessly on the basic emotional centers of the brain. Such a story is "The Thing in the Cellar," which has often been called "the greatest horror story in the English language." The simple phrasing and disarmlngly leisurely pace of the story lead to a culmination of truly shocking impact. Many thousands of words have been written speculating on the real meaning of this thriller, questioning as to the reality or lack of reality of that thing in the cellar of an old E
nglish home. Few critics have considered that this fine terror tale carries behind it a grim, psychological truth based on hundreds of case histories studied by a master-psychiatrist. The moral is simply this: Our own fears will destroy us, if we permit them.
Some critics believe that "The Dead Woman," first printed in Fantasy Magazine, and then reprinted in the English anthology Nightmare by Daylight, surpasses in terror "The Thing in the Cellar." Its tempo is slow, but the story gains in intensity of feeling. At the end, only the psychiatrist realizes that the husband has been psychotic for many months. The man is definitely without realization that he has done anything wrong. At the conclusion, he asks:
"What would you do, Doctor? What would any man have done who loved his wife?"
Examine the art of this author: Superficially there appears to be a story told only for its own sake, but the slightest research reveals an ever present strain of allegory. There are lessons in human behavior to be learned, and Doctor Keller is teaching them. A near perfect state of the future may someday be devised as in "Unto Us a Child Is Born"; but it will not make people happy if it ignores the basic human emotional needs simply for the sake of maximum utility.
In the lead story of this anthology, "Life Everlasting," America is granted eternal life and health, but in the end the women do not want it because the price is sterility, and the American women want to know what is the value of additional years, if they could not become mothers.
When Doctor Thomas S. Gardner, one of the country's leading Gerontologists, informed Doctor Keller that due to inspiration from the story, "The Boneless Horror," he had experimented with "royal jelly," a food eaten exclusively by queen bees and which seemed responsible for their long life-span in contrast to the short life of the worker bee, and that in experiments he has been able to greatly prolong the life of fruit flies by feeding them this food, Doctor Keller simply asked, "What will the fruit flies do with these extra days of life?"
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