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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6), by
+Various, Edited by Asa Don Dickinson
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6)
+       Authors and Journalists
+
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Asa Don Dickinson
+
+Release Date: June 15, 2006  [eBook #18598]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES OF ACHIEVEMENT, VOLUME IV
+(OF 6)***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustration.
+      See 18598-h.htm or 18598-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/5/9/18598/18598-h/18598-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/5/9/18598/18598-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+STORIES OF ACHIEVEMENT, VOLUME IV
+
+Authors and Journalists
+
+Edited by
+
+ASA DON DICKINSON
+
+Authors and Journalists
+
+ JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
+ ROBERT BURNS
+ CHARLOTTE BRONTE
+ CHARLES DICKENS
+ HORACE GREELEY
+ LOUISA M. ALCOTT
+ HENRY GEORGE
+ WILLIAM H. RIDEING
+ JACOB A. RIIS
+ HELEN KELLER
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: Robert Burns]
+
+
+
+
+
+Garden City ---- New York
+Doubleday, Page & Company
+1925
+Copyright, 1916, by
+Doubleday, Page & Company
+All Rights Reserved
+
+
+
+
+ACKNOWLEDGMENT
+
+In the preparation of this volume the publishers have received from
+several houses and authors generous permissions to reprint copyright
+material.  For this they wish to express their cordial gratitude.  In
+particular, acknowledgments are due to the Houghton Mifflin Company for
+permission to reprint the sketch of Horace Greeley; to Little, Brown &
+Co. for permission to reprint passages from "The Life, Letters, and
+Journals of Louisa May Alcott"; to Mr. Henry George, Jr., for the
+extract from his life of his father; to William H. Rideing for
+permission to reprint extracts from his book "Many Celebrities and a
+Few Others"; to the Macmillan Company for permission to use passages
+from "The Making of an American," by Jacob A. Riis; to Miss Helen
+Keller for permission to reprint from "The Story of My Life."
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+AUTHORS AND JOURNALISTS
+
+JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
+  The Man to Whom Expression was Travail
+
+ROBERT BURNS
+  The Ploughman-poet
+
+HORACE GREELEY
+  How the Farm-boy Became an Editor
+
+CHARLES DICKENS
+  The Factory Boy
+
+CHARLOTTE BRONTE
+  The Country Parson's Daughter
+
+LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
+  The Journal of a Brave and Talented Girl
+
+HENRY GEORGE
+  The Troubles of a Job Printer
+
+JACOB RIIS
+  "The Making of an American"
+
+WILLIAM H. RIDEING
+  Rejected Manuscripts
+
+HELEN ADAMS KELLER
+  How She Learned to Speak
+
+
+
+
+JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
+
+(1712-1778)
+
+THE MAN TO WHOM EXPRESSION WAS TRAVAIL
+
+From the "Confessions of Rousseau."
+
+It is strange to hear that those critics who spoke of Rousseau's
+"incomparable gift of expression," of his "easy, natural style," were
+ludicrously incorrect in their allusions.  From his "Confessions" we
+learn that he had no gift of clear, fluent expression; that he was by
+nature so incoherent that he could not creditably carry on an ordinary
+conversation; and that the ideas which stirred Europe, although
+spontaneously conceived, were brought forth and set before the world
+only after their progenitor had suffered the real pangs of labor.
+
+But after all it is the same old story over again.  Great things are
+rarely said or done easily.
+
+Two things very opposite unite in me, and in a manner which I cannot
+myself conceive.  My disposition is extremely ardent, my passions
+lively and impetuous, yet my ideas are produced slowly, with great
+embarrassment and after much afterthought.  It might be said my heart
+and understanding do not belong to the same individual.  A sentiment
+takes possession of my soul with the rapidity of lightning, but instead
+of illuminating, it dazzles and confounds me; I feel all, but see
+nothing; I am warm but stupid; to think I must be cool.  What is
+astonishing, my conception is clear and penetrating, if not hurried: I
+can make excellent impromptus at leisure, but on the instant could
+never say or do anything worth notice.  I could hold a tolerable
+conversation by the post, as they say the Spaniards play at chess, and
+when I read that anecdote of a duke of Savoy, who turned himself round,
+while on a journey, to cry out "_a votre gorge, marchand de Paris_!" I
+said, "Here is a trait of my character!"
+
+This slowness of thought, joined to vivacity of feeling, I am not only
+sensible of in conversation, but even alone.  When I write, my ideas
+are arranged with the utmost difficulty.  They glance on my imagination
+and ferment till they discompose, heat, and bring on a palpitation;
+during this state of agitation I see nothing properly, cannot write a
+single word, and must wait till all is over.  Insensibly the agitation
+subsides, the chaos acquires form, and each circumstance takes its
+proper place.  Have you never seen an opera in Italy where during the
+change of scene everything is in confusion, the decorations are
+intermingled, and any one would suppose that all would be overthrown;
+yet by little and little, everything is arranged, nothing appears
+wanting, and we feel surprised to see the tumult succeeded by the most
+delightful spectacle.  This is a resemblance of what passes in my brain
+when I attempt to write; had I always waited till that confusion was
+past, and then pointed, in their natural beauties, the objects that had
+presented themselves, few authors would have surpassed me.
+
+Thence arises the extreme difficulty I find in writing; my manuscripts,
+blotted, scratched, and scarcely legible, attest the trouble they cost
+me; nor is there one of them but I have been obliged to transcribe four
+or five times before it went to press.  Never could I do anything when
+placed at a table, pen in hand; it must be walking among the rocks, or
+in the woods; it is at night in my bed, during my wakeful hours, that I
+compose; it may be judged how slowly, particularly for a man who has
+not the advantage of verbal memory, and never in his life could retain
+by heart six verses.  Some of my periods I have turned and returned in
+my head five or six nights before they were fit to be put to paper:
+thus it is that I succeed better in works that require laborious
+attention than those that appear more trivial, such as letters, in
+which I could never succeed, and being obliged to write one is to me a
+serious punishment; nor can I express my thoughts on the most trivial
+subjects without it costing me hours of fatigue.  If I write
+immediately what strikes me, my letter is a long, confused, unconnected
+string of expressions, which, when read, can hardly be understood.
+
+It is not only painful to me to give language to my ideas but even to
+receive them.  I have studied mankind, and think myself a tolerable
+observer, yet I know nothing from what I see, but all from what I
+remember, nor have I understanding except in my recollections.  From
+all that is said, from all that passes in my presence, I feel nothing,
+conceive nothing, the exterior sign being all that strikes me;
+afterward it returns to my remembrance; I recollect the place, the
+time, the manner, the look, and gesture, not a circumstance escapes me;
+it is then, from what has been done or said, that I imagine what has
+been thought, and I have rarely found myself mistaken.
+
+So little master of my understanding when alone, let any one judge what
+I must be in conversation, where to speak with any degree of ease you
+must think of a thousand things at the same time: the bare idea that I
+should forget something material would be sufficient to intimidate me.
+Nor can I comprehend how people can have the confidence to converse in
+large companies, where each word must pass in review before so many,
+and where it would be requisite to know their several characters and
+histories to avoid saying what might give offence.  In this particular,
+those who frequent the world would have a great advantage, as they know
+better where to be silent, and can speak with greater confidence; yet
+even they sometimes let fall absurdities; in what predicament then must
+he be who drops as it were from the clouds?  It is almost impossible he
+should speak ten minutes with impunity.
+
+In a tête-à-tête there is a still worse inconvenience; that is, the
+necessity of talking perpetually, at least, the necessity of answering
+when spoken to, and keeping up the conversation when the other is
+silent.  This insupportable constraint is alone sufficient to disgust
+me with variety, for I cannot form an idea of a greater torment than
+being obliged to speak continually without time for recollection.  I
+know not whether it proceeds from my mortal hatred of all constraint;
+but if I am obliged to speak, I infallibly talk nonsense.  What is
+still worse, instead of learning how to be silent when I have
+absolutely nothing to say, it is generally at such times that I have a
+violent inclination; and, endeavoring to pay my debt of conversation as
+speedily as possible, I hastily gabble a number of words without ideas,
+happy when they only chance to mean nothing; thus endeavoring to
+conquer or hide my incapacity, I rarely fail to show it.
+
+I think I have said enough to show that, though not a fool, I have
+frequently passed for one, even among people capable of judging; this
+was the more vexatious, as my physiognomy and eyes promised otherwise,
+and expectation being frustrated, my stupidity appeared the more
+shocking.  This detail, which a particular occasion gave birth to, will
+not be useless in the sequel, being a key to many of my actions which
+might otherwise appear unaccountable; and have been attributed to a
+savage humor I do not possess.  I love society as much as any man, was
+I not certain to exhibit myself in it, not only disadvantageously, but
+totally different from what I really am.  The plan I have adopted of
+writing and retirement is what exactly suits me.  Had I been present,
+my worth would never have been known, no one would ever have suspected
+it; thus it was with Madam Dupin, a woman of sense, in whose house I
+lived for several years; indeed, she has often since owned it to me:
+though on the whole this rule may be subject to some exceptions. . . .
+
+The heat of the summer was this year (1749) excessive.  Vincennes is
+two leagues from Paris.  The state of my finances not permitting me to
+pay for hackney coaches, at two o'clock in the afternoon, I went on
+foot, when alone, and walked as fast as possible, that I might arrive
+the sooner.  The trees by the side of the road, always lopped,
+according to the custom of the country, afforded but little shade, and
+exhausted by fatigue, I frequently threw myself on the ground, being
+unable to proceed any farther.  I thought a book in my hand might make
+me moderate my pace.  One day I took the _Mercure de France_, and as I
+walked and read, I came to the following question proposed by the
+academy of Dijon, for the premium of the ensuing year: Has the progress
+of sciences and arts contributed to corrupt or purify morals?
+
+The moment I had read this, I seemed to behold another world, and
+became a different man.  Although I have a lively remembrance of the
+impression it made upon me, the detail has escaped my mind, since I
+communicated it to M. de Malesherbes in one of my four letters to him.
+This is one of the singularities of my memory which merits to be
+remarked.  It serves me in proportion to my dependence upon it; the
+moment I have committed to paper that with which it was charged, it
+forsakes me, and I have no sooner written a thing than I had forgotten
+it entirely.  This singularity is the same with respect to music.
+Before I learned the use of notes I knew a great number of songs; the
+moment I had made a sufficient progress to sing an air of art set to
+music, I could not recollect any one of them; and, at present, I much
+doubt whether I should be able entirely to go through one of those of
+which I was the most fond.  All I distinctly recollect upon this
+occasion is, that on my arrival at Vincennes, I was in an agitation
+which approached a delirium.  Diderot perceived it; I told him the
+cause, and read to him the prosopopoeia of Fabricius, written with a
+pencil under a tree.  He encouraged me to pursue my ideas, and to
+become a competitor for the premium.  I did so, and from that moment I
+was ruined.
+
+All the rest of my misfortunes during my life were the inevitable
+effect of this moment of error.
+
+My sentiments became elevated with the most inconceivable rapidity to
+the level of my ideas.  All my little passions were stifled by the
+enthusiasm of truth, liberty, and virtue; and, what is most
+astonishing, this effervescence continued in my mind upward of five
+years, to as great a degree, perhaps, as it has ever done in that of
+any other man.  I composed the discourse in a very singular manner, and
+in that style which I have always followed in my other works, I
+dedicated to it the hours of the night in which sleep deserted me; I
+meditated in my bed with my eyes closed, and in my mind turned over and
+over again my periods with incredible labor and care; the moment they
+were finished to my satisfaction, I deposited in my memory, until I had
+an opportunity of committing them to paper; but the time of rising and
+putting on my clothes made me lose everything, and when I took up my
+pen I recollected but little of what I had composed.  I made Madam le
+Vasseur my secretary; I had lodged her with her daughter and husband
+nearer to myself; and she, to save me the expense of a servant, came
+every morning to make my fire, and to do such other little things as
+were necessary.  As soon as she arrived I dictated to her while in bed
+what I had composed in the night, and this method, which for a long
+time I observed, preserved me many things I should otherwise have
+forgotten.
+
+As soon as the discourse was finished, I showed it to Diderot.  He was
+satisfied with the production, and pointed out some corrections he
+thought necessary to be made.  However, this composition, full of force
+and fire, absolutely wants logic and order; of all the works I ever
+wrote, this is the weakest in reasoning, and the most devoid of number
+and harmony.  With whatever talent a man may be born, the art of
+writing is not easily learned.
+
+I sent off this piece without mentioning it to anybody, except, I
+think, to Grimm.
+
+The year following (1750), not thinking more of my discourse, I learned
+it had gained the premium at Dijon.  This news awakened all the ideas
+which had dictated it to me, gave them new animation, and completed the
+fermentation of my heart of that first leaves of heroism and virtue
+which my father, my country, and Plutarch had inspired in my infancy.
+Nothing now appeared great in my eyes but to be free and virtuous,
+superior to fortune and opinion, and independent of all exterior
+circumstances; although a false shame, and the fear of disapprobation
+at first prevented me from conducting myself according to these
+principles, and from suddenly quarrelling with the maxims of the age in
+which I lived, I from that moment took a decided resolution to do
+it. . . .
+
+
+
+
+ROBERT BURNS
+
+(1759-1796)
+
+THE PLOUGHMAN-POET
+
+A note of pride in his humble origin rings throughout the following
+pages.  The ploughman poet was wiser in thought than in deed, and his
+life was not a happy one.  But, whatever his faults, he did his best
+with the one golden talent that Fate bestowed upon him.  Each book that
+he encountered was made to stand and deliver the message that it
+carried for him.  Sweethearting and good-fellowship were his bane, yet
+he won much good from his practice of the art of correspondence with
+sweethearts and boon companions.  And although Socrates was perhaps
+scarcely a name to him, he studied always to follow the Athenian's
+favourite maxim, _Know thyself_; realizing, with his elder brother of
+Warwickshire, that "the chiefest study of mankind is man."
+
+
+From an autobiographical sketch sent to Dr. Moore.
+
+[_To Dr. Moore_]
+
+MAUCHLINE, August 2, 1787.
+
+For some months past I have been rambling over the country, but I am
+now confined with some lingering complaints, originating, as I take it,
+in the stomach.  To divert my spirits a little in this miserable fog of
+ennui, I have taken a whim to give you a history of myself.  My name
+has made some little noise in this country; you have done me the honour
+to interest yourself very warmly in my behalf; and I think a faithful
+account of what character of a man I am, and how I came by that
+character, may perhaps amuse you in an idle moment.  I will give you an
+honest narrative, though I know it will be often at my own expense; for
+I assure you, sir, I have, like Solomon, whose character, excepting in
+the trifling affair of wisdom, I sometimes think I resemble--I have, I
+say, like him turned my eyes to behold madness and folly, and like him,
+too, frequently shaken hands with their intoxicating friendship.  After
+you have perused these pages, should you think them trifling and
+impertinent, I only beg leave to tell you that the poor author wrote
+them under some twitching qualms of conscience, arising from a
+suspicion that he was doing what he ought not to do; a predicament he
+has more than once been in before.
+
+I have not the most distant pretensions to assume that character which
+the pye-coated guardians of escutcheons call a gentleman.  When at
+Edinburgh last winter I got acquainted in the _Herald's_ office; and,
+looking through that granary of honors, I there found almost every name
+in the kingdom; but for me,
+
+      My ancient but ignoble blood
+  Has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood.
+
+Gules, purpure, argent, etc., quite disowned me.
+
+My father was of the north of Scotland, the son of a farmer, and was
+thrown by early misfortunes on the world at large; where, after many
+years' wanderings and sojournings, he picked up a pretty large quantity
+of observation and experience, to which I am indebted for most of my
+little pretensions to wisdom.  I have met with few who understood men,
+their manners and their ways, equal to him; but stubborn, ungainly
+integrity, and headlong, ungovernable irascibility, are disqualifying
+circumstances; consequently, I was born a very poor man's son.  For the
+first six or seven years of my life my father was gardener to a worthy
+gentleman of small estate in the neighbourhood of Ayr.  Had he
+continued in that station, I must have marched off to be one of the
+little underlings about a farmhouse; but it was his dearest wish and
+prayer to have it in his power to keep his children under his own eye
+till they could discern between good and evil; so with the assistance
+of his generous master, my father ventured on a small farm on his
+estate.
+
+At those years, I was by no means a favourite with anybody.  I was a
+good deal noted for a retentive memory, a stubborn, sturdy something in
+my disposition, and an enthusiastic, idiotic piety.  I say idiotic
+piety because I was then but a child.  Though it cost the schoolmaster
+some thrashings, I made an excellent English scholar; and by the time I
+was ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs,
+and particles.  In my infant and boyish days, too, I owe much to an old
+woman who resided in the family, remarkable for her ignorance,
+credulity, and superstition.  She had, I suppose, the largest
+collection in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts,
+fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles,
+dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers,
+dragons, and other trumpery.  This cultivated the latent seeds of
+poetry; but had so strong an effect on my imagination that to this hour
+in my nocturnal rambles I sometimes keep a sharp lookout in suspicious
+places; and though nobody can be more sceptical than I am in such
+matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these
+idle terrors.
+
+The earliest composition that I recollect taking pleasure in was "The
+Vision of Mirza," and a hymn of Addison's beginning, "How are thy
+servants blest, O Lord!"  I particularly remember one half-stanza which
+was music to my boyish ear--
+
+  For though on dreadful whirls we hung
+  High on the broken wave--
+
+I met with these pieces in Mason's English Collection, one of my
+schoolbooks.  The first two books I ever read in private, and which
+gave me more pleasure than any two books I ever read since, were "The
+Life of Hannibal" and "The History of Sir William Wallace."  Hannibal
+gave my young ideas such a turn that I used to strut in raptures up and
+down after the recruiting drum and bagpipe and wish myself tall enough
+to be a soldier; while the story of Wallace poured a Scottish prejudice
+into my veins, which will boil along there till the floodgates of life
+shut in eternal rest.
+
+Polemical divinity about this time was putting the country half mad,
+and I, ambitious of shining in conversation parties on Sundays, between
+sermons, at funerals, etc., used a few years afterward to puzzle
+Calvinism with so much heat and indiscretion that I raised a hue and
+cry of heresy against me, which has not ceased to this hour.
+
+My vicinity to Ayr was of some advantage to me.  My social disposition,
+when not checked by some modifications of spirited pride, was like our
+catechism definition of infinitude, without bounds or limits.  I formed
+several connections with other younkers, who possessed superior
+advantages; the youngling actors who were busy in the rehearsal of
+parts, in which they were shortly to appear on the stage of life,
+where, alas! I was destined to drudge behind the scenes.  It is not
+commonly at this green age that our young gentry have a just sense of
+the immense distance between them and their ragged playfellows.  It
+takes a few dashes into the world to give the young, great man that
+proper, decent, unnoticing disregard for the poor, insignificant,
+stupid devils, the mechanics and peasantry around him, who were,
+perhaps, born in the same village.  My young superiors never insulted
+the clouterly appearance of my plough-boy carcase, the two extremes of
+which were often exposed to all the inclemencies of all the seasons.
+They would give me stray volumes of books; among them, even then, I
+could pick up some observations, and one, whose heart, I am sure, not
+even the "Munny Begum" scenes have tainted, helped me to a little
+French.  Parting with these my young friends and benefactors, as they
+occasionally went off for the East or West Indies, was often to me a
+sore affliction; but I was soon called to more serious evils.  My
+father's generous master died, the farm proved a ruinous bargain; and
+to clench the misfortune, we fell into the hands of a factor, who sat
+for the picture I have drawn of one in my tale of "Twa Dogs."  My
+father was advanced in life when he married; I was the eldest of seven
+children, and he, worn out by early hardships, was unfit for labour.
+My father's spirit was soon irritated, but not easily broken.  There
+was a freedom in his lease in two years more, and to weather these two
+years, we retrenched our expenses.  We lived very poorly; I was a
+dexterous ploughman for my age; and the next eldest to me was a brother
+(Gilbert), who could drive the plough very well, and help me to thrash
+the corn.  A novel-writer might, perhaps, have viewed these scenes with
+some satisfaction, but so did not I; my indignation yet boils at the
+recollection of the scoundrel factor's insolent, threatening letters,
+which used to set us all in tears.
+
+This kind of life--the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with the unceasing
+moil of a galley slave, brought me to my sixteenth year; a little
+before which period I first committed the sin of rhyme.  You know our
+country custom of coupling a man and woman together as partners in the
+labours of harvest.  In my fifteenth autumn my partner was a bewitching
+creature, a year younger than myself.  My scarcity of English denies me
+the power of doing her justice in that language, but you know the
+Scottish idiom: she was a "bonnie, sweet, sonsie (engaging) lass."  In
+short, she, altogether unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that
+delicious passion, which, in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse
+prudence, and bookworm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human
+joys, our dearest blessing here below!  How she caught the contagion I
+cannot tell; you medical people talk much of infection from breathing
+the same air, the touch, etc., but I never expressly said I loved her.
+Indeed I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with
+her when returning in the evening from our labours; why the tones of
+her voice made my heartstrings thrill like an Aeolian harp; and
+particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ratan, when I looked and
+fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and
+thistles.  Among her other love-inspiring qualities, she sung sweetly;
+and it was her favourite reel to which I attempted giving an embodied
+vehicle in rhyme.  I was not so presumptuous as to imagine that I could
+make verses like printed ones, composed by men who had Greek and Latin;
+but my girl sung a song which was said to be composed by a small
+country laird's son, on one of his father's maids with whom he was in
+love; and I saw no reason why I might not rhyme as well as he; for,
+excepting that he could smear sheep, and cast peats, his father living
+in the moorlands, he had no more scholar-craft than myself.
+
+Thus with me began love and poetry, which at times have been my only,
+and till within the last twelve months have been my highest, enjoyment.
+My father struggled on till he reached the freedom in his lease, when
+he entered on a larger farm, about ten miles farther in the country.
+The nature of the bargain he made was such as to throw a little ready
+money into his hands at the commencement of his lease, otherwise the
+affair would have been impracticable.  For four years we lived
+comfortably here, but a difference commencing between him and his
+landlord as to terms, after three years' tossing and whirling in the
+vortex of litigation, my father was just saved from the horrors of a
+jail by a consumption which, after two years' promises, kindly stepped
+in, and carried him away, to where the wicked cease from troubling, and
+where the weary are at rest!
+
+It is during the time that we lived on this farm that my little story
+is most eventful.  I was, at the beginning of this period, perhaps the
+most ungainly, awkward boy in the parish--no hermit was less acquainted
+with the ways of the world.  What I knew of ancient story was gathered
+from Salmon's and Guthrie's Geographical Grammars; and the ideas I had
+formed of modern manners, of literature, and criticism, I got from the
+_Spectator_.  These, with Pope's Works, some Plays of Shakespeare,
+Tull, and Dickson on Agriculture, The "Pantheon," Locke's "Essay on the
+Human Understanding," Stackhouse's "History of the Bible," Justice's
+"British  Gardener's  Directory," Boyle's "Lectures," Allan Ramsay's
+Works, Taylor's "Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin," "A Select
+Collection of English Songs," and Hervey's "Meditations," had formed
+the whole of my reading.  The collection of songs was my companion, day
+and night.  I pored over them driving my cart, or walking to labour,
+song by song, verse by verse; carefully noting the true, tender, or
+sublime, from affectation and fustian.  I am convinced I owe to this
+practice much of my critic-craft, such as it is.
+
+In my seventeenth year, to give my manners a brush, I went to a country
+dancing-school.  My father had an unaccountable antipathy against these
+meetings, and my going was, what to this moment I repent, in opposition
+to his wishes.  My father, as I said before, was subject to strong
+passions; from that instance of disobedience in me he took a sort of
+dislike to me, which, I believe, was one cause of the dissipation which
+marked my succeeding years.  I say dissipation, comparatively with the
+strictness, and sobriety, and regularity of Presbyterian country life;
+for though the will-o'-wisp meteors of thoughtless whim were almost the
+sole lights of my path, yet early ingrained piety and virtue kept me
+for several years afterward within the line of innocence.  The great
+misfortune of my life was to want an aim.  I had felt early some
+stirrings of ambition, but they were the blind gropings of Homer's
+Cyclops round the walls of his cave.  I saw my father's situation
+entailed on me perpetual labour.  The only two openings by which I
+could enter the temple of fortune were the gate of niggardly economy or
+the path of little chicaning bargain-making.  The first is so
+contracted an aperture I never could squeeze myself into it; the last I
+always hated--there was contamination in the very entrance!  Thus
+abandoned of aim or view in life, with a strong appetite for
+sociability, as well from native hilarity as from a pride of
+observation and remark; a constitutional melancholy or hypochondriasm
+that made me fly solitude; add to these incentives to social life my
+reputation for bookish knowledge, a certain wild, logical talent, and a
+strength of thought, something like the rudiments of good sense; and it
+will not seem surprising that I was generally a welcome guest where I
+visited, or any great wonder that always, where two or three met
+together, there was I among them.  But far beyond all other impulses of
+my heart was a leaning toward the adorable half of humankind.  My heart
+was completely tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or
+other; and, as in every other warfare in this world, my fortune was
+various; sometimes I was received with favour, and sometimes I was
+mortified with a repulse.  At the plough, scythe, or reap-hook I feared
+no competitor, and thus I set absolute want at defiance; and as I never
+cared further for my labours than while I was in actual exercise, I
+spent the evenings in the way after my own heart.
+
+Another circumstance in my life which made some alteration in my mind
+and manners was that I spent my nineteenth summer on a smuggling coast,
+a good distance from home, at a noted school, to learn mensuration,
+surveying, dialling, etc., in which I made a pretty good progress.  But
+I made a greater progress in the knowledge of mankind.  The contraband
+trade was at that time very successful, and it sometimes happened to me
+to fall with those who carried it on.  Scenes of swaggering riot and
+roaring dissipation were, till this time, new to me; but I was no enemy
+to social life.
+
+My reading meantime was enlarged with the very important addition of
+Thomson's and Shenstone's Works.  I had seen human nature in a new
+phase; and I engaged several of my schoolfellows to keep up a literary
+correspondence with me.  This improved me in composition.  I had met
+with a collection of letters by the wits of Queen Anne's reign, and
+pored over them most devoutly.  I kept copies of any of my own letters
+that pleased me, and a comparison between them and the composition of
+most of my correspondents flattered my vanity.  I carried this whim so
+far that, though I had not three farthings' worth of business in the
+world, yet almost every post brought me as many letters as if I had
+been a broad plodding son of the day-book and ledger.
+
+My life flowed on much in the same course till my twenty-third year.
+The addition of two more authors to my library gave me great pleasure:
+Sterne and Mackenzie--"Tristram Shandy" and the "Man of Feeling"--were
+my bosom favourites.  Poesy was still a darling walk for my mind, but
+it was only indulged in according to the humour of the hour.  I had
+usually half a dozen or more pieces on hand; I took up one or other, as
+it suited the momentary tone of the mind, and dismissed the work as it
+bordered on fatigue.  My passions, when once lighted up, raged like so
+many devils, till they got vent in rhyme; and then the conning over my
+verses, like a spell, soothed all into quiet!  None of the rhymes of
+those days are in print, except "Winter, a Dirge," the eldest of my
+printed pieces; "The Death of Poor Maillie," "John Barleycorn," and
+Songs First, Second, and Third.  Song Second was the ebullition of that
+passion which ended the forementioned school business.
+
+My twenty-third year was to me an important era.  Partly through whim,
+and partly that I wished to set about doing something in life, I joined
+a flax-dresser in a neighbouring town (Irvine), to learn the trade.
+This was an unlucky affair.  As we were giving a welcome carousal to
+the new year, the shop took fire and burned to ashes, and I was left,
+like a true poet, not worth a sixpence.
+
+I was obliged to give up this scheme, the clouds of misfortune were
+gathering thick round my father's head; and, what was worst of all, he
+was visibly far gone in a consumption; and to crown my distresses, a
+beautiful girl, whom I adored, and who had pledged her soul to meet me
+in the field of matrimony, jilted me, with peculiar circumstances of
+mortification.  The finishing evil that brought up the rear of this
+infernal file was my constitutional melancholy being increased to such
+a degree that for three months I was in a state of mind scarcely to be
+envied by the hopeless wretches who have got their mittimus--depart
+from me, ye cursed!
+
+From this adventure I learned something of a town life; but the
+principal thing which gave my mind a turn was a friendship I formed
+with a young fellow, a very noble character, but a hapless son of
+misfortune.  He was the son of a simple mechanic; but a great man in
+the neighbourhood taking him under his patronage, gave him a genteel
+education, with a view of bettering his situation in life.  The patron
+dying just as he was ready to launch out into the world, the poor
+fellow in despair went to sea; where, after a variety of good and ill
+fortune, a little before I was acquainted with him he had been set on
+shore by an American privateer, on the wild coast of Connaught,
+stripped of everything.  I cannot quit this poor fellow's story without
+adding that he is at this time master of a large West Indiaman
+belonging to the Thames.
+
+His mind was fraught with independence, magnanimity, and every manly
+virtue.  I loved and admired him to a degree of enthusiasm, and of
+course strove to imitate him.  In some measure I succeeded; I had pride
+before, but he taught it to flow in proper channels.  His knowledge of
+the world was vastly superior to mine, and I was all attention to
+learn. . . .  My reading only increased while in this town by two stray
+volumes of "Pamela," and one of "Ferdinand Count Fathom," which gave me
+some idea of novels.  Rhyme, except some religious pieces that are in
+print, I had given up; but meeting with Fergusson's Scottish Poems, I
+strung anew my wildly sounding lyre with emulating vigour.  When my
+father died his all went among the hell-hounds that growl in the kennel
+of justice; but we made a shift to collect a little money in the family
+amongst us, with which to keep us together; my brother and I took a
+neighbouring farm.  My brother wanted my hare-brained imagination, as
+well as my social and amorous madness; but in good sense, and every
+sober qualification, he was far my superior.
+
+I entered on this farm with a full resolution, "come, go to, I will be
+wise!"  I read farming books, I calculated crops; I attended markets;
+and, in short, in spite of the devil, and the world, and the flesh, I
+believe I should have been a wise man; but the first year, from
+unfortunately buying bad seed, the second from a late harvest, we lost
+half our crops.  This overset all my wisdom, and I returned, "like the
+dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the
+mire."
+
+I now began to be known in the neighbourhood as a maker of rhymes.  The
+first of my poetic offspring that saw the light was a burlesque
+lamentation on a quarrel between two reverend Calvinists, both of them
+figuring in my "Holy Fair."  I had a notion myself that the piece had
+some merit; but, to prevent the worst, I gave a copy of it to a friend,
+who was very fond of such things, and told him that I could not guess
+who was the author of it, but that I thought it pretty clever.  With a
+certain description of the clergy, as well as laity, it met with a roar
+of applause.  "Holy Willie's Prayer" next made its appearance, and
+alarmed the kirk-session so much, that they held several meetings to
+look over their spiritual artillery, if haply any of it might be
+pointed against profane rhymers.  Unluckily for me, my wanderings led
+me on another side, within point-blank shot of their heaviest metal.
+This is the unfortunate story that gave rise to my printed poem, "The
+Lament."  This was a most melancholy affair, which I cannot yet bear to
+reflect on, and had very nearly given me one or two of the principal
+qualifications for a place among those who have lost the chart, and
+mistaken the reckoning of rationality.  I gave up my part of the farm
+to my brother; in truth, it was only nominally mine; and made what
+little preparation was in my power for Jamaica.
+
+But before leaving my native country forever, I resolved to publish my
+poems.  I weighed my productions as impartially as was in my power; I
+thought they had merit; and it was a delicious idea that I should be
+called a clever fellow, even though it should never reach my ears--a
+poor Negro driver--or perhaps a victim to that inhospitable clime, and
+gone to the world of spirits!  I can truly say that, poor and unknown
+as I then was, I had pretty nearly as high an idea of myself and of my
+works as I have at this moment, when the public has decided in their
+favour.  It ever was my opinion that the mistakes and blunders, both in
+a rational and religious point of view, of which we see thousands daily
+guilty, are owing to their ignorance of themselves.  To know myself had
+been all along my constant study.  I weighed myself alone; I balanced
+myself with others.  I watched every means of information, to see how
+much ground I occupied as a man and as a poet; I studied assiduously
+Nature's design in my formation--where the lights and shades in my
+character were intended.  I was pretty confident my poems would meet
+with some applause; but at the worst, the roar of the Atlantic would
+deafen the voice of censure, and the novelty of West Indian scenes make
+me forget neglect.  I threw off six hundred copies, of which I had got
+subscriptions for about three hundred and fifty.  My vanity was highly
+gratified by the reception I met with from the public; and besides I
+pocketed, all expenses deducted, nearly twenty pounds.  This sum came
+very seasonably, as I was thinking of indenting myself for want of
+money to procure my passage.  As soon as I was master of nine guineas,
+the price of wafting me to the torrid zone, I took a steerage passage
+in the first ship that was to sail from the Clyde, for
+
+  Hungry ruin had me in the wind.
+
+
+I had been for some days skulking from covert to covert, under all the
+terrors of a jail; as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the
+merciless pack of the law at my heels.  I had taken the last farewell
+of my few friends; my chest was on the road to Greenock; I had composed
+the last song I should ever measure in Caledonia--"The Gloomy Night Is
+Gathering Fast," when a letter from Dr. Blacklock to a friend of mine
+overthrew all my schemes by opening new prospects to my poetic
+ambition.  The doctor belonged to a set of critics for whose applause I
+had not dared to hope.  His opinion, that I would meet with
+encouragement in Edinburgh for a second edition, fired me so much, that
+away I posted for that city, without a single acquaintance, or a single
+letter of introduction.  The baneful star that had so long shed its
+blasting influence in my zenith for once made a revolution to the
+nadir; and a kind Providence placed me under the patronage of one of
+the noblest of men, the Earl of Glencairn.  _Oublie moi, grand Dieu, si
+jamais je l'oublie_  [Forget me, Great God, if I ever forget him!].
+
+I need relate no further.  At Edinburgh I was in a new world; I mingled
+among many classes of men, but all of them new to me, and I was all
+attention to "catch" the characters and "the manners living as they
+rise."  Whether I have profited, time will show.
+
+
+POETS ARE BORN--THEN MADE
+
+[_To Dr. Moore_]
+
+ELLISLAND, 4th January, 1789.
+
+. . . The character and employment of a poet were formerly my pleasure,
+but are now my pride.  I know that a very great deal of my late _éclat_
+was owing to the singularity of my situation and the honest prejudice
+of Scotsmen; but still, as I said in the preface to my first edition, I
+do look upon myself as having some pretensions from nature to the
+poetic character.  I have not a doubt but the knack, the aptitude, to
+learn the muses' trade, is a gift bestowed by Him "who forms the secret
+bias of the soul"; but I as firmly believe that _excellence_ in the
+profession is the fruit of industry, labour, attention, and pains.  At
+least I am resolved to try my doctrine by the test of experience.
+Another appearance from the press I put off to a very distant day, a
+day that may never arrive--but poesy I am determined to prosecute with
+all my vigour.  Nature has given very few, if any, of the profession,
+the talents of shining in every species of composition.  I shall try
+(for until trial it is impossible to know) whether she has qualified me
+to shine in any one.
+
+
+THE KINDLY CRITIC IS THE POET'S BEST FRIEND
+
+[_To Mr. Moore_]
+
+The worst of it is, by the time one has finished a piece, it has been
+so often viewed and reviewed before the mental eye that one loses, in a
+good measure, the power of critical discrimination.  Here the best
+criterion I know is a friend--not only of abilities to judge, but with
+good nature enough like a prudent teacher with a young learner to
+praise a little more than is exactly just, lest the thin-skinned animal
+fall into that most deplorable of all diseases--heart-breaking
+despondency of himself.  Dare I, sir, already immensely indebted to
+your goodness, ask the additional obligation of your being that friend
+to me? . . .
+
+
+
+
+HORACE GREELEY
+
+(1811-1872)
+
+HOW THE FARM-BOY BECAME AN EDITOR
+
+Horace Greeley, the farmer's son, lived most of his life in the
+metropolis, yet he always looked like a farmer, and most people would
+be willing to admit that he retained the farmer's traditional goodness
+of heart, if not quite all of his traditional simplicity.  His judgment
+was keen and shrewd, and for many years the cracker-box philosophers of
+the village store impatiently awaited the sorting of the mail chiefly
+that they might learn what "Old Horace" had to say about some new
+picture in the kaleidoscope of politics.
+
+
+From "Captains of Industry," by James Parton.  Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
+1884.
+
+I have seldom been more interested than in hearing Horace Greeley tell
+the story of his coming to New York, in 1831, and gradually working his
+way into business there.
+
+He was living at the age of twenty years with his parents in a small
+log-cabin in a new clearing of Western Pennsylvania, about twenty miles
+from Erie.  His father, a Yankee by birth, had recently moved to that
+region and was trying to raise sheep there, as he had been accustomed
+to do in Vermont.  The wolves were too numerous there.
+
+It was part of the business of Horace and his brother to watch the
+flock of sheep, and sometimes they camped out all night, sleeping with
+their feet to the fire, Indian fashion.  He told me that occasionally a
+pack of wolves would come so near that he could see their eyeballs
+glare in the darkness and hear them pant.  Even as he lay in the loft
+of his father's cabin he could hear them howling in the fields.  In
+spite of all their care, the wolves killed in one season a hundred of
+his father's sheep, and then he gave up the attempt.
+
+The family were so poor that it was a matter of doubt sometimes whether
+they could get food enough to live through the long winter, and so
+Horace, who had learned the printer's trade in Vermont, started out on
+foot in search of work in a village printing office.  He walked from
+village to village, and from town to town, until at last he went to
+Erie, the largest place in the vicinity.
+
+There he was taken for a runaway apprentice, and certainly his
+appearance justified suspicion.  Tall and gawky as he was in person,
+with tow-coloured hair, and a scanty suit of shabbiest homespun, his
+appearance excited astonishment or ridicule wherever he went.  He had
+never worn a good suit of clothes in his life.  He had a singularly
+fair, white complexion, a piping, whining voice, and these
+peculiarities gave the effect of his being wanting in intellect.  It
+was not until people conversed with him that they discovered his worth
+and intelligence.  He had been an ardent reader from his childhood up,
+and had taken of late years the most intense interest in politics and
+held very positive opinions, which he defended in conversation with
+great earnestness and ability.
+
+A second application at Erie procured him employment for a few months
+in the office of the Erie _Gazette_, and he won his way, not only to
+the respect, but to the affection of his companions and his employer.
+That employer was Judge J. M. Sterrett, and from him I heard many
+curious particulars of Horace Greeley's residence in Erie.  As he was
+only working in the office as a substitute, the return of the absentee
+deprived him of his place, and he was obliged to seek work elsewhere.
+His employer said to him one day:
+
+"Now, Horace, you have a good deal of money coming to you; don't go
+about the town any longer in that outlandish rig.  Let me give you an
+order on the store.  Dress up a little, Horace."
+
+The young man looked down on his clothes as though he had never seen
+them before, and then said, by way of apology:
+
+"You see, Mr. Sterrett, my father is on a new place, and I want to help
+him all I can."
+
+In fact, upon the settlement of his account at the end of his seven
+months' labour, he had drawn for his personal expenses six dollars
+only.  Of the rest of his wages he retained fifteen dollars for
+himself, and gave all the rest, amounting to about a hundred and twenty
+dollars, to his father, who, I am afraid, did not make the very best
+use of all of it.
+
+With the great sum of fifteen dollars in his pocket, Horace now
+resolved upon a bold movement.  After spending a few days at home, he
+tied up his spare clothes in a bundle, not very large, and took the
+shortest road through the woods that led to the Erie Canal.  He was
+going to New York, and he was going cheap!
+
+A walk of sixty miles or so, much of it through the primeval forest,
+brought him to Buffalo, where he took passage on the Erie Canal, and
+after various detentions he reached Albany on a Thursday morning just
+in time to see the regular steamboat of the day move out into the
+stream.  At ten o'clock on the same morning he embarked on board of a
+towboat, which required nearly twenty-four hours to descend the river,
+and thus afforded him ample time to enjoy the beauty of its shores.
+
+On the 18th of August, 1831, about sunrise, he set foot in the city of
+New York, then containing about two hundred thousand inhabitants. . . .
+He had managed his affairs with such strict economy that his journey of
+six hundred miles had cost him little more than five dollars, and he
+had ten left with which to begin life in the metropolis.  This sum of
+money and the knowledge of the printer's trade made up his capital.
+There was not a person in all New York, as far as he knew, who had ever
+seen him before.
+
+His appearance, too, was much against him, for although he had a really
+fine face, a noble forehead, and the most benign expression I ever saw
+upon a human countenance, yet his clothes and bearing quite spoiled
+him.  His round jacket made him look like a tall boy who had grown too
+fast for his strength; he stooped a little and walked in a
+loose-jointed manner.  He was very bashful, and totally destitute of
+the power of pushing his way, or arguing with a man who said, "No" to
+him.  He had brought no letters of recommendation, and had no kind of
+evidence to show that he had even learned his trade.
+
+The first business was, of course, to find an extremely cheap
+boarding-house, as he had made up his mind only to try New York as an
+experiment, and, if he did not succeed in finding work, to start
+homeward while he still had a portion of his money.  After walking a
+while he went into what looked to him like a low-priced tavern, at the
+corner of Wall and Broad streets.
+
+"How much do you charge for board?" he asked the barkeeper, who was
+wiping his decanters, and putting his bar in trim for the business of
+the day.
+
+The barkeeper gave the stranger a look-over and said to him:
+
+"I guess we're too high for you."
+
+"Well, how much do you charge?"
+
+"Six dollars."
+
+"Yes, that's more than I can afford."
+
+He walked on until he descried on the North River, near Washington
+Market, a boarding-house so very mean and squalid that he was tempted
+to go in and inquire the price of board there.  The price was two
+dollars and a half a week.
+
+"Ah!" said Horace, "that sounds more like it."
+
+In ten minutes more he was taking his breakfast at the landlord's
+table.  Mr. Greeley gratefully remembered this landlord, who was a
+friendly Irishman by the name of McGorlick.  Breakfast done, the
+newcomer sallied forth in quest of work, and began by expending nearly
+half of his capital in improving his wardrobe.  It was a wise action.
+He that goes courting should dress in his best, particularly if he
+courts so capricious a jade as Fortune.
+
+Then he began the weary round of the printing offices, seeking for work
+and finding none, all day long.  He would enter an office and ask in
+his whining note:
+
+"Do you want a hand?"
+
+"No," was the inevitable reply, upon receiving which he left without a
+word.  Mr. Greeley chuckled as he told the reception given him at the
+office of the _Journal of Commerce_, a newspaper he was destined to
+contend with for many a year in the columns of the _Tribune_.
+
+"Do you want a hand?" he said to David Hale, one of the owners of the
+paper.
+
+Mr. Hale looked at him from head to foot, and then said:
+
+"My opinion is, young man, that you're a runaway apprentice, and you'd
+better go home to your master."
+
+The applicant tried to explain, but the busy proprietor merely replied:
+
+"Be off about your business, and don't bother us."
+
+The young man laughed good-humouredly and resumed his walk.  He went to
+bed Saturday night thoroughly tired and a little discouraged.  On
+Sunday he walked three miles to attend a church, and remembered to the
+end of his days the delight he had, for the first time in his life, in
+hearing a sermon that he entirely agreed with.  In the meantime he had
+gained the good will of his landlord and the boarders, and to that
+circumstance he owed his first chance in the city.  His landlord
+mentioned his fruitless search for work to an acquaintance who happened
+to call that Sunday afternoon.  That acquaintance, who was a shoemaker,
+had accidently heard that printers were wanted at No. 85 Chatham Street.
+
+At half-past five on Monday morning Horace Greeley stood before the
+designated house, and discovered the sign, "West's Printing Office,"
+over the second story, the ground floor being occupied as a bookstore.
+Not a soul was stirring up stairs or down.  The doors were locked, and
+Horace sat down on the steps to wait.  Thousands of workmen passed by;
+but it was nearly seven before the first of Mr. West's printers
+arrived, and he, too, finding the door locked, sat down by the side of
+the stranger, and entered into conversation with him.
+
+"I saw," said the printer to me many years after, "that he was an
+honest, good young man, and being a Vermonter myself, I determined to
+help him if I could."
+
+Thus, a second time in New York already, _the native quality of the
+man_ gained him, at the critical moment, the advantage that decided his
+destiny.  His new friend did help him, and it was very much through his
+urgent recommendation that the foreman of the printing office gave him
+a chance.  The foreman did not in the least believe that the
+green-looking young fellow before him could set in type one page of the
+polyglot Testament for which help was needed.
+
+"Fix up a case for him," said he, "and we'll see if he _can_ do
+anything."
+
+Horace worked all day with silent intensity, and when he showed to the
+foreman at night a printer's proof of his day's work, it was found to
+be the best day's work that had yet been done on that most difficult
+job.  It was greater in quantity and much more correct.  The battle was
+won.  He worked on the Testament for several months, making long hours
+and earning only moderate wages, saving all his surplus money, and
+sending the greater part of it to his father, who was still in debt for
+his farm and not sure of being able to keep it.
+
+Ten years passed.  Horace Greeley from journeyman printer made his way
+slowly to partnership in a small printing office.  He founded the _New
+Yorker_, a weekly paper, the best periodical of its class in the United
+States.  It brought him great credit and no profit.
+
+In 1840, when General Harrison was nominated for the Presidency against
+Martin Van Buren, his feelings as a politician were deeply stirred, and
+he started a little campaign paper called _The Log-Cabin_, which was
+incomparably the most spirited thing of the kind ever published in the
+United States.  It had a circulation of unprecedented extent, beginning
+with forty-eight thousand, and rising week after week until it reached
+ninety thousand.  The price, however, was so low that its great sale
+proved rather an embarrassment than a benefit to the proprietors, and
+when the campaign ended the firm of Horace Greeley & Co. was rather
+more in debt than it was when the first number of _The Log-Cabin_ was
+published.
+
+The little paper had given the editor two things which go far toward
+making a success in business: great reputation and some confidence in
+himself.  The first penny paper had been started.  The New York
+_Herald_ was making a great stir.  The _Sun_ was already a profitable
+sheet.  And now the idea occurred to Horace Greeley to start a daily
+paper which should have the merits of cheapness and abundant news,
+without some of the qualities possessed by the others.  He wished to
+found a cheap daily paper that should be good and salutary as well as
+interesting.  The last number of _The Log-Cabin_ announced the
+forthcoming _Tribune_, price one cent.
+
+The editor was probably not solvent when he conceived the scheme, and
+he borrowed a thousand dollars of his old friend, James Coggeshall,
+with which to buy the indispensable material.  He began with six
+hundred subscribers, printed five thousand of the first number, and
+found it difficult to give them all away.  The _Tribune_ appeared on
+the day set apart in New York for the funeral procession in
+commemoration of President Harrison, who died a month after his
+inauguration.
+
+It was a chilly, dismal day in April, and all the town was absorbed in
+the imposing pageant.  The receipts during the first week were
+ninety-two dollars; the expenses five hundred and twenty-five.  But the
+little paper soon caught public attention, and the circulation
+increased for three weeks at the rate of about three hundred a day.  It
+began its fourth week with six thousand; its seventh week with eleven
+thousand.  The first number contained four columns of advertisements;
+the twelfth, nine columns; the hundredth, thirteen columns.
+
+In a word, the success of the paper was immediate and very great.  It
+grew a little faster than the machinery for producing it could be
+provided.  Its success was due chiefly to the fact that the original
+idea of the editor was actually carried out.  He aimed to produce a
+paper which should morally benefit the public.  It was not always
+right, but it always meant to be.
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES DICKENS
+
+(1812-1870)
+
+THE FACTORY BOY
+
+This factory boy felt in his heart that he was qualified for a better
+position in life, and great was his humiliation at the wretched
+meanness of his surroundings.  But his demeanor must have been
+admirable, for he succeeded not only in retaining the respect of his
+associates, but also in winning their regard.  In his case, as in that
+of so many others, it was darkest just before the dawn of a better day.
+
+They are his own words which follow:
+
+
+An autobiographical fragment from Forster's "Life."
+
+In an evil hour for me, as I often bitterly thought . . . James Lamert,
+who had lived with us in Bayham Street, seeing how I was employed from
+day to day, and knowing what our domestic circumstances then were,
+proposed that I should go into the blacking warehouse, to be as useful
+as I could, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week.  I am not
+clear whether it was six or seven.  I am inclined to believe, from my
+uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first, and seven
+afterward.  At any rate, the offer was accepted very willingly by my
+father and mother, and on a Monday morning I went down to the blacking
+warehouse to begin my business life.
+
+It is wonderful to me how I could have been so easily cast away at such
+an age.  It is wonderful to me that, even after my descent into the
+poor little drudge I had been since we came to London, no one had
+compassion enough on me--a child of singular abilities, quick, eager,
+delicate, and soon hurt, bodily or mentally--to suggest that something
+might have been spared, as certainly it might have been, to place me at
+any common school.  Our friends, I take it, were tired out.  No one
+made any sign.  My father and mother were quite satisfied.  They could
+hardly have been more so if I had been twenty years of age,
+distinguished at a grammar school, and going to Cambridge.
+
+Our relative had kindly arranged to teach me something in the
+dinner-hour, from twelve to one, I think it was, every day.  But an
+arrangement so incompatible with counting-house business soon died
+away, from no fault of his or mine; and for the same reason, my small
+work-table, and my grosses of pots, my papers, string, scissors,
+paste-pot, and labels, by little and little, vanished out of the recess
+in the counting-house, and kept company with the other small
+work-tables, grosses of pots, papers, string, scissors, and paste-pots,
+downstairs.  It was not long before Bob Fagin and I, and another boy
+whose name was Paul Green, but who was currently believed to have been
+christened Poll (a belief which I transferred, long afterward again, to
+Mr. Sweedlepipe, in "Martin Chuzzlewit"), worked generally side by
+side.  Bob Fagin was an orphan, and lived with his brother-in-law, a
+waterman.  Poll Green's father had the additional distinction of being
+a fireman, and was employed at Drury Lane Theatre, where another
+relation of Poll's, I think his little sister, did imps in the
+pantomimes.
+
+No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this
+companionship; compared these every-day associates with those of my
+happier childhood; and felt my early hopes of growing up to be a
+learned and distinguished man crushed in my breast.  The deep
+remembrance of the sense I had of being utterly neglected and hopeless;
+of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young
+heart to believe that, day by day, what I had learned, and thought, and
+delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, was passing
+away from me, never to be brought back any more, cannot be written.  My
+whole nature was so penetrated with the grief and humiliation of such
+considerations that even now, famous and caressed and happy, I often
+forget in my dreams that I have a dear wife and children; even that I
+am a man; and wander desolately back to that time of my life.
+
+I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the
+scantiness of my resources and the difficulties of my life.  I know
+that if a shilling or so were given me by any one, I spent it in a
+dinner or a tea.  I know that I worked, from morning to night, with
+common men and boys, a shabby child.  I know that I tried, but
+ineffectually, not to anticipate my money, and to make it last the week
+through; by putting it away in a drawer I had in the counting-house,
+wrapped into six little parcels, each parcel containing the same
+amount, and labelled with a different day.  I know that I have lounged
+about the streets, insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed.  I know
+that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care
+that was taken of me, a little robber or a little vagabond.
+
+
+A LITTLE GENTLEMAN
+
+But I held some station at the blacking warehouse, too.  Besides that
+my relative at the counting-house did what a man so occupied, and
+dealing with a thing so anomalous, could, to treat me as one upon a
+different footing from the rest, I never said, to man or boy, how it
+was that I came to be there, or gave the least indication of being
+sorry that I was there.  That I suffered in secret, and that I suffered
+exquisitely, no one ever knew but I.  How much I suffered, it is, as I
+have said already, utterly beyond my power to tell.  No man's
+imagination can overstep the reality.  But I kept my own counsel, and I
+did my work.  I knew from the first that if I could not do my work as
+well as any of the rest I could not hold myself above slight and
+contempt.  I soon became at least as expeditious and as skilful with my
+hands as either of the other boys.  Though perfectly familiar with
+them, my conduct and manners were different enough from theirs to place
+a space between us.  They and the men always spoke of me as "the young
+gentleman."  A certain man (a soldier once) named Thomas, who was the
+foreman, and another man Harry, who was the carman, and wore a red
+jacket, used to call me "Charles" sometimes in speaking to me; but I
+think it was mostly when we were very confidential, and when I had made
+some efforts to entertain them over our work with the results of some
+of the old readings, which were fast perishing out of my mind.  Poll
+Green uprose once, and rebelled against the "young gentleman" usage;
+but Bob Fagin settled him speedily.
+
+My rescue from this kind of existence I considered quite hopeless, and
+abandoned as such, altogether; though I am solemnly convinced that I
+never, for one hour, was reconciled to it, or was otherwise than
+miserably unhappy.  I felt keenly, however, the being so cut off from
+my parents, my brothers, and sisters; and, when my day's work was done,
+going home to such a miserable blank.  And _that_, I thought, might be
+corrected.  One Sunday night I remonstrated with my father on this head
+so pathetically and with so many tears that his kind nature gave way.
+He began to think that it was not quite right.  I do believe he had
+never thought so before, or thought about it.  It was the first
+remonstrance I had ever made about my lot, and perhaps it opened up a
+little more than I intended.  A back-attic was found for me at the
+house of an insolvent court agent, who lived in Lant Street in the
+Borough, where Bob Sawyer lodged many years afterward.  A bed and
+bedding were sent over for me, and made up on the floor.  The little
+window had a pleasant prospect of a timber-yard; and when I took
+possession of my new abode, I thought it was a paradise.
+
+
+A FRIEND IN NEED
+
+Bob Fagin was very good to me on the occasion of a bad attack of my old
+disorder, cramps.  I suffered such excruciating pain that time that
+they made a temporary bed of straw in my old recess in the
+counting-house, and I rolled about on the floor, and Bob filled empty
+blacking-bottles with hot water, and applied relays of them to my side,
+half the day.  I got better, and quite easy toward evening; but Bob
+(who was much bigger and older than I) did not like the idea of my
+going home alone, and took me under his protection.  I was too proud to
+let him know about the prison; and after making several efforts to get
+rid of him, to all of which Bob Fagin, in his goodness, was deaf, shook
+hands with him on the steps of a house near Southwark Bridge on the
+Surrey side, making believe that I lived there.  As a finishing piece
+of reality in case of his looking back, I knocked at the door, I
+recollect, and asked, when the woman opened it, if that was Mr. Robert
+Fagin's house.
+
+My usual way home was over Blackfriars Bridge, and down that turning in
+the Blackfriars Road which has Rowland Hill's chapel on one side, and
+the likeness of a golden dog licking a golden pot over a shop door on
+the other.  There are a good many little low-browed old shops in that
+street, of a wretched kind; and some are unchanged now.  I looked into
+one a few weeks ago, where I used to buy bootlaces on Saturday nights,
+and saw the corner where I once sat down on a stool to have a pair of
+ready-made half-boots fitted on.  I have been seduced more than once,
+in that street on a Saturday night, by a show-van at a corner; and have
+gone in, with a very motley assemblage, to see the Fat Pig, the Wild
+Indian, and the Little Lady.  There were two or three hat manufactories
+there then (I think they are there still); and among the things which,
+encountered anywhere, or under any circumstances, will instantly recall
+that time, is the smell of hat-making.
+
+I was such a little fellow, with my poor white hat, little jacket, and
+corduroy trousers, that frequently, when I went into the bar of a
+strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter to wash down the
+saveloy and the loaf I had eaten in the street, they didn't like to
+give it me.  I remember, one evening (I had been somewhere for my
+father, and was going back to the Borough over Westminster Bridge),
+that I went into a public-house in Parliament Street, which is still
+there, though altered, at the corner of the short street leading into
+Cannon Row, and said to the landlord behind the bar, "What is your very
+best--the VERY _best_--ale a glass?"  For the occasion was a festive
+one, for some reasons: I forget why.  It may have been my birthday, or
+somebody else's.  "Twopence," says he.  "Then," says I, "just draw me a
+glass of that, if you please, with a good head to it."  The landlord
+looked at me, in return, over the bar, from head to foot, with a
+strange smile on his face; and instead of drawing the beer, looked
+round the screen and said something to his wife, who came out from
+behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me.
+Here we stand, all three, before me now, in my study in Devonshire
+Terrace.  The landlord in his shirt-sleeves, leaning against the bar
+window-frame; his wife looking over the little half-door; and I, in
+some confusion, looking up at them from outside the partition.  They
+asked me a good many questions, as what my name was, how old I was,
+where I lived, how I was employed, etc., etc.  To all of which, that I
+might commit nobody, I invented appropriate answers.  They served me
+with the ale, though I suspect it was not the strongest on the
+premises; and the landlord's wife, opening the little half-door and
+bending down, gave me a kiss that was half-admiring and
+half-compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am sure.
+
+
+DELIVERANCE AT LAST
+
+At last, one day, my father and the relative so often mentioned
+quarrelled; quarrelled by letter, for I took the letter from my father
+to him which caused the explosion, but quarrelled very fiercely.  It
+was about me.  It may have had some backward reference, in part, for
+anything I know, to my employment at the window.  All I am certain of
+is that, soon after I had given him the letter, my cousin (he was a
+sort of cousin by marriage) told me he was very much insulted about me;
+and that it was impossible to keep me after that.  I cried very much,
+partly because it was so sudden, and partly because in his anger he was
+violent about my father, though gentle to me.  Thomas, the old soldier,
+comforted me, and said he was sure it was for the best.  With a relief
+so strange that it was like oppression, I went home.
+
+My mother set herself to accommodate the quarrel, and did so next day.
+She brought home a request for me to return next morning, and a high
+character of me, which I am very sure I deserved.  My father said I
+should go back no more, and should go to school.  I do not write
+resentfully or angrily, for I know how all these things have worked
+together to make me what I am, but I never afterward forgot, I never
+shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being
+sent back.
+
+From that hour until this at which I write no word of that part of my
+childhood, which I have now gladly brought to a close, has passed my
+lips to any human being.  I have no idea how long it lasted; whether
+for a year, or much more, or less.  From that hour until this, my
+father and my mother have been stricken dumb upon it.  I have never
+heard the least allusion to it, however far off and remote, from either
+of them.  I have never, until I now impart it to this paper, in any
+burst of confidence with any one, my own wife not excepted, raised the
+curtain I then dropped, thank God.
+
+
+Dickens sent the following sketch of his early career to Wilkie
+Collins.  It will be noted that he omits all reference to his
+experiences in the blacking factory.  The _naïve_ touches of
+self-appreciation are delightful to the true lover of "The Inimitable."
+
+
+TAVISTOCK HOUSE, June 6, 1856.
+
+I have never seen anything about myself in print which has much
+correctness in it--any biographical account of myself I mean.  I do not
+supply such particulars when I am asked for them by editors and
+compilers, simply because I am asked for them every day.  If you want
+to prime Forgues, you may tell him, without fear of anything wrong,
+that I was born at Portsmouth on the 7th of February, 1812; that my
+father was in the Navy Pay Office; that I was taken by him to Chatham
+when I was very young, and lived and was educated there till I was
+twelve or thirteen, I suppose; that I was then put to a school near
+London, where (as at other places) I distinguished myself like a brick;
+that I was put in the office of a solicitor, a friend of my father's,
+and didn't much like it; and after a couple of years (as well as I can
+remember) applied myself with a celestial or diabolical energy to the
+study of such things as would qualify me to be a first-rate
+parliamentary reporter--at that time a calling pursued by many clever
+men who were young at the Bar; that I made my debut in the gallery (at
+about eighteen, I suppose), engaged on a voluminous publication no
+longer in existence, called the _Mirror of Parliament_; that when the
+_Morning Chronicle_ was purchased by Sir John Easthope and acquired a
+large circulation, I was engaged there, and that I remained there until
+I had begun to publish "Pickwick," when I found myself in a condition
+to relinquish that part of my labours; that I left the reputation
+behind me of being the best and most rapid reporter ever known, and
+that I could do anything in that way under any sort of circumstances,
+and often did.  (I daresay I am at this present writing the best
+shorthand writer in the world.)
+
+That I began, without any interest or introduction of any kind, to
+write fugitive pieces for the old _Monthly Magazine_, when I was in the
+gallery for the _Mirror of Parliament_; that my faculty for descriptive
+writing was seized upon the moment I joined the _Morning Chronicle_,
+and that I was liberally paid there and handsomely acknowledged, and
+wrote the greater part of the short descriptive "Sketches by Boz" in
+that paper; that I had been a writer when I was a mere baby, and always
+an actor from the same age; that I married the daughter of a writer to
+the signet in Edinburgh, who was the great friend and assistant of
+Scott, and who first made Lockhart known to him.
+
+And that here I am.
+
+Finally, if you want any dates of publication of books, tell Wills and
+he'll get them for you.
+
+This is the first time I ever set down even these particulars, and,
+glancing them over, I feel like a wild beast in a caravan describing
+himself in the keeper's absence.
+
+Ever faithfully.
+
+
+The following letter, criticising the work of an inexperienced author,
+is valuable in itself, and reveals clearly the essential kindliness of
+the man.
+
+
+OFFICE OF HOUSEHOLD WORDS,
+  Monday, June 1, 1857.
+
+MY DEAR STONE:
+
+I know that what I am going to say will not be agreeable; but I rely on
+the authoress's good sense; and say it knowing it to be the truth.
+
+These "Notes" are destroyed by too much smartness.  It gives the
+appearance of perpetual effort, stabs to the heart the nature that is
+in them, and wearies by the manner and not by the matter.  It is the
+commonest fault in the world (as I have constant occasion to observe
+here) but it is a very great one.  Just as you couldn't bear to have an
+épergne or a candlestick on your table, supported by a light figure
+always on tip-toe and evidently in an impossible attitude for the
+sustainment of its weight, so all readers would be more or less
+oppressed and worried by this presentation of everything in one smart
+point of view, when they know it must have other, and weightier, and
+more solid properties.  Airiness and good spirits are always
+delightful, and are inseparable from notes of a cheerful trip; but they
+should sympathize with many things as well as see them in a lively way.
+It is but a word or a touch that expresses this humanity, but without
+that little embellishment of good nature there is no such thing as
+humour.  In this little MS. everything is too much patronized and
+condescended to, whereas the slightest touch of feeling for the rustic
+who is of the earth earthy, or of sisterhood with the homely servant
+who has made her face shine in her desire to please, would make a
+difference that the writer can scarcely imagine without trying it.  The
+only relief in the twenty-one slips is the little bit about the chimes.
+It is a relief, simply because it is an indication of some kind of
+sentiment.  You don't want any sentiment laboriously made out in such a
+thing.  You don't want any maudlin show of it.  But you do want a
+pervading suggestion that it is there.  It makes all the difference
+between being playful and being cruel.  Again I must say, above all
+things--especially to young people writing: For the love of God don't
+condescend!  Don't assume the attitude of saying, "See how clever I am,
+and what fun everybody else is!"  Take any shape but that.
+
+I observe an excellent quality of observation throughout, and think the
+boy at the shop, and all about him, particularly good.  I have no doubt
+whatever that the rest of the journal will be much better if the writer
+chooses to make it so.  If she considers for a moment within herself,
+she will know that she derived pleasure from everything she saw,
+because she saw it with innumerable lights and shades upon it, and
+bound to humanity by innumerable fine links; she cannot possibly
+communicate anything of that pleasure to another by showing it from one
+little limited point only, and that point, observe, the one from which
+it is impossible to detach the exponent as the patroness of a whole
+universe of inferior souls.  This is what everybody would mean in
+objecting to these notes (supposing them to be published), that they
+are too smart and too flippant.
+
+As I understand this matter to be altogether between us three, and as I
+think your confidence and hers imposes a duty of friendship on me, I
+discharge it to the best of my ability.  Perhaps I make more of it than
+you may have meant or expected; if so, it is because I am interested
+and wish to express it.  If there had been anything in my objection not
+perfectly easy of removal, I might, after all, have hesitated to state
+it; but that is not the case.  A very little indeed would make all this
+gayety as sound and wholesome and good-natured in the reader's mind as
+it is in the writer's.
+
+Affectionately always.
+
+
+"THE INFINITE CAPACITY FOR TAKING PAINS"
+
+[_To his sixth son, Henry Fielding Dickens, born in 1849_]
+
+BALTIMORE, U. S.,
+
+TUESDAY, February 11, 1868.
+
+MY DEAR HARRY:
+
+I should have written to you before now but for constant and arduous
+occupation. . . .  I am very glad to hear of the success of your
+reading, and still more glad that you went at it in downright earnest.
+I should never have made my success in life if I had been shy of taking
+pains, or if I had not bestowed upon the least thing I have ever
+undertaken exactly the same attention and care that I have bestowed
+upon the greatest.  Do everything at your best.  It was but this last
+year that I set to and learned every word of my readings; and from ten
+years ago to last night, I have never read to an audience but I have
+watched for an opportunity of striking out something better somewhere.
+Look at such of my manuscripts as are in the library at Gad's, and
+think of the patient hours devoted year after year to single
+lines. . . .
+
+Ever, my dear Harry,
+
+Your affectionate Father.
+
+
+"FAREWELL?  MY BLESSING SEASON THIS IN THEE"
+
+[Dickens's last child, Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, was born in 1852.
+At sixteen he went to Australia, with this parting word from his
+father:]
+
+MY DEAREST PLORN:
+
+I write this note to-day because your going away is much upon my mind,
+and because I want you to have a few parting words from me to think of
+now and then at quiet times.  I need not tell you that I love you
+dearly, and am very, very sorry in my heart to part with you.  But this
+life is half made up of partings, and these pains must be borne.  It is
+my comfort and my sincere conviction that you are going to try the life
+for which you are best fitted.  I think its freedom and wildness more
+suited to you than any experiment in a study or office would ever have
+been; and without that training, you could have followed no other
+suitable occupation.
+
+What you have already wanted until now has been a set, steady, constant
+purpose.  I therefore exhort you to persevere in a thorough
+determination to do whatever you have to do as well as you can do it.
+I was not so old as you are now when I first had to win my food, and do
+this out of this determination, and I have never slackened in it since.
+
+Never take a mean advantage of any one in any transaction, and never be
+hard upon people who are in your power.  Try to do to others as you
+would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail
+sometimes.  It is much better for you that they should fail in obeying
+the greatest rule laid down by our Saviour than that you should.  I put
+a New Testament among your books for the very same reasons, and with
+the very same hopes that made me write an easy account of it for you,
+when you were a little child.  Because it is the best book that ever
+was, or will be, known in the world; and because it teaches you the
+best lessons by which any human creature, who tries to be truthful and
+faithful to duty, can possibly be guided.  As your brothers have gone
+away, one by one, I have written to each such words as I am now writing
+to you, and have entreated them all to guide themselves by this Book,
+putting aside the interpretations and inventions of man.  You will
+remember that you have never at home been harassed about religious
+observances or mere formalities.  I have always been anxious not to
+weary my children with such things before they are old enough to form
+opinions respecting them.  You will therefore understand the better
+that I now most solemnly impress upon you the truth and beauty of the
+Christian Religion, as it came from Christ Himself, and the
+impossibility of your going far wrong if you humbly but heartily
+respect it.  Only one thing more on this head.  The more we are in
+earnest as to feeling it, the less we are disposed to hold forth about
+it.  Never abandon the wholesome practice of saying your own private
+prayers, night and morning.  I have never abandoned it myself, and I
+know the comfort of it.  I hope you will always be able to say in after
+life that you had a kind father.  You cannot show your affection for
+him so well, or make him so happy, as by doing your duty.
+
+
+
+
+CHARLOTTE BRONTË
+
+(1816-1855)
+
+THE COUNTRY PARSON'S DAUGHTER
+
+Mrs. Gaskell's "Life of Charlotte Brontë" is one of the great
+biographies of literature, but like other works on the same theme, it
+is really a history of the Brontë family during the period of
+Charlotte's life.  The individuals of this family were for many years
+as closely associated with one another as they were closely hidden from
+the outside world.  The personality of each was influenced by its
+house-mates to an unusual degree.  They studied each other and they
+studied every book that came within reach.  Themselves they knew well:
+the world, through books only.  This probably accounts for the weird
+and even morbid character of much of their work.  Their vivid
+imaginations, unchecked by experience, in a commonplace world were
+allowed free play, and as a result we find some of the most original
+creations in the whole realm of literature.
+
+The life of the Brontë sisterhood should convince the literary aspirant
+that the creative imagination is sufficient unto itself and independent
+of the stimulus of contact with the busy hum of men.  If it be
+necessary, the literary genius by divination can portray life without
+seeing it.  Bricks are produced without straw.
+
+
+From "Life of Charlotte Brontë," by Mrs. E. C. Gaskell.
+
+But the children did not want society.  To small infantine gayeties
+they were unaccustomed.  They were all in all to each other.  I do not
+suppose that there ever was a family more tenderly bound to each other.
+Maria read the newspapers, and reported intelligence to her younger
+sisters which it is wonderful they could take an interest in.  But I
+suspect that they had no "children's books," and their eager minds
+"browzed undisturbed among the wholesome pasturage of English
+literature," as Charles Lamb expresses it.  The servants of the
+household appear to have been much impressed with the little Brontës'
+extraordinary cleverness.  In a letter which I had from him on this
+subject, their father writes: "The servants often said they had never
+seen such a clever little child" (as Charlotte), "and that they were
+obliged to be on their guard as to what they said and did before her.
+Yet she and the servants always lived on good terms with each
+other. . . ."
+
+I return to the father's letter.  He says:
+
+"When mere children, as soon as they could read and write, Charlotte
+and her brothers and sisters used to invent and act little plays of
+their own in which the Duke of Wellington, my daughter Charlotte's
+hero, was sure to come off conqueror; when a dispute would not
+unfrequently arise amongst them regarding the comparative merits of
+him, Bonaparte, Hannibal, and Caesar.  When the argument got warm, and
+rose to its height, as their mother was then dead, I had sometimes to
+come in as arbitrator, and settle the dispute according to the best of
+my judgment.  Generally, in the management of these concerns, I
+frequently thought that I discovered signs of rising talent, which I
+had seldom or never before seen in any of their age. . . .  A
+circumstance now occurs to my mind which I may as well mention.  When
+my children were very young, when, as far as I can remember, the oldest
+was about ten years of age, and the youngest about four, thinking they
+knew more than I had yet discovered, in order to make them speak with
+less timidity, I deemed that if they were put under a sort of cover I
+might gain my end; and happening to have a mask in the house, I told
+them all to stand and speak boldly from under cover of the mask.
+
+"I began with the youngest (Anne, afterward Acton Bell), and asked what
+a child like her most wanted; she answered, 'Age and experience.'  I
+asked the next (Emily, afterward Ellis Bell) what I had best do with
+her brother Branwell, who was sometimes a naughty boy; she answered,
+'Reason with him, and when he won't listen to reason, whip him.'  I
+asked Branwell what was the best way of knowing the difference between
+the intellects of men and women; he answered, 'By considering the
+difference between them as to their bodies.'  I then asked Charlotte
+what was the best book in the world; she answered, 'The Bible.'  And
+what was the next best; she answered, 'The Book of Nature.'  I then
+asked the next what was the best mode of education for a woman; she
+answered, 'That which would make her rule her house well.'  Lastly I
+asked the oldest what was the best mode of spending time; she answered,
+'By laying it out in preparation for a happy eternity.'
+
+"I may not have given precisely their words, but I have nearly done so,
+as they made a deep and lasting impression on my memory.  The
+substance, however, was exactly what I have stated."
+
+The strange and quaint simplicity of the mode taken by the father to
+ascertain the hidden characters of his children, and the tone and
+character of these questions and answers, show the curious education
+which was made by the circumstances surrounding the Brontës.  They knew
+no other children.  They knew no other modes of thought than what were
+suggested to them by the fragments of clerical conversation which they
+overheard in the parlour, or the subjects of village and local interest
+which they heard discussed in the kitchen.  Each had their own strong
+characteristic flavour.
+
+They took a vivid interest in the public characters, and the local and
+foreign politics discussed in the newspapers.  Long before Maria Brontë
+died, at the age of eleven, her father used to say he would converse
+with her on any of the leading topics of the day with as much freedom
+and pleasure as with any grown-up person. . . .
+
+Miss Branwell instructed the children at regular hours in all she could
+teach, making her bed-chamber into their schoolroom.  Their father was
+in the habit of relating to them any public news in which he felt an
+interest; and from the opinions of his strong and independent mind they
+would gather much food for thought; but I do not know whether he gave
+them any direct instruction.  Charlotte's deep, thoughtful spirit
+appears to have felt almost painfully the tender responsibility which
+rested upon her with reference to her remaining sisters.  She was only
+eighteen months older than Emily; but Emily and Anne were simply
+companions and playmates, while Charlotte was motherly friend and
+guardian to both; and this loving assumption of duties beyond her years
+made her feel considerably older than she really was.
+
+I have had a curious packet confided to me, containing an immense
+amount of manuscript, in an inconceivably small space; tales, dramas,
+poems, romances, written principally by Charlotte, in a hand which is
+almost impossible to decipher without the aid of a magnifying
+glass. . . .
+
+As each volume contains from sixty to a hundred pages . . . the amount
+of the whole seems very great, if we remember that it was all written
+in about fifteen months.  So much for the quantity; the quality strikes
+me as of singular merit for a girl of thirteen or fourteen.  Both as a
+specimen of her prose style at this time, and also as revealing
+something of the quiet domestic life led by these children, I take an
+extract from the introduction to "Tales of the Islanders," the title of
+one of their "Little Magazines":
+
+
+"JUNE the 31st, 1829.
+
+"The play of the 'Islanders' was formed in December, 1827, in the
+following manner: One night, about the time when cold sleet and stormy
+fogs of November are succeeded by the snowstorms and high, piercing
+night-winds of confirmed winter, we were all sitting round the warm
+blazing kitchen fire, having just concluded a quarrel with Tabby
+concerning the propriety of lighting a candle, from which she came off
+victorious, no candle having been produced.  A long pause succeeded,
+which was at last broken by Branwell saying in a lazy manner, 'I don't
+know what to do.'  This was echoed by Emily and Anne.
+
+"Tabby.  'Wha ya may go t'bed.'
+
+"Branwell.  'I'd rather do anything than that.'
+
+"Charlotte.  'Why are you so glum to-night, Tabby?  Oh! suppose we had
+each an island of our own.'
+
+"Branwell.  'If we had I would choose the Island of Man.'
+
+"Charlotte.  'And I would choose the Isle of Wight.'
+
+"Emily.  'The Isle of Arran for me.'
+
+"Anne.  'And mine should be Guernsey.'
+
+"We then chose who would be chief men in our Islands.  Branwell chose
+John Bull, Astley Cooper, and Leigh Hunt; Emily, Walter Scott, Mr.
+Lockhart, Johnny Lockhart; Anne, Michael Sadler, Lord Bentinck, Sir
+Henry Halford.  I chose the Duke of Wellington and two sons,
+Christopher North and Co., and Mr. Abernethy.  Here our conversation
+was interrupted by the, to us, dismal sound of the clock striking
+seven, and we were summoned off to bed.  The next day we added many
+others to our list of men, till we got almost all the chief men of the
+kingdom.  After this, for a long time, nothing worth noticing occurred.
+In June, 1828, we erected a school on a fictitious island, which was to
+contain 1,000 children.  The manner of the building was as follows: The
+island was fifty miles in circumference, and certainly appeared more
+like the work of enchantment than anything real," etc. . . .
+
+
+There is another scrap of paper in this all but illegible handwriting,
+written about this time, and which gives some idea of the sources of
+their opinions. . . .
+
+
+"Papa and Branwell are gone for the newspaper, the Leeds
+_Intelligencer_, a most excellent Tory newspaper, edited by Mr. Wood,
+and the proprietor, Mr. Henneman.  We take two, and see three,
+newspapers a week.  We take the Leeds _Intelligencer_, Tory, and the
+Leeds _Mercury_, Whig, edited by Mr. Baines, and his brother,
+son-in-law, and his two sons, Edward and Talbot.  We see the _John
+Bull_; it is a high Tory, very violent.  Mr. Driver lends us it, as
+likewise _Blackwood's Magazine_, the most able periodical there is.
+The editor is Mr. Christopher North, an old man seventy-four years of
+age; the 1st of April is his birthday; his company are Timothy Tickler,
+Morgan O'Doherty, Macrabin Mordecai, Mullion, Warnell, and James Hogg,
+a man of most extraordinary genius, a Scottish shepherd.  Our plays
+were established, 'Young Men,' June, 1826; 'Our Fellows,' July, 1827;
+'Islanders,' December, 1827.  These are our three great plays that are
+not kept secret.  Emily's and my best plays were established the 1st of
+December, 1827; the others March, 1828.  Best plays mean secret plays,
+they are very nice ones.  All our plays are very strange ones.  Their
+nature I need not write on paper, for I think I shall always remember
+them.  The 'Young Men's' play took its rise from some wooden soldiers
+Branwell had; 'Our Fellows' from 'Aesop's Fables'; and the 'Islanders'
+from several events which happened.  I will sketch out the origin of
+our plays more explicitly if I can.  First, 'Young Men.'  Papa brought
+Branwell some wooden soldiers at Leeds; when papa came home it was
+night, and we were in bed, so next morning Branwell came to our door
+with a box of soldiers.  Emily and I jumped out of bed, and I snatched
+up one and exclaimed, 'This is the Duke of Wellington!  This shall be
+the Duke!'  When I had said this Emily likewise took one up and said it
+should be hers; when Anne came down, she said one should be hers.  Mine
+was the prettiest of the whole, and the tallest, and the most perfect
+in every part.  Emily's was a grave-looking fellow, and we called him
+'Gravey.'  Anne's was a queer little thing, much like herself, and we
+called him 'Waiting-boy.'  Branwell chose his, and called him
+'Buonaparte.'"
+
+
+The foregoing extract shows something of the kind of reading in which
+the little Brontës were interested; but their desire for knowledge must
+have been excited in many directions, for I find a "list of painters
+whose works I wish to see," drawn up by Charlotte Brontë when she was
+scarcely thirteen: "Guido Reni, Julio Romano Titian, Raphael, Michael
+Angelo, Coreggio, Annibal Carracci, Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Bartolomeo,
+Carlo Cignani, Vandyke, Rubens, Bartolomeo Ramerghi."
+
+Here is this little girl, in a remote Yorkshire parsonage, who has
+probably never seen anything worthy the name of a painting in her life
+studying the names and characteristics of the great old Italian and
+Flemish masters, whose works she longs to see some time, in the dim
+future that lies before her!  There is a paper remaining which contains
+minute studies of, and criticisms upon, the engravings in "Friendship's
+Offering for 1829," showing how she had early formed those habits of
+close observation and patient analysis of cause and effect, which
+served so well in after-life as handmaids to her genius.
+
+The way in which Mr. Brontë made his children sympathize with him in
+his great interest in politics must have done much to lift them above
+the chances of their minds being limited or tainted by petty local
+gossip.  I take the only other remaining personal fragment out of
+"Tales of the Islanders"; it is a sort of apology, contained in the
+introduction to the second volume, for their not having been continued
+before; the writers have been for a long time too busy and lately too
+much absorbed in politics:
+
+
+"Parliament was opened, and the great Catholic question was brought
+forward, and the Duke's measures were disclosed, and all was slander,
+violence, party spirit, and confusion.  Oh, those six months, from the
+time of the King's speech to the end!  Nobody could write, think, or
+speak on any subject but the Catholic question, and the Duke of
+Wellington, and Mr. Peel.  I remember the day when the _Intelligence
+Extraordinary_ came with Mr. Peel's speech in it, containing the terms
+on which the Catholics were to be let in!  With what eagerness papa
+tore off the cover, and how we all gathered round him, and with what
+breathless anxiety we listened, as one by one they were disclosed, and
+explained, and argued upon so ably and so well; and then when it was
+all out, how aunt said that she thought it was excellent, and that the
+Catholics could do no harm with such good security.  I remember also
+the doubts as to whether it would pass the House of Lords, and the
+prophecies that it would not; and when the paper came which was to
+decide the question, the anxiety was almost dreadful with which we
+listened to the whole affair; the opening of the doors, the hush; the
+royal dukes in their robes, and the great duke in green sash and
+waistcoat; the rising of all the peeresses when he rose; the reading of
+his speech--papa saying that his words were like precious gold; and
+lastly, the majority of one to four (sic) in favour of the Bill.  But
+this is a digression."
+
+
+This must have been written when she was between thirteen and fourteen.
+
+She was an indefatigable student; constantly reading and learning; with
+a strong conviction of the necessity and value of education very
+unusual in a girl of fifteen.  She never lost a moment of time, and
+seemed almost to grudge the necessary leisure for relaxation and
+play-hours, which might be partly accounted for by the awkwardness in
+all games occasioned by her shortness of sight.  Yet, in spite of these
+unsociable habits, she was a great favourite with her school-fellows.
+She was always ready to try and do what they wished, though not sorry
+when they called her awkward, and left her out of their sports.  Then,
+at night, she was an invaluable story-teller, frightening them almost
+out of their wits as they lay in bed.  On one occasion the effect was
+such that she was led to scream out loud, and Miss Wooler, coming
+upstairs, found that one of the listeners had been seized with violent
+palpitations, in consequence of the excitement produced by Charlotte's
+story.
+
+Her indefatigable craving for knowledge tempted Miss Wooler on into
+setting her longer and longer tasks of reading for examination; and
+toward the end of the two years that she remained as a pupil at Roe
+Head, she received her first bad mark for an imperfect lesson.  She had
+had a great quantity of Blair's "Lectures on Belles-Lettres" to read;
+and she could not answer some of the questions upon it; Charlotte
+Brontë had a bad mark.  Miss Wooler was sorry, and regretted that she
+had over-tasked so willing a pupil.  Charlotte cried bitterly.  But her
+school-fellows were more than sorry--they were indignant.  They
+declared that the infliction of ever so slight a punishment on
+Charlotte Brontë was unjust--for who had tried to do her duty like
+her?--and testified their feeling in a variety of ways, until Miss
+Wooler, who was in reality only too willing to pass over her good
+pupil's first fault, withdrew the bad mark. . . .
+
+After her return home she employed herself in teaching her sisters over
+whom she had had superior advantages.  She writes thus, July 21, 1832,
+of her course of life at the parsonage:
+
+
+"An account of one day is an account of all.  In the morning, from nine
+o'clock till half-past twelve, I instruct my sisters, and draw; then we
+walk till dinner-time.  After dinner I sew till tea-time, and after tea
+I either write, read, or do a little fancywork, or draw, as I please.
+Thus, in one delightful though somewhat monotonous course, my life is
+passed.  I have been out only twice to tea since I came home.  We are
+expecting company this afternoon, and on Tuesday next we shall have all
+the female teachers of the Sunday-school to tea."
+
+
+It was about this time that Mr. Brontë provided his children with a
+teacher in drawing, who turned out to be a man of considerable talent
+but very little principle.  Although they never attained to anything
+like proficiency, they took great interest in acquiring this art;
+evidently from an instinctive desire to express their powerful
+imaginations in visible forms.  Charlotte told me that at this period
+of her life drawing and walking out with her sisters formed the two
+great pleasures and relaxations of her day. . . .
+
+Quiet days, occupied in teaching and feminine occupations in the house,
+did not present much to write about; and Charlotte was naturally driven
+to criticise books.
+
+Of these there were many in different plights, and according to their
+plight, kept in different places.  The well bound were ranged in the
+sanctuary of Mr. Brontë's study; but the purchase of books was a
+necessary luxury to him, and as it was often a choice between binding
+an old one, or buying a new one, the familiar volume, which had been
+hungrily read by all the members of the family, was sometimes in such a
+condition that the bedroom shelf was considered its fitting place.  Up
+and down the house were to be found many standard works of a solid
+kind.  Sir Walter Scott's writings, Wadsworth's and Southey's poems
+were among the lighter literature; while, as having a character of
+their own--earnest, wild, and occasionally fanatical, may be named some
+of the books which came from the Branwell side of the family--from the
+Cornish followers of the saintly John Wesley--and which are touched on
+in the account of the works to which Caroline Helstone had access in
+"Shirley":  "Some venerable Lady's Magazines, that had once performed a
+voyage with their owner, and undergone a storm"--(possibly part of the
+relics of Mrs. Brontë's possessions, contained in the ship wrecked on
+the coast of Cornwall)--"and whose pages were stained with salt water;
+some mad Methodist Magazines full of miracles and apparitions, and
+preternatural warnings, ominous dreams, and frenzied fanaticism; and
+the equally mad Letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe from the Dead to the
+Living."
+
+Mr. Brontë encouraged a taste for reading in his girls; and though Miss
+Branwell kept it in due bounds by the variety of household occupations,
+in which she expected them not merely to take a part, but to become
+proficients, thereby occupying regularly a good portion of every day,
+they were allowed to get books from the circulating library at
+Keighley; and many a happy walk up those long four miles must they have
+had burdened with some new book into which they peeped as they hurried
+home.  Not that the books were what would generally be called new; in
+the beginning of 1833 the two friends [Charlotte and "E.," a school
+friend] seem almost simultaneously to have fallen upon "Kenilworth,"
+and Charlotte writes as follows about it:
+
+
+"I am glad you like 'Kenilworth'; it is certainly more resembling a
+romance than a novel; in my opinion, one of the most interesting works
+that ever emanated from the great Sir Walter's pen.  Varney is
+certainly the personification of consummate villainy; and in the
+delineation of his dark and profoundly and artful mind, Scott exhibits
+a wonderful knowledge of human nature, as well as surprising skill in
+embodying his perceptions, so as to enable others to become
+participators in that knowledge. . . ."
+
+
+Meanwhile, "The Professor" had met with many refusals from different
+publishers; some, I have reason to believe, not over-courteously worded
+in writing to an unknown author, and none alleging any distinct reasons
+for its rejection.  Courtesy is always due; but it is, perhaps, hardly
+to be expected that, in the press of business in a great publishing
+house, they should find time to explain why they decline particular
+works.  Yet, though one course of action is not to be wondered at, the
+opposite may fall upon a grieved and disappointed mind with all the
+graciousness of dew; and I can well sympathize with the published
+account which "Currer Bell" gives, of the feelings experienced on
+reading Messrs. Smith and Elder's letter containing the rejection of
+"The Professor."
+
+
+"As a forlorn hope, we tried one publishing house more.  Ere long, in a
+much shorter space than that on which experience had taught him to
+calculate, there came a letter, which he opened in the dreary
+anticipation of finding two hard, hopeless lines, intimating that
+'Messrs. Smith and Elder were not disposed to publish the MS.,' and,
+instead, he took out the envelope a letter of two pages.  He read it,
+trembling.  It declined, indeed, to publish that tale, for business
+reasons, but it discussed its merits and demerits so courteously, so
+considerately, in a spirit so rational, with a discrimination so
+enlightened, that this very refusal cheered the author better than a
+vulgarly expressed acceptance would have done.  It was added, that a
+work in three volumes would meet with careful attention."
+
+Mr. Smith has told me a little circumstance connected with the
+reception of this manuscript which seems to me indicative of no
+ordinary character.  It came (accompanied by the note given below) in a
+brown paper parcel, to 65 Cornhill.  Besides the address to Messrs.
+Smith & Co., there were on it those of other publishers to whom the
+tale had been sent, not obliterated, but simply scored through, so that
+Messrs.  Smith at once perceived the names of some of the houses in the
+trade to which the unlucky parcel had gone, without success.
+
+
+[_To Messrs. Smith and Elder_]
+
+"JULY 15th, 1847.
+
+"Gentlemen--I beg to submit to your consideration the accompanying
+manuscript.  I should be glad to learn whether it be such as you
+approve, and would undertake to publish at as early a period as
+possible.  Address, Mr. Currer Bell, under cover to Miss Brontë,
+Haworth, Bradford, Yorkshire."
+
+
+Some time elapsed before an answer was returned. . . .
+
+
+[_To Messrs. Smith and Elder_]
+
+"AUGUST 2nd, 1847.
+
+"Gentlemen--About three weeks since I sent for your consideration a MS.
+entitled 'The Professor, a Tale by Currer Bell.'  I should be glad to
+know whether it reached your hands safely, and likewise to learn, at
+your earliest convenience, whether it be such as you can undertake to
+publish.  I am, gentlemen, yours respectfully,
+
+"CURRER BELL.
+
+"I enclose a directed cover for your reply."
+
+
+This time her note met with a prompt answer; for, four days later, she
+writes (in reply to the letter she afterward characterized in the
+Preface to the second edition of "Wuthering Heights," as containing a
+refusal so delicate, reasonable, and courteous as to be more cheering
+than some acceptances):
+
+
+"Your objection to the want of varied interest in the tale is, I am
+aware, not without grounds; yet it appears to me that it might be
+published without serious risk, if its appearance were speedily
+followed up by another work from the same pen, of a more striking and
+exciting character.  The first work might serve as an introduction, and
+accustom the public to the author's name: the success of the second
+might thereby be rendered more probable.  I have a second narrative in
+three volumes, now in progress, and nearly completed, to which I have
+endeavoured to impart a more vivid interest than belongs to 'The
+Professor.'  In about a month I hope to finish it, so that if a
+publisher were found for 'The Professor' the second narrative might
+follow as soon as was deemed advisable; and thus the interest of the
+public (if any interest was aroused) might not be suffered to cool.
+Will you be kind enough to favour me with your judgment on this
+plan?". . .
+
+Mr. Brontë, too, had his suspicions of something going on; but, never
+being spoken to, he did not speak on the subject, and consequently his
+ideas were vague and uncertain, only just prophetic enough to keep him
+from being actually stunned when, later on, he heard of the success of
+"Jane Eyre"; to the progress of which we must now return.
+
+
+[_To Messrs. Smith and Elder_]
+
+"AUGUST 24th.
+
+"I now send you per rail a MS. entitled 'Jane Eyre,' a novel in three
+volumes, by Currer Bell.  I find I cannot prepay the carriage of the
+parcel, as money for that purpose is not received at the small
+station-house where it is left.  If, when you acknowledge the receipt
+of the MS., you would have the goodness to mention the amount charged
+on delivery, I will immediately transmit it in postage stamps.  It is
+better in future to address Mr. Currer Bell, under cover to Miss
+Brontë, Haworth, Bradford, Yorkshire, as there is a risk of letters
+otherwise directed not reaching me at present.  To save trouble, I
+enclose an envelope."
+
+
+"Jane Eyre" was accepted, and printed and published by October
+16th. . . .
+
+When the manuscript of "Jane Eyre" had been received by the future
+publishers of that remarkable novel, it fell to the share of a
+gentleman connected with the firm to read it first.  He was so
+powerfully struck by the character of the tale that he reported his
+impression in very strong terms to Mr. Smith, who appears to have been
+much amused by the admiration excited.  "You seem to have been so
+enchanted that I do not know how to believe you," he laughingly said.
+But when a second reader, in the person of a clear-headed Scotchman,
+not given to enthusiasm, had taken the MS. home in the evening, and
+became so deeply interested in it as to sit up half the night to finish
+it, Mr. Smith's curiosity was sufficiently excited to prompt him to
+read it for himself; and great as were the praises which had been
+bestowed upon it, he found that they had not exceeded the truth.
+
+
+
+
+LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
+
+(1832-1888)
+
+He is a hard-hearted churl who can read with unmoistened eyes this
+journal of a brave and talented girl.
+
+With what genuine, _personal_ pleasure one remembers that a full
+measure of success and recognition was finally won by her efforts.
+
+
+From "Louisa Mary Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals."  Little,
+Brown & Co., 1889.
+
+1852.--_High Street, Boston_.--After the smallpox summer, we went to a
+house in High Street.  Mother opened an intelligence office, which grew
+out of her city missionary work and a desire to find places for good
+girls.  It was not fit work for her, but it paid; and she always did
+what came to her in the work of duty or charity, and let pride, taste,
+and comfort suffer for love's sake.
+
+Anna and I taught; Lizzie was our little housekeeper--our angel in a
+cellar kitchen; May went to school; father wrote and talked when he
+could get classes or conversations.  Our poor little home had much love
+and happiness in it, and it was a shelter for lost girls, abused wives,
+friendless children, and weak or wicked men.  Father and mother had no
+money to give, but gave them time, sympathy, help; and if blessings
+would make them rich, they would be millionaires.  This is practical
+Christianity.
+
+My first story was printed, and $5 paid for it.  It was written in
+Concord when I was sixteen.  Great rubbish!  Read it aloud to sisters,
+and when they praised it, not knowing the author, I proudly announced
+her name.
+
+Made a resolution to read fewer novels, and those only of the best.
+List of books I like:
+
+  Carlyle's French Revolution and Miscellanies.
+  Hero and Hero-Worship.
+  Goethe's poems, plays, and novels.
+  Plutarch's Lives.
+  Madame Guion.
+  Paradise Lost and Comus.
+  Schiller's Plays.
+  Madame de Staël.
+  Bettine.
+  Louis XIV.
+  Jane Eyre.
+  Hypatia.
+  Philothea.
+  Uncle Tom's Cabin.
+  Emerson's Poems. . . .
+
+1853.--In January I started a little school--E. W., W. A., two L's, two
+H's--about a dozen in our parlor.  In May, when my school closed, I
+went to L. as second girl.  I needed the change, could do the wash, and
+was glad to earn my $2 a week.  Home in October with $34 for my wages.
+After two days' rest, began school again with ten children.  Anna went
+to Syracuse to teach; father to the West to try his luck--so poor, so
+hopeful, so serene.  God be with him!  Mother had several boarders, and
+May got on well at school.  Betty was still the home bird, and had a
+little romance with C.
+
+Pleasant letters from father and Anna.  A hard year.  Summer
+distasteful and lonely; winter tiresome with school and people I didn't
+like; I miss Anna, my one bosom friend and comforter.
+
+1854.--_Pinckney Street_.--I have neglected my journal for months, so
+must write it up.  School for me month after month.  Mother busy with
+boarders and sewing.  Father doing as well as a philosopher can in a
+money-loving world.  Anna at S.
+
+I earned a good deal by sewing in the evening when my day's work was
+done.
+
+In February father came home.  Paid his way, but no more.  A dramatic
+scene when he arrived in the night.  We were waked by hearing the bell.
+Mother flew down, crying "My husband!"  We rushed after, and five white
+figures embraced the half-frozen wanderer who came in hungry, tired,
+cold, and disappointed, but smiling bravely and as serene as ever.  We
+fed and warmed and brooded over him, longing to ask if he had made any
+money; but no one did till little May said, after he had told all the
+pleasant things, "Well, did people pay you?"  Then, with a queer look,
+he opened his pocketbook and showed one dollar, saying with a smile
+that made our eyes fill, "Only that!  My overcoat was stolen, and I had
+to buy a shawl.  Many promises were not kept, and travelling is costly;
+but I have opened the way, and another year shall do better."
+
+I shall never forget how beautifully mother answered him, though the
+dear, hopeful soul had built much on his success; but with a beaming
+face she kissed him, saying, "I call that doing _very well_.  Since you
+are safely home, dear, we don't ask anything more."
+
+Anna and I choked down our tears, and took a little lesson in real
+love, which we never forgot, nor the look that the tired man and the
+tender woman gave one another.  It was half tragic and comic, for
+father was very dirty and sleepy, and mother in a big nightcap and
+funny old jacket.
+
+[I began to see the strong contrasts and the fun and follies in
+every-day life about this time--L. M. A.]
+
+Anna came home in March.  Kept our school all summer.  I got "Flower
+Fables" ready to print.
+
+Louisa also tried service with a relative in the country for a short
+time, but teaching, sewing, and writing were her principal occupations
+during this residence in Boston.
+
+These seven years, from Louisa's sixteenth to her twenty-third year,
+might be called an apprenticeship to life.  She tried various paths,
+and learned to know herself and the world about her, although she was
+not even yet certain of success in the way which finally opened before
+her and led her so successfully to the accomplishment of her
+life-purpose.  She tried teaching, without satisfaction to herself or
+perhaps to others.  The kind of education she had herself received
+fitted her admirably to understand and influence children, but not to
+carry on the routine of a school.  Sewing was her resource when nothing
+else offered, but it is almost pitiful to think of her as confined to
+such work when great powers were lying dormant in her mind.  Still
+Margaret Fuller said that a year of enforced quiet in the country
+devoted mainly to sewing was very useful to her, since she reviewed and
+examined the treasures laid up in her memory; and doubtless Louisa
+Alcott thought out many a story which afterward delighted the world
+while her fingers busily plied the needle.  Yet it was a great
+deliverance when she first found that the products of her brain would
+bring in the needed money for family support.
+
+
+[_L. in Boston to A. in Syracuse_]
+
+THURSDAY, 27th.
+
+DEAREST NAN: I was so glad to hear from you, and hear that all are well.
+
+I am grubbing away as usual, trying to get money enough to buy mother a
+nice warm shawl.  I have eleven dollars, all my own earnings--five for
+a story, and four for the pile of sewing I did for the ladies of Dr.
+Gray's society, to give him as a present.
+
+. . . I got a crimson ribbon for a bonnet for May, and I took my straw
+and fixed it nicely with some little duds I had.  Her old one has
+haunted me all winter, and I want her to look neat.  She is so graceful
+and pretty and loves beauty so much it is hard for her to be poor and
+wear other people's ugly things.  You and I have learned not to mind
+_much_; but when I think of her I long to dash out and buy the finest
+hat the limited sum often dollars can procure.  She says so sweetly in
+one of her letters: "It is hard sometimes to see other people have so
+many nice things and I so few; but I try not to be envious, but
+contented with my poor clothes, and cheerful about it."  I hope the
+little dear will like the bonnet and the frills I made her and some
+bows I fixed over from bright ribbons L. W. threw away.  I get half my
+rarities from her rag-bag, and she doesn't know her own rags when fixed
+over.  I hope I shall live to see the dear child in silk and lace, with
+plenty of pictures and "bottles of cream," Europe, and all she longs
+for.
+
+For our good little Betty, who is wearing all the old gowns we left, I
+shall soon be able to buy a new one, and send it with my blessing to
+the cheerful saint.  She writes me the funniest notes, and tries to
+keep the old folks warm and make the lonely house in the snowbanks
+cosey and bright.
+
+To father I shall send new neckties and some paper; then he will be
+happy, and can keep on with the beloved diaries though the heavens fall.
+
+Don't laugh at my plans; I'll carry them out, if I go to service to do
+it.  Seeing so much money flying about, I long to honestly get a little
+and make my dear family more comfortable.  I feel weak-minded when I
+think of all they need and the little I can do.
+
+Now about you: Keep the money you have earned by so many tears and
+sacrifices, and clothe yourself; for it makes me mad to know that my
+good little lass is going round in shabby things, and being looked down
+upon by people who are not worthy to touch her patched shoes or the hem
+of her ragged old gowns.  Make yourself tidy, and if any is left over
+send it to mother; for there are always many things needed at home,
+though they won't tell us.  I only wish I, too, by any amount of
+weeping and homesickness could earn as much.  But my mite won't come
+amiss; and if tears can add to its value, I've shed my quart--first,
+over the book not coming out; for that was a sad blow, and I waited so
+long it was dreadful when my castle in the air came tumbling about my
+ears.  Pride made me laugh in public; but I wailed in private, and no
+one knew it.  The folks at home think I rather enjoyed it, for I wrote
+a jolly letter.  But my visit was spoiled; and now I'm digging away for
+dear life, that I may not have come entirely in vain.  I didn't mean to
+groan about it; but my lass and I must tell some one our trials, and so
+it becomes easy to confide in one another.  I never let mother know how
+unhappy you were in S. till Uncle wrote.
+
+My doings are not much this week.  I sent a little tale to the Gazette,
+and Clapp asked H. W. if five dollars would be enough.  Cousin H. said
+yes, and gave it to me, with kind words and a nice parcel of paper,
+saying in his funny way, "Now, Lu, the door is open, go in and win."
+So I shall try to do it.  Then cousin L. W. said Mr. B. had got my
+play, and told her that if Mrs. B. liked it as well, it must be clever,
+and if it didn't cost too much, he would bring it out by and by.  Say
+nothing about it yet.  Dr. W. tells me Mr. F. is very sick; so the
+farce cannot be acted yet.  But the Doctor is set on its coming out,
+and we have fun about it.  H. W. takes me often to the theatre when L.
+is done with me.  I read to her all the P. M. often, as she is poorly,
+and in that way I pay my debt to them.
+
+I'm writing another story for Clapp.  I want more fives, and mean to
+have them, too.
+
+Uncle wrote that you were Dr. W.'s pet teacher, and every one loved you
+dearly.  But if you are not well, don't stay.  Come home, and be
+cuddled by your old
+
+Lu.
+
+
+_Pinckney Street, Boston_, January 1, 1855.--The principal event of the
+winter is the appearance of my book "Flower Fables."  An edition of
+sixteen hundred.  It has sold very well, and people seem to like it.  I
+feel quite proud that the little tales that I wrote for Ellen E. when I
+was sixteen should now bring money and fame.
+
+I will put in some of the notices as "varieties," mothers are always
+foolish over their first-born.
+
+Miss Wealthy Stevens paid for the book, and I received $32.
+
+[A pleasing contrast to the receipts of six months only, in 1886, being
+$8,000 for the sale of books, and no new one; but I was prouder over
+the $32 than the $8,000.--L. M. A., 1886.]
+
+_April_, 1855.--I am in the garret with my papers round me, and a pile
+of apples to eat while I write my journal, plan stories, and enjoy the
+patter of rain on the roof, in peace and quiet.
+
+[Jo in the garret.--L. M. A.]
+
+Being behindhand, as usual, I'll make note of the main events up to
+date, for I don't waste ink in poetry and pages of rubbish now.  I've
+begun to live, and have no time for sentimental musing.
+
+In October I began my school; father talked, mother looked after her
+boarders, and tried to help everybody.  Anna was in Syracuse teaching
+Mrs. S------'s children.
+
+My book came out; and people began to think that topsy-turvy Louisa
+would amount to something after all, since she could do so well as
+housemaid, teacher, seamstress, and story-teller.  Perhaps she may.
+
+In February I wrote a story for which C. paid $5 and asked for more.
+
+In March I wrote a farce for W. Warren, and Dr. W. offered it to him;
+but W. W. was too busy.
+
+Also began another tale, but found little time to work on it, with
+school, sewing, and housework.  My winter's earnings are:
+
+  School, one quarter  . . . . . $50
+  Sewing . . . . . . . . . . . .  50
+  Stories  . . . . . . . . . . .  20
+
+if I am ever paid.
+
+A busy and a pleasant winter, because, though hard at times, I do seem
+to be getting on a little; and that encourages me.
+
+Have heard Lowell and Hedge lecture, acted in plays, and thanks to our
+rag-money and good cousin H., have been to the theatre several
+times--always my great joy.
+
+Summer plans are yet unsettled.  Father wants to go to England: not a
+wise idea, I think.  We shall probably stay here, and A. and I go into
+the country as governesses.  It's a queer way to live, but dramatic,
+and I rather like it; for we never know what is to come next.  We are
+real "Micawbers," and always "ready for a spring."
+
+I have planned another Christmas book, and hope to be able to write it.
+
+1855.--Cousin L. W. asks me to pass the summer at Walpole with her.  If
+I can get no teaching, I shall go; for I long for the hills, and can
+write my fairy tales there.
+
+I delivered my burlesque lecture on "Woman, and Her Position; by
+Oronthy Bluggage," last evening at Deacon G's.  Had a merry time, and
+was asked by Mr. R. to do it at H. for money.  Read "Hamlet" at our
+club--my favorite play.  Saw Mrs. W. H. Smith about the farce; says she
+will do it at her benefit.
+
+_May_.--Father went to C. to talk with Mr. Emerson about the England
+trip.  I am to go to Walpole.  I have made my own gowns, and had money
+enough to fit up the girls.  So glad to be independent.
+
+[I wonder if $40 fitted up the whole family.  Perhaps so, as my
+wardrobe was made up of old clothes from cousins and friends.--L. M. A.]
+
+_Walpole, N. H., June, 1855_.--Pleasant journey and a kind welcome.
+Lovely place, high among the hills.  So glad to run and skip in the
+woods and up the splendid ravine.  Shall write here, I know.
+
+Helped cousin L. in her garden; and the smell of the fresh earth and
+the touch of green leaves did me good.
+
+Mr. T. came and praised my first book, so I felt much inspired to go
+and do another.  I remember him at Scituate years ago, when he was a
+young shipbuilder and I a curly-haired hoyden of five or six.
+
+Up at five, and had a lovely run in the ravine, seeing the woods wake.
+Planned a little tale which ought to be fresh and true, as it came at
+that hour and place--"King Goldenrod."  Have lively days--writing in A.
+M., driving in P. M., and fun in the eve.  My visit is doing me much
+good.
+
+_July_, 1855.--Read "Hyperion."  On the 16th the family came to live in
+Mr. W.'s house, rent free.  No better plan offered, and we were all
+tired of the city.  Here father can have a garden, mother can rest and
+be near her good niece; the children have freedom and fine air; and A.
+and I can go from here to our teaching, wherever it may be.
+
+Busy and happy times as we settle in the little house in the lane near
+by my dear ravine--plays, picnics, pleasant people, and good neighbors.
+Fanny Kemble came up, Mrs. Kirkland, and others, and Dr. Bellows is the
+gayest of the gay.  We acted the "Jacobite," "Rivals," and
+"Bonnycastles," to an audience of a hundred, and were noticed in the
+Boston papers.  H. T. was our manager, and Dr. B., D. D., our dramatic
+director.  Anna was the star, her acting being really very fine.  I did
+"Mrs. Malaprop," "Widow Pottle," and the old ladies.
+
+Finished fairy book in September.  Ann had an offer from Dr. Wilbur of
+Syracuse to teach at the great idiot asylum.  She disliked it, but
+decided to go.  Poor dear! so beauty-loving, timid, and tender.  It is
+a hard trial; but she is so self-sacrificing she tries to like it
+because it is duty.
+
+_October_.--A. to Syracuse.  May illustrated my book and tales called
+"Christmas Elves." Better than "Flower Fables."  Now I must try to sell
+it.
+
+[Innocent Louisa, to think that a Christmas book could be sold in
+October.--L. M. A.]
+
+_November_.--Decided to seek my fortune; so with my little trunk of
+home-made clothes, $20 earned by stories sent to the _Gazette_, and my
+MSS., I set forth with mother's blessing one rainy day in the dullest
+month in the year.
+
+[My birth-month; always to be a memorable one.--L. M. A.]
+
+Found it too late to do anything with the book, so put it away and
+tried for teaching, sewing, or any honest work.  Won't go home to sit
+idle while I have a head and pair of hands.
+
+_December_.--H. and L. W. very kind, and my dear cousins the Sewalls
+take me in.  I sew for Mollie and others, and write stories.  C. gave
+me books to notice.  Heard Thackeray.  Anxious times; Anna very
+homesick.  Walpole very cold and dull now the summer butterflies have
+gone.  Got $5 for a tale and $12 for sewing; sent home a Christmas box
+to cheer the dear souls in the snow-banks.
+
+_January, 1856_.--C. paid $6 for "A Sister's Trial."  Gave me more
+books to notice, and wants more tales.
+
+[Should think he would at that price.--L. M. A.]
+
+Sewed for L. W. Sewall and others.  Mr. J. M. Field took my farce to
+Mobile to bring out; Mr. Barry of the Boston Theatre has the play.
+
+Heard Curtis lecture.  Began a book for summer--"Beach Bubbles."  Mr.
+F. of the _Courier_ printed a poem of mine on "Little Nell."  Got $10
+for "Bertha," and saw great yellow placards stuck up announcing it.
+Acted at the W.'s.
+
+_March_.--Got $10 for "Genevieve."  Prices go up, as people like the
+tales and ask who wrote them.  Finished "Twelve Bubbles."  Sewed a
+great deal, and got very tired; one job for Mr. G. of a dozen pillow
+cases, one dozen sheets, six fine cambric neckties, and two dozen
+handkerchiefs, at which I had to work all one night to get them done,
+as they were a gift to him.  I got only $4.
+
+Sewing won't make my fortune; but I can plan my stories while I work,
+and then scribble 'em down on Sundays.
+
+Poem on "Little Paul"; Curtis's lecture on "Dickens" made it go well.
+Hear Emerson on "England."
+
+_May_.--Anna came on her way home, sick and worn out; the work was too
+much for her.  We had some happy days visiting about.  Could not
+dispose of B. B. in book form, but C. took them for his paper.  Mr.
+Field died, so the farce fell through there.  Altered the play for Mrs.
+Barrow to bring out next winter.
+
+_June, 1856_.--Home, to find dear Betty very ill with scarlet-fever
+caught from some poor children mother nursed when they fell sick,
+living over a cellar where pigs had been kept.  The landlord (a deacon)
+would not clean the place till mother threatened to sue him for
+allowing a nuisance.  Too late to save two of the poor babies or Lizzie
+and May from the fever.
+
+[L. never recovered, but died of it two years later.--L. M. A.]
+
+An anxious time, I nursed, did housework, and wrote a story a month
+through the summer.
+
+Dr. Bellows and Father had Sunday eve conversations.
+
+_October_.--Pleasant letters from father, who went on a tour to New
+York, Philadelphia, and Boston.
+
+Made plans to go to Boston for the winter, as there is nothing to do
+here, and there I can support myself and help the family.  C. offers
+$10 a month, and perhaps more.  L. W., M. S., and others, have plenty
+of sewing; the play may come out, and Mrs. R. will give me a sky-parlor
+for $3 a week, with fire and board.  I sew for her also.
+
+If I can get A. L. to governess I shall be all right.
+
+I was born with a boy's spirit under my bib and tucker.  I _can't wait_
+when I _can work_, so I took my little talent in my hand and forced the
+world again, braver than before and wiser for my failures.
+
+[Jo in N. Y.--L. M. A.]
+
+I don't often pray in words; but when I set out that day with all my
+worldly goods in the little old trunk, my own earnings ($25) in my
+pocket, and much hope and resolution in my soul, my heart was very
+full, and I said to the Lord, "Help us all, and keep us for one
+another," as I never said it before, while I looked back at the dear
+faces watching me, so full of love and hope and faith.
+
+[_Journal_]
+
+Boston, _November, 1856: Mrs. David Reed's_.--I find my little room up
+in the attic very cosey and a house full of boarders very amusing to
+study.  Mrs. Reed very kind.  Fly around and take C. his stories.  Go
+to see Mrs. L. about A.  Don't want me.  A blow, but I cheer up and
+hunt for sewing.  Go to hear Parker, and he does me good.  Asks me to
+come Sunday evenings to his house.  I did go there, and met Phillips,
+Garrison, Hedge, and other great men, and sit in my corner weekly,
+staring and enjoying myself.
+
+When I went Mr. Parker said, "God bless you, Louisa; come again"; and
+the grasp of his hand gave me courage to face another anxious week.
+
+_November 3d_.--Wrote all the morning.  In the P. M. went to see the
+Sumner reception as he comes home after the Brooks affair.  I saw him
+pass up Beacon Street, pale and feeble, but smiling and bowing.  I
+rushed to Hancock Street, and was in time to see him bring his proud
+old mother to the window when the crowd gave three cheers for her.  I
+cheered, too, and was very much excited.  Mr. Parker met him somewhere
+before the ceremony began, and the above P. cheered like a boy; and
+Sumner laughed and nodded as his friend pranced and shouted, bareheaded
+and beaming.
+
+My kind cousin, L. W., got tickets for a course of lectures on "Italian
+Literature," and seeing my old cloak sent me a new one, with other
+needful and pretty things such as girls love to have.  I shall never
+forget how kind she has always been to me.
+
+_November 5th_.--Went with H. W. to see Manager Barry about the
+everlasting play which is always coming out but never comes.  We went
+all over the great new theatre, and I danced a jig on the immense
+stage.  Mr. B. was very kind, and gave me a pass to come whenever I
+liked.  This was such richness I didn't care if the play was burnt on
+the spot, and went home full of joy.  In the eve I saw La Grange as
+Norma, and felt as if I knew all about that place.  Quite stage-struck,
+and imagined myself in her place, with white robes and oak-leaf crown.
+
+_November 6th_.--Sewed happily on my job of twelve sheets for H. W.,
+and put lots of good will into the work after his kindness to me.
+
+Walked to Roxbury to see cousin Dr. W. about the play and tell the fine
+news.  Rode home in the new cars, and found them very nice.
+
+In the eve went to teach at Warren Street Chapel Charity School.  I'll
+help as I am helped if I can.  Mother says no one so poor he can't do a
+little for some one poorer yet.
+
+_Sunday_.--Heard Parker on "Individuality of Character," and liked it
+much.  In the eve I went to his house.  Mrs. Howe was there, and Sumner
+and others.  I sat in my usual corner, but Mr. P. came up and said, in
+that cordial way of his, "Well, child, how goes it?"  "Pretty well,
+sir."  "That's brave"; and with his warm handshake he went on, leaving
+me both proud and happy, though I have my trials.  He is like a great
+fire where all can come and be warmed and comforted.  Bless him!
+
+Had a talk at tea about him, and fought for him when W. R. said he was
+not a Christian.  He is my _sort_; for though he may lack reverence for
+other people's God, he works bravely for his own, and turns his back on
+no one who needs help, as some of the pious do.
+
+_Monday, 14th_.--May came full of expectation and joy to visit good
+aunt B. and study drawing.  We walked about and had a good home talk,
+then my girl went off to Auntie's to begin what I hope will be a
+pleasant and profitable winter.  She needs help to develop her talent,
+and I can't give it to her.
+
+Went to see Forrest as Othello.  It is funny to see how attentive all
+the once cool gentlemen are to Miss Alcott now she has a pass to the
+new theatre.
+
+_November 29th_.--My birthday.  Felt forlorn so far from home.  Wrote
+all day.  Seem to be getting on slowly, so should be contented.  To a
+little party at the B.'s in the eve.  May looked very pretty, and
+seemed to be a favorite.  The boys teased me about being an authoress,
+and I said I'd be famous yet.  Will if I can, but something else may be
+better for me.
+
+Found a pretty pin from father and a nice letter when I got home.  Mr.
+H. brought them with letters from mother and Betty, so I went to bed
+happy.
+
+_December_.--Busy with Christmas and New Year's tales.  Heard a good
+lecture by E. P. Whipple on "Courage."  Thought I needed it, being
+rather tired of living like a spider--spinning my brains out for money.
+
+Wrote a story, "The Cross on the Church Tower," suggested by the tower
+before my window.
+
+Called on Mrs. L., and she asked me to come and teach A. for three
+hours each day.  Just what I wanted; and the children's welcome was
+very pretty and comforting to "Our Olly," as they called me.
+
+Now board is all safe, and something over for home, if stories and
+sewing fail.  I don't do much, but can send little comforts to mother
+and Betty, and keep May neat.
+
+_December 18th_.--Begin with A. L., in Beacon Street.  I taught C. when
+we lived in High Street, A. in Pinckney Street, and now Al; so I seem
+to be an institution and a success, since I can start the boy, teach
+one girl, and take care of the little invalid.  It is hard work, but I
+can do it; and am glad to sit in a large, fine room part of each day,
+after my sky-parlor, which has nothing pretty in it, and only the gray
+tower and blue sky outside as I sit at the window writing.  I love
+luxury, but freedom and independence better.
+
+[_To her father, written from Mrs. Reed's_]
+
+_Boston, November 29, 1856_.
+
+DEAREST FATHER: Your little parcel was very welcome to me as I sat
+alone in my room, with snow falling fast outside, and a few tears in
+(for birthdays are dismal times to me); and the fine letter, the pretty
+gift, and, most of all, the loving thought so kindly taken for your old
+absent daughter, made the cold, dark day as warm and bright as summer
+to me.
+
+And now, with the birthday pin upon my bosom, many thanks on my lips,
+and a whole heart full of love for its giver, I will tell you a little
+about my doings, stupid as they will seem after your own grand
+proceedings.  How I wish I could be with you, enjoying what I have
+always longed for--fine people, fine amusements, and fine books.  But
+as I can't, I am glad you are; for I love to see your name first among
+the lecturers, to hear it kindly spoken of in papers and inquired about
+by good people here--to say nothing of the delight and pride I take in
+seeing you at last filling the place you are so fitted for, and which
+you have waited for so long and patiently.  If the New Yorkers raise a
+statue to the modern Plato, it will be a wise and highly creditable
+action.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+I am very well and very happy.  Things go smoothly, and I think I shall
+come out right, and prove that though an _Alcott_ I _can_ support
+myself.  I like the independent feeling; and though not an easy life,
+it is a free one, and I enjoy it.  I can't do much with my hands; so I
+will make a battering-ram of my head and make a way through this
+rough-and-tumble world.  I have very pleasant lectures to amuse my
+evenings--Professor Gajani on "Italian Reformers," the Mercantile
+Library course, Whipple, Beecher, and others, and, best of all, a free
+pass at the Boston Theatre.  I saw Mr. Barry, and he gave it to me with
+many kind speeches, and promises to bring out the play very soon.  I
+hope he will.
+
+My farce is in the hands of Mrs. W. H. Smith, who acts at Laura Keene's
+theatre in New York.  She took it, saying she would bring it out there.
+If you see or hear anything about it, let me know.  I want something
+doing.  My mornings are spent in writing.  C. takes one a month, and I
+am to see Mr. B., who may take some of my wares.
+
+In the afternoons I walk and visit my hundred relations, who are all
+kind and friendly, and seem interested in our various successes.
+
+Sunday evenings I go to Parker's parlor, and there meet Phillips,
+Garrison, Scherb, Sanborn, and many other pleasant people.  All talk,
+and I sit in a corner listening, and wishing a certain placid,
+gray-haired gentleman was there talking, too.  Mrs. Parker calls on me,
+reads my stories, and is very good to me.  Theodore asks Louisa "how
+her worthy parents do," and is otherwise very friendly to the large,
+bashful girl who adorns his parlor steadily.
+
+Abby is preparing for a busy and, I hope, a profitable winter.  She has
+music lessons already, French and drawing in store, and, if her eyes
+hold out, will keep her word and become what none of us can be, "an
+accomplished Alcott."  Now, dear Father, I shall hope to hear from you
+occasionally, and will gladly answer all epistles from the Plato, whose
+parlor parish is becoming quite famous.  I got the _Tribune_ but not
+the letter, and shall look it up.  I have been meaning to write, but
+did not know where you were.
+
+Good-bye, and a happy birthday from your ever-loving child,
+
+LOUISA.
+
+
+[_Journal_]
+
+_January, 1857_.--Had my first new silk dress from good little L. W.;
+very fine; and I felt as if all the Hancocks and Quincys beheld me as I
+went to two parties in it on New Year's eve.
+
+A busy, happy month--taught, wrote, sewed, read aloud to the "little
+mother," and went often to the theatre; heard good lectures; and
+enjoyed my Parker evenings very much.
+
+Father came to see me on his way home; little money; had had a good
+time, and was asked to come again.  Why don't rich people who enjoy his
+talk pay for it?  Philosophers are always poor, and too modest to pass
+round their own hats.
+
+Sent by him a good bundle to the poor Forlomites among the ten-foot
+drifts in W.
+
+_February_.--Ran home as a valentine on the 14th.
+
+_March_.--Have several irons in the fire now, and try to keep 'em all
+hot.
+
+_April_.--May did a crayon head of mother with Mrs. Murdock; very good
+likeness.  All of us as proud as peacocks of our "little Raphael."
+
+Heard Mrs. Butler read; very fine.
+
+_May_.--Left the L.'s with my $33; glad to rest.  May went home with
+her picture, happy in her winter's work and success.
+
+Father had three talks at W. F. Channing's.  Good company--Emerson,
+Mrs. Howe, and the rest.
+
+Saw young Booth in Brutus, and liked him better than his father; went
+about and rested after my labors; glad to be with Father, who enjoyed
+Boston and friends.
+
+Home on the 10th, passing Sunday at the Emersons'.  I have done what I
+planned--supported myself, written eight stories, taught four months,
+earned a hundred dollars, and sent money home.
+
+
+
+
+HENRY GEORGE
+
+(1839-1897)
+
+THE TROUBLES OF A JOB PRINTER
+
+Henry George was a self-helped man, if ever there was one.  When less
+than fourteen years of age, he left school and started to earn his own
+living.  He never afterward returned to school.  In adolescence, his
+eager mind was obsessed by the glamor of the sea, so he began life as a
+sailor.  After a few years came the desperate poverty of his early
+married life in California, as here described.  His work as a printer
+led to casual employment as a journalist.  This was the first step in
+his subsequently life-long career as an independent thinker, writer,
+and speaker.
+
+An apparent failure in life, he was obliged when twenty-six years of
+age to beg money from a stranger on the street to keep his wife and
+babies from actual starvation.  But his misery may have been of
+incalculable value to the human race, for his bitter personal
+experience convinced him that the times were out of joint, and his
+brain began to seek the remedy.  The doctrine of _single tax_, already
+on trial in some parts of the world, is his chief contribution to
+economic theory.
+
+
+From "The Life of Henry George, by His Son."  Doubleday, Page &
+Company, 1900.
+
+Thus heavily weighted at the outset, the three men opened their office.
+But hard times had come.  A drought had shortened the grain crop,
+killed great numbers of cattle and lessened the gold supply, and the
+losses that the farming, ranching, and mineral regions suffered
+affected all the commercial and industrial activities of the State, so
+that there was a general depression.  Business not coming into their
+office, the three partners went out to hunt for it; and yet it was
+elusive, so that they had very little to do and soon were in
+extremities for living necessities, even for wood for the kitchen fire.
+Henry George had fitfully kept a pocket diary during 1864, and a few
+entries at this job-printing period tell of the pass of affairs.
+
+
+"_December 25_.--Determined to keep a regular journal, and to cultivate
+habits of determination, energy, and industry.  Feel that I am in a bad
+situation, and must use my utmost effort to keep afloat and go ahead.
+Will try to follow the following general rules for one week:
+
+"1st.  In every case to determine rationally what is best to be done.
+
+"2nd.  To do everything determined upon immediately, or as soon as an
+opportunity presents.
+
+"3rd.  To write down what I shall determine upon doing for the
+succeeding day.
+
+"Saw landlady and told her I was not able to pay rent.
+
+"_December 26_, 7 A. M.:
+
+"1st.  Propose to-day, in addition to work in office, to write to Boyne.
+
+"2nd.  To get wood in trade.
+
+"3rd.  To talk with Dr. Eaton, and, perhaps, Dr. Morse.
+
+"Rose at quarter to seven.  Stopped at six wood yards trying to get
+wood in exchange for printing, but failed.  Did very little in office.
+Walked and talked with Ike.  Felt very blue and thought of drawing out.
+Saw Dr. Eaton, but failed to make a trade.  In evening saw Dr. Morse.
+Have not done all, nor as well as I could wish.  Also wrote to Boyne,
+but did not mail letter.
+
+"_January 1 (Sunday)_.--Annie not very well.  Got down town about 11
+o'clock.  Went with Ike to Chinaman's to see about paper bags.
+Returned to office and worked off a lot.
+
+"_January 2_.--Got down town about 8 o'clock.  Worked some labels.  Not
+much doing.
+
+"_January 3_.--Working in office all day.  De Long called to talk about
+getting out a journal.  Did our best day's work."
+
+
+From time to time they got a little business, enough at any rate to
+encourage Trump and George to continue with the office, though Daley
+dropped out; and each day that the money was there the two partners
+took out of the business twenty-five cents apiece, which they together
+spent for food, Trump's wife being with her relatives and he taking his
+dinner with the Georges.  They lived chiefly on cornmeal and milk,
+potatoes, bread and sturgeon, for meat they could not afford and
+sturgeon was the cheapest fish they could find.[1]  Mr. George
+generally went to the office early without breakfast, saying that he
+would get it down town; but knowing that he had no money, his wife more
+than suspected that many a morning passed without his getting a
+mouthful.  Nor could he borrow money except occasionally, for the
+drought that had made general business so bad had hurt all his friends,
+and, indeed, many of them had already borrowed from him while he had
+anything to lend; and he was too proud to complain now to them.  Nor
+did his wife complain, though what deepened their anxieties was that
+they looked for the coming of a second child.  Mrs. George would not
+run up bills that she did not have money to meet.  She parted with her
+little pieces of jewellery and smaller trinkets one by one, until only
+her wedding ring had not been pawned.  And then she told the milkman
+that she could no longer afford to take milk, but he offered to
+continue to supply it for printed cards, which she accepted.  Mr.
+George's diary is blank just here, but at another time he said:[2]
+
+"I came near starving to death, and at one time I was so close to it
+that I think I should have done so but for the job of printing a few
+cards which enabled us to buy a little cornmeal.  In this darkest time
+in my life my second child was born."
+
+
+The baby came at seven o'clock in the morning of January 27, 1865.
+When it was born the wife heard the doctor say: "Don't stop to wash the
+child; he is starving.  Feed him!"  After the doctor had gone and
+mother and baby had fallen asleep, the husband left them alone in the
+house, and taking the elder child to a neighbour's, himself went to his
+business in a desperate state of mind, for his wife's condition made
+money--some money--an absolute and immediate necessity.  But nothing
+came into the office and he did not know where to borrow.  What then
+happened he told sixteen years subsequently.
+
+"I walked along the street and made up my mind to get money from the
+first man whose appearance might indicate that he had it to give.  I
+stopped a man--a stranger--and told him I wanted $5.  He asked what I
+wanted it for.  I told him that my wife was confined and that I had
+nothing to give her to eat.  He gave me the money.  If he had not, I
+think I was desperate enough to have killed him." [3]
+
+The diary notes commence again twenty days after the new baby's birth
+and show that the struggle for subsistence was still continuing, that
+Henry George abandoned the job-printing office, and that he and his
+wife and babies had moved into a smaller house where he had to pay a
+rent of only nine dollars a month--just half of his former rent.  This
+diary consists simply of two half-sheets of white note paper, folded
+twice and pinned in the middle, forming two small neat books of eight
+pages each of about the size of a visiting card.  The writing is very
+small, but clear.
+
+
+"_February 17, 1865 (Friday)_ 10:40 P.M.--Gave I. Trump this day bill
+of sale for my interest in office, with the understanding that if he
+got any money by selling, I am to get some.  I am now afloat again,
+with the world before me.  I have commenced this little book as an
+experiment--to aid me in acquiring habits of regularity, punctuality,
+and purpose.  I will enter in it each evening the principal events of
+the day, with notes, if they occur, errors committed or the reverse,
+and plans for the morrow and future.  I will make a practice of looking
+at it on rising in the morning.
+
+"I am starting out afresh, very much crippled and embarrassed, owing
+over $200.  I have been unsuccessful in everything.  I wish to profit
+by my experience and to cultivate those qualities necessary to success
+in which I have been lacking.  I have not saved as much as I ought, and
+am resolved to practice a rigid economy until I have something ahead.
+
+"1st.  To make every cent I can.
+
+"2nd.  To spend nothing unnecessarily.
+
+"3rd.  To put something by each week, if it is only a five-cent piece
+borrowed for the purpose.
+
+"4th.  Not to run in debt if it can be avoided."
+
+
+"1st.  To endeavour to make an acquaintance and friend of every one
+with whom I am brought in contact.
+
+"2nd.  To stay at home less, and be more social.
+
+"3rd.  To strive to think consecutively and decide quickly."
+
+
+"_February 18_.--Rose at 6 o'clock.  Took cards to woodman.  Went to
+post-office and got two letters, one from Wallazz and another from
+mother.  Heard that Smith was up and would probably not go down.  Tried
+to hunt him up.  Ran around after him a great deal.  Saw him; made an
+appointment, but he did not come.  Finally met him about 4.  He said
+that he had written up for a man, who had first choice; but he would do
+all he could.  I was much disappointed.  Went back to office; then
+after Knowlton, but got no money.  Then went to _Alta_ office.  Smith
+there.  Stood talking till they went to work.  Then to job office.  Ike
+had got four bits [50 cents] from Dr. Josselyn.  Went home, and he came
+out to supper.
+
+"Got up in good season.
+
+"Tried to be energetic about seeing Smith.  Have not done with that
+matter yet, but will try every means.
+
+"To-morrow will write to Cousin Sophia,[5] and perhaps to Wallazz and
+mother, and will try to make acquaintances.  Am in very desperate
+plight.  Courage!
+
+"_February 19 (Sunday)_.--Rose about 9.  Ran a small bill with Wessling
+for flour, coffee, and butter.  After breakfast took Harry around to
+Wilbur's.  Talked a while.  Went down town.  Could not get in office.
+Went into _Alta_ office several times.  Then walked around, hoping to
+strike Smith.  Ike to dinner.  Afterward walked with him, looking for
+house.  Was at _Alta_ office at 6, but no work.  Went with Ike to
+Stickney's and together went to _Californian_ office.  Came home and
+summed up assets and liabilities.  At 10 went to bed, with
+determination of getting up at 6 and going to _Bulletin_ office.
+
+"Have wasted a great deal of time in looking for Smith.  Think it would
+have been better to have hunted him at once or else trusted to luck.
+There seems to be very little show for me down there.  Don't know what
+to do.
+
+"_February 20_.--Got up too late to go to the _Bulletin office_.  Got
+$1 from woodman.  Got my pants from the tailor.  Saw Smith and had a
+long talk with him.  He seemed sorry that he had not thought of me, but
+said another man had been spoken to and was anxious to go.  Went to
+_Alta_ office several times.  Came home early and went to _Alta_ office
+at 6 and to _Call_ at 7, but got no work.  Went to Ike Trump's room,
+and then came home.
+
+"Was not prompt enough in rising.  Have been walking around a good part
+of the day without definite purpose, thereby losing time.
+
+"_February 21_.--Worked for Ike.  Did two cards for $1.  Saw about
+books, and thought some of travelling with them.  Went to _Alta_ before
+coming home.  In evening had row with Chinaman.  Foolish.
+
+"_February 22_.--Hand very sore.  Did not go down till late.  Went to
+work in _Bulletin_ at 12.  Got $3.  Saw Boyne.  Went to library in
+evening.  Thinking of economy.
+
+"_February 26_.--Went to _Bulletin_; no work.  Went with Ike Trump to
+look at house on hill; came home to breakfast.  Decided to take house
+on Perry Street with Mrs. Stone; took it.  Came home and moved.  Paid
+$5 of rent.  About 6 o'clock went down town.  Saw Ike; got 50 cents.
+Walked around and went to Typographical Union meeting.  Then saw Ike
+again.  Found Knowlton had paid him for printing plant, and demanded
+some of the money.  He gave me $5 with very bad humour.
+
+"_February 27_.--Saw Ike in afternoon and had further talk.  In evening
+went to work for Col. Strong on _Alta_.  Smith lent me $3.
+
+"_February 28_.--Worked again for Strong.  Got $5 from John McComb.
+
+"_February 29_.--Got $5 from Barstow, and paid Charlie Coddington the
+$10 I had borrowed from him on Friday last.  On Monday left at Mrs.
+Lauder's [the Russ Street landlady] $1.25 for extra rent and $1.50 for
+milkman.
+
+"_March 1_.--Rose early, went to _Bulletin_; but got no work.  Looked
+in at Valentine's and saw George Foster, who told me to go to Frank
+Eastman's [printing office].  Did so and was told to call again.  Came
+home; had breakfast.  Went to _Alta_ in evening, but no work.  Went to
+Germania Lodge and then to Stickney's.
+
+"_March 2_.--Went to Eastman's about 11 o'clock and was put to work.
+
+"_March 3_.--At work.
+
+"_March 4_.--At work.  Got $5 in evening."
+
+
+The strength of the storm had now passed.  The young printer began to
+get some work at "subbing," though it was scant and irregular.  His
+wife, who paid the second month's rent of the Perry Street house by
+sewing for her landlady, remarked to her husband how contentedly they
+should be able to live if he could be sure of making regularly twenty
+dollars a week.
+
+
+BEGINS WRITING AND TALKING
+
+Henry George's career as a writer should be dated from the commencement
+of 1865, when he was an irregular, substitute printer at Eastman's and
+on the daily newspapers, just after his severe job-office experience.
+He now deliberately set himself to self-improvement.  These few diary
+notes for the end of March and beginning of April are found in a small
+blank book that in 1878, while working on "Progress and Poverty," he
+also used as a diary.
+
+
+"_Saturday, March 25, 1865_.--As I knew we would have no letter this
+morning, I did not hurry down to the office.  After getting breakfast,
+took the wringing machine which I had been using as a sample back to
+Faulkner's; then went to Eastman's and saw to bill; loafed around until
+about 2 P. M.  Concluded that the best thing I could do would be to go
+home and write a little.  Came home and wrote for the sake of practice
+an essay on the 'Use of Time,' which occupied me until Annie prepared
+dinner.  Went to Eastman's by six, got money.  Went to Union meeting.
+
+"_Sunday, March 26_.--Did not get out until 11 o'clock.  Took Harry
+down town and then to Wilbur's.  Proposed to have Dick [the new baby]
+baptised in afternoon; got Mrs. Casey to come to the house for that
+purpose, but concluded to wait.  Went to see Dull, who took me to his
+shop and showed me the model of his wagon brake.
+
+"_Monday, March 27_.--Got down to office about one o'clock; but no
+proofs yet.  Strolled around a little.  Went home and wrote
+communication for Aleck Kenneday's new paper, _Journal of the Trades
+and Workingmen_.  Took it down to him.  In the evening called on Rev.
+Mr. Simonds.
+
+"_Tuesday, 28_.--Got down late.  No work.  In afternoon wrote article
+about laws relating to sailors.  In evening went down to Dull's shop
+while he was engaged on model.
+
+"_Wednesday, 29_.--Went to work about 10:30.  In evening corrected
+proof for _Journal of the Trades and Workingmen_.
+
+"_Thursday, 30_.--At work.
+
+"_Tuesday, April 4_.--Despatch received stating that Richmond and
+Petersburgh are both in our possession.
+
+"_Wednesday, 5_.--Took model of wagon brake to several carriage shops;
+also to _Alta_ office.  In evening signed agreement with Dull.
+
+"_Saturday, 8_.--Not working; bill for week, $23.  Paid Frank Mahon the
+$5 I have been owing for some time.  Met Harrison, who had just come
+down from up the country.  He has a good thing up there.  Talked with
+Dull and drew up advertisement.  In evening, nothing."
+
+
+Thus while he was doing haphazard type-setting, and trying to interest
+carriage builders in a new wagon brake, he was also beginning to write.
+The first and most important of these pieces of writing mentioned in
+the diary notes--on "The Use of Time"--was sent by Mr. George to his
+mother, as an indication of his intention to improve himself.
+Commencing with boyhood, Henry George, as has been seen, had the power
+of simple and clear statement, and if this essay served no other
+purpose than to show the development of that natural power, it would be
+of value.  But as a matter of fact, it has a far greater value; for
+while repeating his purpose to practise writing--"to acquire facility
+and elegance in the expression" of his thought--it gives an
+introspective glimpse into the naturally secretive mind, revealing an
+intense desire, if not for the "flesh pots of Egypt," at least for such
+creature and intellectual comforts as would enable him and those close
+to him "to bask themselves in the warm sunshine of the brief day."
+This paper is presented in full:
+
+
+_Essay, Saturday Afternoon, March 25, 1865_.
+
+"ON THE PROFITABLE EMPLOYMENT OF TIME."
+
+"Most of us have some principal object of desire at any given time of
+our lives; something which we wish more than anything else, either
+because its want is more felt, or that it includes other desirable
+things, and we are conscious that in gaining it we obtain the means of
+gratifying other of our wishes.
+
+"With most of us this power, in one shape or the other--is money, or
+that which is its equivalent or will bring it.
+
+"For this end we subject ourselves to many sacrifices; for its gain we
+are willing to confine ourselves and employ our minds and bodies in
+duties which, for their own sakes, are irksome; and if we do not throw
+the whole force of our natures into the effort to gain this, it is that
+we do not possess the requisite patience, self-command, and penetration
+where we may direct our efforts.
+
+"I am constantly longing for wealth; the wide difference between my
+wishes and the means of gratifying them at my command keeps me in
+perpetual disquiet.  It would bring me comfort and luxury which I
+cannot now obtain; it would give me more congenial employment and
+associates; it would enable me to cultivate my mind and exert to a
+fuller extent my powers; it would give me the ability to minister to
+the comfort and enjoyment of those whom I love most, and, therefore, it
+is my principal object in life to obtain wealth, or at least more of it
+than I have at present.
+
+"Whether this is right or wrong, I do not now consider; but that it is
+so I am conscious.  When I look behind at my past life I see that I
+have made little or no progress, and am disquieted; when I consider my
+present, it is difficult to see that I am moving toward it at all; and
+all my comfort in this respect is in the hope of what the future may
+bring forth.
+
+"And yet my hopes are very vague and indistinct, and my efforts in any
+direction, save the beaten track in which I have been used to earn my
+bread, are, when perceptible, jerky, irregular, and without
+intelligent, continuous direction.
+
+"When I succeed in obtaining employment, I am industrious and work
+faithfully, though it does not satisfy my wishes.  When I have nothing
+to do, I am anxious to be in some way labouring toward the end I wish,
+and yet from hour to hour I cannot tell at what to employ myself.
+
+"To secure any given result it is only necessary to rightly supply
+sufficient force.  Some men possess a greater amount of natural power
+than others and produce quicker and more striking results; yet it is
+apparent that the abilities of the majority, if properly and
+continuously applied, are sufficient to accomplish much more than they
+generally do.
+
+"The hours which I have idled away, though made miserable by the
+consciousness of accomplishing nothing, had been sufficient to make me
+master of almost any common branch of study.  If, for instance, I had
+applied myself to the practice of bookkeeping and arithmetic I might
+now have been an expert in those things; or I might have had the
+dictionary at my fingers' ends; been a practised, and perhaps an able,
+writer; a much better printer; or been able to read and write French,
+Spanish, or any other modern or ancient language to which I might have
+directed my attention; and the mastery of any of these things now would
+give me an additional, appreciable power, and means by which to work to
+my end, not to speak of that which would have been gained by exercise
+and good mental habits.
+
+"These truths are not sudden discoveries; but have been as apparent for
+years as at this present time; but always wishing for some chance to
+make a sudden leap forward, I have never been able to direct my mind
+and concentrate my attention upon those slow processes by which
+everything mental (and in most cases material) is acquired.
+
+"Constantly the mind works, and if but a tithe of its attention was
+directed to some end, how many matters might it have taken up in
+succession, increasing its own stores and power while mastering them?
+
+"To sum up for the present, though this essay has hardly taken the
+direction and shape which at the outset I intended, it is evident to me
+that I have not employed the time and means at my command faithfully
+and advantageously as I might have done, and consequently, that I have
+myself to blame for at least a part of my non-success.  And this being
+true of the past, in the future like results will flow from like
+causes.  I will, therefore, try (though, as I know from experience, it
+is much easier to form good resolutions than to faithfully carry them
+out) to employ my mind in acquiring useful information or practice,
+when I have nothing leading more directly to my end claiming my
+attention.  When practicable, or when I cannot decide upon anything
+else, I will endeavour to acquire facility and elegance in the
+expression of my thought by writing essays or other matters which I
+will preserve for future comparison.  And in this practice it will be
+well to aim at mechanical neatness and grace, as well as at proper and
+polished language."
+
+Of the two other pieces of writing spoken of in the diary notes, the
+"article about laws relating to sailors," has left no trace, but a copy
+of the one for the _Journal of the Trades and Workingmen_ has been
+preserved.
+
+
+
+[1] Unlike that fish on the Atlantic Coast, sturgeon on the Pacific
+Coast, or at any rate in California waters, is of fine quality and
+could easily be substituted on the table for halibut.
+
+[2] Meeker notes, October, 1897.
+
+[3] Henry George related this incident to Dr. James E. Kelly in a
+conversation in Dublin during the winter of 1881-82, in proof that
+environment has more to do with human actions, and especially with
+so-called criminal actions, than we generally concede; and to show how
+acute poverty may drive sound-minded, moral men to the commission of
+deeds that are supposed to belong entirely to hardened evil natures.
+Out of long philosophical and physiological talks together at that time
+the two men formed a warm friendship, and subsequently, when he came to
+the United States and established himself in New York, Dr. Kelly became
+Henry George's family physician and attended him at his deathbed.
+
+[4] She was now a widow, James George having died in the preceding
+August.
+
+
+
+
+JACOB RIIS.
+
+(1849-1914)
+
+"THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN"
+
+The intimate friend at once of "the children of the tenements" and of
+Theodore Roosevelt, Jacob A. Riis was beloved by countless New Yorkers
+for his gallant "battle with the slums," and for the message he brought
+as to "how the other half lives."
+
+From experiences that would have spelled permanent degradation to a man
+of baser metal, he won the knowledge, sympathy, and inspiration that
+made him one of the most exceptionally useful and exceptionally loved
+of American citizens.
+
+
+From "The Making of an American," by Jacob A. Riis.  The Macmillan
+Company.  Copyright, 1901-'08.
+
+The steamer _Iowa_, from Glasgow, made port after a long and stormy
+voyage, on Whitsunday, 1870.  She had come up during the night, and
+cast anchor off Castle Garden.  It was a beautiful spring morning, and
+as I looked over the rail at the miles of straight streets, the green
+heights of Brooklyn, and the stir of ferryboats and pleasure craft on
+the river, my hopes rose high that somewhere in this teeming hive there
+would be a place for me.  What kind of a place I had myself no clear
+notion of; I would let that work out as it could.  Of course I had my
+trade to fall back on, but I am afraid that is all the use I thought of
+putting it to.  The love of change belongs to youth, and I meant to
+take a hand in things as they came along.  I had a pair of strong
+hands, and stubbornness enough to do for two; also a strong belief that
+in a free country, free from the dominion of custom, of caste, as well
+as of men, things would somehow come right in the end, and a man get
+shaken into the corner where he belonged if he took a hand in the game.
+I think I was right in that.  If it took a lot of shaking to get me
+where I belonged, that was just what I needed.  Even my mother admits
+that now. . . .
+
+I made it my first business to buy a navy revolver of the largest size,
+investing in the purchase exactly one-half of my capital.  I strapped
+the weapon on the outside of my coat and strode up Broadway, conscious
+that I was following the fashion of the country.  I knew it upon the
+authority of a man who had been there before me and had returned, a
+gold digger in the early days of California; but America was America to
+us.  We knew no distinction of West and East.  By rights there ought to
+have been buffaloes and red Indians charging up and down Broadway.  I
+am sorry to say that it is easier even to-day to make lots of people
+over there believe that than that New York is paved, and lighted with
+electric lights, and quite as civilized as Copenhagen.  They will have
+it that it is in the wilds.  I saw none of the signs of this, but I
+encountered a friendly policeman, who, sizing me and my pistol up,
+tapped it gently with his club and advised me to leave it home, or I
+might get robbed of it.  This, at first blush, seemed to confirm my
+apprehensions; but he was a very nice policeman, and took time to
+explain, seeing that I was very green.  And I took his advice and put
+the revolver away, secretly relieved to get rid of it.  It was quite
+heavy to carry around.
+
+I had letters to the Danish Consul and to the president of the American
+Banknote Company, Mr. Goodall.  I think perhaps he was not then the
+president, but became so afterward.  Mr. Goodall had once been wrecked
+on the Danish coast and rescued by the captain of the lifesaving crew,
+a friend of my family.  But they were both in Europe, and in just four
+days I realized that there was no special public clamor for my services
+in New York, and decided to go West.
+
+A missionary in Castle Garden was getting up a gang of men for the
+Brady's Bend Iron Works on the Allegheny River, and I went along.  We
+started a full score, with tickets paid, but only two of us reached the
+Bend.  The rest calmly deserted in Pittsburg and went their way. . . .
+
+The [iron works] company mined its own coal.  Such as it was, it
+cropped out of the hills right and left in narrow veins, sometimes too
+shallow to work, seldom affording more space to the digger than barely
+enough to permit him to stand upright.  You did not go down through a
+shaft, but straight in through the side of a hill to the bowels of the
+mountain, following a track on which a little donkey drew the coal to
+the mouth of the mine and sent it down the incline to run up and down a
+hill a mile or more by its own gravity before it reached the place of
+unloading.  Through one of these we marched in, Adler and I, one summer
+morning, with new pickaxes on our shoulders and nasty little oil lamps
+fixed in our hats to light us through the darkness, where every second
+we stumbled over chunks of slate rock, or into pools of water that
+oozed through from above.  An old miner whose way lay past the fork in
+the tunnel where our lead began showed us how to use our picks and the
+timbers to brace the slate that roofed over the vein, and left us to
+ourselves in a chamber perhaps ten feet wide and the height of a man.
+
+We were to be paid by the ton--I forget how much, but it was very
+little--and we lost no time getting to work.  We had to dig away the
+coal at the floor without picks, lying on our knees to do it, and
+afterward drive wedges under the roof to loosen the mass.  It was hard
+work, and, entirely inexperienced as we were, we made but little
+headway.  As the day wore on, the darkness and silence grew very
+oppressive, and made us start nervously at the least thing.  The sudden
+arrival of our donkey with its cart gave me a dreadful fright.  The
+friendly beast greeted us with a joyous bray and rubbed its shaggy
+sides against us in the most companionable way.  In the flickering
+light of my lamp I caught sight of its long ears waving over me--I
+don't believe I had seen three donkeys before in my life; there were
+none where I came from--and heard that demoniac shriek, and I verily
+believe I thought the evil one had come for me in person.  I know that
+I nearly fainted.
+
+That donkey was a discerning animal.  I think it knew when it first set
+eyes on us that we were not going to overwork it; and we didn't.  When,
+toward evening, we quit work, after narrowly escaping being killed by a
+large stone that fell from the roof in consequence of our neglect to
+brace it up properly, our united efforts had resulted in barely filling
+two of the little carts, and we had earned, if I recollect aright,
+something like sixty cents each.  The fall of the roof robbed us of all
+desire to try mining again.  It knocked the lamps from our hats, and,
+in darkness that could almost be felt, we groped our way back to the
+light along the track, getting more badly frightened as we went.  The
+last stretch of way we ran, holding each other's hands as though we
+were not men and miners, but two frightened children in the dark. . . .
+
+
+[A short time later he learned of the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian
+War, and at once determined to enlist.]
+
+
+I reached New York with just one cent in my pocket, and put up at a
+boarding-house where the charge was one dollar a day.  In this no moral
+obliquity was involved.  I had simply reached the goal for which I had
+sacrificed all, and felt sure that the French people or the Danish
+Consul would do the rest quickly.  But there was evidently something
+wrong somewhere.  The Danish Consul could only register my demand to be
+returned to Denmark in the event of war.  They have my letter at the
+office yet, he tells me, and they will call me out with the reserves.
+The French were fitting out no volunteer army that I could get on the
+track of, and nobody was paying the passage of fighting men.  The end
+of it was that, after pawning my revolver and my top-boots, the only
+valuable possessions I had left, to pay for my lodging, I was thrown on
+the street, and told to come back when I had more money.  That night I
+wandered about New York with a gripsack that had only a linen duster
+and a pair of socks in it, turning over in my mind what to do next.
+Toward midnight I passed a house in Clinton Place that was lighted up
+festively.  Laughter and the hum of many voices came from within.  I
+listened.  They spoke French.  A society of Frenchmen having their
+annual dinner, the watchman in the block told me.  There at last was my
+chance.  I went up the steps and rang the bell.  A flunkey in a
+dress-suit opened, but when he saw that I was not a guest, but to all
+appearances a tramp, he tried to put me out.  I, on my part, tried to
+explain.  There was an altercation and two gentlemen of the society
+appeared.  They listened impatiently to what I had to say, then,
+without a word, thrust me into the street, and slammed the door in my
+face.
+
+It was too much.  Inwardly raging, I shook the dust of the city from my
+feet and took the most direct route out of it, straight up Third
+Avenue.  I walked till the stars in the east began to pale, and then
+climbed into a wagon that stood at the curb, to sleep.  I did not
+notice that it was a milk-wagon.  The sun had not risen yet when the
+driver came, unceremoniously dragged me out by the feet, and dumped me
+into the gutter.  On I went with my gripsack, straight ahead, until
+toward noon I reached Fordham College, famished and footsore.  I had
+eaten nothing since the previous day, and had vainly tried to make a
+bath in the Bronx River do for breakfast.  Not yet could I cheat my
+stomach that way.
+
+The college gates were open, and I strolled wearily in, without aim or
+purpose.  On a lawn some young men were engaged in athletic exercises,
+and I stopped to look and admire the beautiful shade-trees and the
+imposing building.  So at least it seems to me at this distance.  An
+old monk in a cowl, whose noble face I sometimes recall in my dreams,
+came over and asked kindly if I was not hungry.  I was in all
+conscience fearfully hungry, and I said so, though I did not mean to.
+I had never seen a real live monk before, and my Lutheran training had
+not exactly inclined me in their favor.  I ate of the food set before
+me, not without qualms of conscience, and with a secret suspicion that
+I would next be asked to abjure my faith, or at least do homage to the
+Virgin Mary, which I was firmly resolved not to do.  But when, the meal
+finished, I was sent on my way with enough to do me for supper, without
+the least allusion having been made to my soul, I felt heartily ashamed
+of myself.  I am just as good a Protestant as I ever was.  Among my own
+I am a kind of heretic even, because I cannot put up with the apostolic
+succession; but I have no quarrel with the excellent charities of the
+Roman Church, or with the noble spirit that animated them.  I learned
+that lesson at Fordham thirty years ago.
+
+Up the railroad track I went, and at night hired out to a truck-farmer,
+with the freedom of his hay-mow for my sleeping quarters.  But when I
+had hoed cucumbers three days in a scorching sun, till my back ached as
+if it were going to break, and the farmer guessed that he would call it
+square for three shillings, I went farther.  A man is not necessarily a
+philanthropist, it seems, because he tills the soil.  I did not hire
+out again.  I did odd jobs to earn my meals, and slept in the fields at
+night, still turning over in my mind how to get across the sea.  An
+incident of those wanderings comes to mind while I am writing.  They
+were carting in hay, and when night came on, somewhere about Mount
+Vernon, I gathered an armful of wisps that had fallen from the loads,
+and made a bed for myself in a wagon-shed by the roadside.  In the
+middle of the night I was awakened by a loud outcry.  A fierce light
+shone in my face.  It was the lamp of a carriage that had been driven
+into the shed.  I was lying between the horse's feet unhurt.  A
+gentleman sprang from the carriage, more frightened than I, and bent
+over me.  When he found that I had suffered no injury, he put his hand
+in his pocket and held out a silver quarter.
+
+"Go," he said, "and drink it up."
+
+"Drink it up yourself!" I shouted angrily.  "What do you take me for?"
+
+They were rather high heroics, seeing where I was, but he saw nothing
+to laugh at.  He looked earnestly at me for a moment, then held out his
+hand and shook mine heartily.  "I believe you," he said; "yet you need
+it, or you would not sleep here.  Now will you take it from me?"  And I
+took the money.
+
+The next day it rained, and the next day after that, and I footed it
+back to the city, still on my vain quest.  A quarter is not a great
+capital to subsist on in New York when one is not a beggar and has no
+friends.  Two days of it drove me out again to find at least the food
+to keep me alive; but in those two days I met the man who, long years
+after, was to be my honored chief, Charles A. Dana, the editor of the
+_Sun_.  There had been an item in the _Sun_ about a volunteer regiment
+being fitted out for France.  I went up to the office, and was admitted
+to Mr. Dana's presence.  I fancy I must have appealed to his sense of
+the ludicrous, dressed in top-boots and a linen duster much the worse
+for wear, and demanding to be sent out to fight.  He knew nothing about
+recruiting.  Was I French?  No, Danish; it had been in his paper about
+the regiment.  He smiled a little at my faith, and said editors
+sometimes did not know about everything that was in their papers.  I
+turned to go, grievously disappointed, but he called me back.
+
+"Have you," he said, looking searchingly at me; "have you had your
+breakfast?"
+
+No, God knows that I did not; neither that day nor for many days
+before.  That was one of the things I had at last learned to consider
+among the superfluities of an effete civilization.  I suppose I had no
+need of telling it to him, for it was plain to read in my face.  He put
+his hand in his pocket and pulled out a dollar.
+
+"There," he said, "go and get your breakfast; and better give up the
+war."
+
+Give up the war! and for a breakfast.  I spurned the dollar hotly.
+
+"I came here to enlist, not to beg money for breakfast," I said, and
+strode out of the office, my head in the air, but my stomach crying out
+miserably in rebellion against my pride.  I revenged myself upon it by
+leaving my top-boots with the "uncle," who was my only friend and
+relative here, and filling my stomach upon the proceeds.  I had one
+good dinner, anyhow, for when I got through there was only twenty-five
+cents left of the dollar I borrowed upon my last article of "dress."
+That I paid for a ticket to Perth Amboy, near which place I found work
+in Pfeiffer's clay-bank.
+
+Pfeiffer was a German, but his wife was Irish and so were his hands,
+all except a giant Norwegian and myself.  The third day was Sunday, and
+was devoted to drinking much beer, which Pfeiffer, with an eye to
+business, furnished on the premises.  When they were drunk, the tribe
+turned upon the Norwegian, and threw him out.  It seems that this was a
+regular weekly occurrence.  Me they fired out at the same time, but
+afterward paid no attention to me.  The whole crew of them perched on
+the Norwegian and belabored him with broomsticks and balesticks until
+they roused the sleeping Berserk in him.  As I was coming to his
+relief, I saw the human heap heave and rock.  From under it arose the
+enraged giant, tossed his tormentors aside as if they were so much
+chaff, battered down the door of the house in which they took refuge,
+and threw them all, Mrs. Pfeiffer included, through the window.  They
+were not hurt, and within two hours they were drinking more beer
+together and swearing at one another endearingly.  I concluded that I
+had better go on, though Mr. Pfeiffer regretted that he never paid his
+hands in the middle of the month.  It appeared afterward that he
+objected likewise to paying them at the end of the month, or at the
+beginning of the next.  He owes me two days' wages yet.
+
+At sunset on the second day after my desertion of Pfeiffer I walked
+across a footbridge into a city with many spires, in one of which a
+chime of bells rang out a familiar tune.  The city was New Brunswick.
+I turned down a side street where two stone churches stood side by
+side.  A gate in the picket fence had been left open, and I went in
+looking for a place to sleep.  Back in the churchyard I found what I
+sought in the brownstone slab covering the tomb of, I know now, an old
+pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church, who died full of wisdom and grace.
+I am afraid that I was not over-burdened with either, or I might have
+gone to bed with a full stomach, too, instead of chewing the last of
+the windfall apples that had been my diet on my two days' trip; but if
+he slept as peacefully under the slab as I slept on it, he was doing
+well.  I had for once a dry bed, and brownstone keeps warm long after
+the sun has set.  The night dews and the snakes, and the dogs that kept
+sniffing and growling half the night in the near distance, had made me
+tired of sleeping in the fields.  The dead were much better company.
+They minded their own business, and let a fellow alone. . . .
+
+
+[He found no employment in New Brunswick and after six weeks in a
+neighboring brickyard he returned to New York, to be again disappointed
+in an effort to enlist.]
+
+
+The city was full of idle men.  My last hope, a promise of employment
+in a human-hair factory, failed, and, homeless and penniless, I joined
+the great army of tramps, wandering about the streets in the daytime
+with the one aim of somehow stilling the hunger that gnawed at my
+vitals, and fighting at night with vagrant curs or outcasts as
+miserable as myself for the protection of some sheltering ash-bin or
+doorway.  I was too proud in all my misery to beg.  I do not believe I
+ever did.  But I remember well a basement window at the downtown
+Delmonico's, the silent appearance of my ravenous face at which, at a
+certain hour in the evening, always evoked a generous supply of
+meat-bones and rolls from a white-capped cook who spoke French.  That
+was the saving clause.  I accepted his rolls as installment of the debt
+his country owed me, or ought to owe me, for my unavailing efforts in
+its behalf.
+
+It was under such auspices that I made the acquaintance of Mulberry
+Bend, the Five Points, and the rest of the slums, with which there was
+in the years to come to be a reckoning. . . .
+
+There was until last winter a doorway in Chatham Square, that of the
+old Barnum clothing store, which I could never pass without recalling
+those nights of hopeless misery with the policeman's periodic "Get up
+there!  Move on!" reinforced by a prod of his club or the toe of his
+boot.  I slept there, or tried to, when crowded out of the tenements in
+the Bend by their utter nastiness.  Cold and wet weather had set in,
+and a linen duster was all that covered my back.  There was a woollen
+blanket in my trunk which I had from home--the one, my mother had told
+me, in which I was wrapped when I was born; but the trunk was in the
+"hotel" as security for money I owed for board, and I asked for it in
+vain.  I was now too shabby to get work, even if there had been any to
+get.  I had letters still to friends of my family in New York who might
+have helped me, but hunger and want had not conquered my pride.  I
+would come to them, if at all, as their equal, and, lest I fall into
+temptation, I destroyed the letters.  So, having burned my bridges
+behind me, I was finally and utterly alone in the city, with the winter
+approaching and every shivering night in the streets reminding me that
+a time was rapidly coming when such a life as I led could no longer be
+endured.
+
+Not in a thousand years would I be likely to forget the night when it
+came.  It had rained all day, a cold October storm, and night found me,
+with the chill downpour unabated, down by the North River, soaked
+through and through, with no chance for a supper, forlorn and
+discouraged.  I sat on the bulwark, listening to the falling rain and
+the swish of the dark tide, and thinking of home.  How far it seemed,
+and how impassable the gulf now between the "castle" with its refined
+ways, between her in her dainty girlhood and me sitting there, numbed
+with the cold that was slowly stealing away my senses with my courage.
+There was warmth and cheer where she was.  Here----  An overpowering
+sense of desolation came upon me.  I hitched a little nearer the edge.
+What if----?  Would they miss me or long at home if no word came from
+me?  Perhaps they might never hear.  What was the use of keeping it up
+any longer with, God help us, everything against and nothing to back a
+lonely lad?
+
+And even then the help came.  A wet and shivering body was pressed
+against mine, and I felt rather than heard a piteous whine in my ear.
+It was my companion in misery, a little outcast black-and-tan,
+afflicted with fits, that had shared the shelter of a friendly doorway
+with me one cold night and had clung to me ever since with a loyal
+affection that was the one bright spot in my hard life.  As my hand
+stole mechanically down to caress it, it crept upon my knees and licked
+my face, as if it meant to tell me that there was one who understood;
+that I was not alone.  And the love of the faithful little beast thawed
+the icicles in my heart.  I picked it up in my arms and fled from the
+tempter; fled to where there were lights and men moving, if they cared
+less for me than I for them--anywhere so that I saw and heard the river
+no more. . . .
+
+
+[After a while he fell in with some Danish friends and there was a
+period of more prosperous times, including some experiences on the
+lecture platform.  Then came further adventures and finally]:
+
+
+I made up my mind to go into the newspaper business.  It seemed to me
+that a reporter's was the highest and noblest of all callings; no one
+could sift wrong from right as he, and punish the wrong.  In that I was
+right.  I have not changed my opinion on that point one whit, and I am
+sure I never shall.  The power of fact is the mightiest lever of this
+or of any day.  The reporter has his hand upon it, and it is his
+grievous fault if he does not use it well.  I thought I would make a
+good reporter.  My father had edited our local newspaper, and such
+little help as I had been of to him had given me a taste for the
+business.  Being of that mind, I went to the _Courier_ office one
+morning and asked for the editor.  He was not in.  Apparently nobody
+was.  I wandered through room after room, all empty, till at last I
+came to one in which sat a man with a paste-pot and a pair of long
+shears.  This must be the editor; he had the implements of his trade.
+I told him my errand while he clipped away.
+
+"What is it you want?" he asked, when I had ceased speaking and waited
+for an answer.
+
+"Work," I said.
+
+"Work!" said he, waving me haughtily away with the shears; "we don't
+work here.  This is a newspaper office."
+
+I went, abashed.  I tried the _Express_ next.  This time I had the
+editor pointed out to me.  He was just coming through the business
+office.  At the door I stopped him and preferred my request.  He looked
+me over, a lad fresh from the shipyard, with horny hands and a rough
+coat, and asked:
+
+"What are you?"
+
+"A carpenter," I said.
+
+The man turned upon his heel with a loud, rasping laugh and shut the
+door in my face.  For a moment I stood there stunned.  His ascending
+steps on the stairs brought back my senses.  I ran to the door, and
+flung it open.  "You laugh!" I shouted, shaking my fist at him,
+standing halfway up the stairs; "you laugh now, but wait----"  And then
+I got the grip of my temper and slammed the door in my turn.  All the
+same, in that hour it was settled that I was to be a reporter.  I knew
+it as I went out into the street. . . .
+
+With a dim idea of being sent into the farthest wilds as an operator, I
+went to a business college on Fourth Avenue and paid $20 to learn
+telegraphing.  It was the last money I had.  I attended the school in
+the afternoon.  In the morning I peddled flat-irons, earning money for
+my board, and so made out. . . .
+
+
+[But there came again a season of hard times for him and the
+Newfoundland dog some one had given him, and he had some unhappy
+experiences as a book agent].
+
+
+It was not only breakfast we lacked.  The day before we had had only a
+crust together.  Two days without food is not good preparation for a
+day's canvassing.  We did the best we could.  Bob stood by and wagged
+his tail persuasively while I did the talking; but luck was dead
+against us, and "Hard Times" stuck to us for all we tried.  Evening
+came and found us down by the Cooper Institute, with never a cent.
+Faint with hunger, I sat down on the steps under the illuminated clock,
+while Bob stretched himself at my feet.  He had beguiled the cook in
+one of the last houses we called at, and his stomach was filled.  From
+the corner I had looked on enviously.  For me there was no supper, as
+there had been no dinner and no breakfast.  To-morrow there was another
+day of starvation.  How long was this to last?  Was it any use to keep
+up a struggle so hopeless?  From this very spot I had gone, hungry and
+wrathful, three years before when the dining Frenchmen for whom I
+wanted to fight thrust me forth from their company.  Three wasted
+years!  Then I had one cent in my pocket, I remembered.  To-day I had
+not even so much.  I was bankrupt in hope and purpose.  Nothing had
+gone right; nothing would ever go right; and worse, I did not care.  I
+drummed moodily upon my book.  Wasted!  Yes, that was right.  My life
+was wasted, utterly wasted.
+
+A voice hailed me by name, and Bob sat up, looking attentively at me
+for his cue as to the treatment of the owner of it.  I recognized in
+him the principal of the telegraph school where I had gone until my
+money gave out.  He seemed suddenly struck by something.
+
+"Why, what are you doing here?" he asked.  I told him Bob and I were
+just resting after a day of canvassing.
+
+"Books!" he snorted.  "I guess they won't make you rich.  Now, how
+would you like to be a reporter, if you have got nothing better to do?
+The manager of a news agency downtown asked me to-day to find him a
+bright young fellow whom he could break in.  It isn't much--$10 a week
+to start with.  But it is better than peddling books, I know."
+
+He poked over the book in my hand and read the title.  "Hard Times," he
+said, with a little laugh.  "I guess so.  What do you say?  I think you
+will do.  Better come along and let me give you a note to him now."
+
+As in a dream, I walked across the street with him to his office and
+got the letter which was to make me, half-starved and homeless, rich as
+Croesus, it seemed to me. . . .
+
+When the sun rose, I washed my face and hands in a dog's drinking
+trough, pulled my clothes into such shape as I could, and went with Bob
+to his new home.  That parting over, I walked down to 23 Park Row and
+delivered my letter to the desk editor in the New York News
+Association, up on the top floor.
+
+He looked me over a little doubtfully, but evidently impressed with the
+early hours I kept, told me that I might try.  He waved me to a desk,
+bidding me wait until he had made out his morning book of assignments;
+and with such scant ceremony was I finally introduced to Newspaper Row,
+that had been to me like an enchanted land.  After twenty-seven years
+of hard work in it, during which I have been behind the scenes of most
+of the plays that go to make up the sum of the life of the metropolis,
+it exercises the old spell over me yet.  If my sympathies need
+quickening, my point of view adjusting, I have only to go down to Park
+Row at eventide, when the crowds are hurrying homeward and the City
+Hall clock is lighted, particularly when the snow lies on the grass in
+the park, and stand watching them a while, to find all things coming
+right.  It is Bob who stands by and watches with me then, as on that
+night.
+
+The assignment that fell to my lot when the book was made out, the
+first against which my name was written in a New York editor's book,
+was a lunch of some sort at the Astor House.  I have forgotten what was
+the special occasion.  I remember the bearskin hats of the Old Guard in
+it, but little else.  In a kind of haze I beheld half the savory viands
+of earth spread under the eyes and nostrils of a man who had not tasted
+food for the third day.  I did not ask for any.  I had reached that
+stage of starvation that is like the still centre of a cyclone, when no
+hunger is left.  But it may be that a touch of it all crept into my
+report; for when the editor had read it, he said briefly:
+
+"You will do.  Take that desk, and report at ten every morning, sharp."
+
+That night, when I was dismissed from the office, I went up the Bowery
+to No. 185, where a Danish family kept a boarding-house up under the
+roof.  I had work and wages now, and could pay.  On the stairs I fell
+in a swoon and lay there till some one stumbled over me in the dark and
+carried me in.  My strength had at last given out.
+
+So began my life as a newspaper man.
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM H. RIDEING
+
+(1853-____)
+
+REJECTED MANUSCRIPTS
+
+Nowadays, it seems, every one reads, also writes.  There are few
+streets where the callous postman does not occasionally render some
+doorstep desolate by the delivery of a rejected manuscript.  Fellow
+feeling makes us wondrous kind, and the first steps in the career of a
+successful man of letters are always interesting.  You remember how
+Franklin slyly dropped his first contribution through the slit in his
+brother's printing-house door; and how the young Charles Dickens crept
+softly to the letter-box up a dark court, off a dark alley, near Fleet
+Street.
+
+In the case of Mr. Rideing, all must admire and be thankful for the
+indomitable spirit which disappointments were unable to discourage.
+
+
+From "Many Celebrities and a Few Others," by William H. Rideing.
+Doubleday, Page & Co., 1913.
+
+I do not know to a certainty just how or when the new ambition found
+its cranny and sprouted, and I wonder that it did not perish at once,
+like others of its kind which never blossoming were torn from the bed
+that nourished them and borne afar like balls of thistledown.  How and
+why it survived the rest, which seemed more feasible, I am not able to
+answer fully or satisfactorily to myself, and other people have yet to
+show any curiosity about it.
+
+How at this period I watched for the postman!  Envelopes of portentous
+bulk were put into my hands so often that I became inured to
+disappointment, unsurprised and unhurt, like a patient father who has
+more faith in the abilities of his children than the stupid and
+purblind world which will not employ them.
+
+These rejected essays and tales were my children, and the embarrassing
+number of them did not curb my philoprogenitiveness.
+
+Dawn broke unheeded and without reproach to the novice as he sat by
+candle-light at his table giving shape and utterance to dreams which
+did not foretell penalties, nor allow any intimation to reach him of
+the disillusionings sure to come, sharp-edged and poignant, with the
+awakening day.  The rocky coast of realities, with its shoals and
+whirlpools, which encircles the sphere of dreams, is never visible till
+the sun is high.  You are not awake till you strike it.
+
+Up and dressed, careless of breakfast, he hears the postman's knock.
+
+There is Something for the boy, which at a glance instantly dispels the
+clouds of his drowsiness and makes his heart jump: an envelope not
+bulky, an envelope whose contents tremble in his hand and grow dim in
+his eyes, and have to be read and read again before they can be
+believed.  One of his stories has at last found a place and will be
+printed next month!  Life may bestow on us its highest honours, and
+wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, the guerdon of a glorious lot, but
+it can never transcend or repeat the thrill and ecstasy of the
+triumphant apotheosis of such a moment as that.
+
+It was a fairy story, and though nobody could have suspected it, the
+fairy queen was Miss Goodall, much diminished in stature, of course,
+with all her indubitable excellencies, her nobility of character, and
+her beauty of person sublimated to an essence that only a Lilliputian
+vessel could hold.  Her instincts were domestic, and her domain was the
+hearthstone, and there she and her attendants, miniatures of the
+charming damsels in Miss McGinty's peachy and strawberry-legged _corps
+de ballet_, rewarded virtue and trampled meanness under their dainty,
+twinkling feet.  Moreover, the story was to be paid for, a condition of
+the greater glory, an irrefragable proof of merit.  Only as evidence of
+worth was money thought of, and though much needed, it alone was
+lightly regarded.  The amount turned out to be very small.  The editor
+handed it out of his trousers pocket--not the golden guinea looked for,
+but a few shillings.  He must have detected a little disappointment in
+the drooping corners of the boy's mouth, for without any remark from
+him he said--he was a dingy and inscrutable person--"That is all we
+ever pay--four shillings per _colyume_," pronouncing the second
+syllable of that word like the second syllable of "volume."
+
+What did the amount matter to the boy?  A paper moist and warm from the
+press was in his hands, and as he walked home through sleet and snow
+and wind--the weather of the old sea-port was in one of its
+tantrums--he stopped time and again to look at his name, his very own
+name, shining there in letters as lustrous as the stars of heaven.
+
+When that little story of mine appeared in all the glory of print, Fame
+stood at my door, a daughter of the stars in such array that it blinded
+one to look at her.  She has never come near me since, and I have
+changed my opinion of her: a beguiling minx, with little taste or
+judgment, and more than her share of feminine lightness and caprice; an
+unconscionable flirt, that is all she is.
+
+I came to New York, and peeped into the doors of the _Tribune_, the
+_World_, the _Times_, and the _Sun_ with all the reverence that a
+Moslem may feel when he beholds Mecca.  ...
+
+It was in the August of a bounteous year of fruit.  The smell of
+peaches and grapes piled in barrows and barrels scented the air, as it
+scents the memory still.  The odour of a peach brings back to me all
+the magic-lantern impressions of a stranger--memories of dazzling,
+dancing, tropical light, bustle, babble, and gayety; they made me feel
+that I had never been alive before, and the people of the old seaport,
+active as I had thought them, became in a bewildered retrospect as slow
+and quiet as snails.  But far sweeter to me than the fragrance of
+peaches were the humid whiffs I breathed from the noisy press rooms in
+the Park Row basements, the smell of the printers' ink as it was
+received by the warm, moist rolls of paper in the whirring, clattering
+presses.  There was history in the making, destiny at her loom.
+Nothing ever expels it: if once a taste for it is acquired, it ties
+itself up with ineffaceable memories and longings, and even in
+retirement and changed scenes restores the eagerness and aspirations of
+the long-passed hour when it first came over us with a sort of
+intoxication.
+
+I had no introduction and no experience and was prudent enough to
+foresee the rebuff that would surely follow a climb up the dusky but
+alluring editorial stairs and an application for employment in so
+exalted a profession by a boy of seventeen.  I decided that I could use
+more persuasion and gain a point in hiding my youth, which was a menace
+to me, by writing letters, and so I plunged through the post on Horace
+Greeley, on L. J. Jennings, the brilliant, forgotten Englishman who
+then edited the _Times_, on Mr. Dana, and on the rest.  The astonishing
+thing of that time, as I look back on it, was my invulnerability to
+disappointments; I expected them and was prepared for them, and when
+they came they were as spurs and not as arrows nor as any deadly
+weapon.  They hardly caused a sigh except a sigh of relief from the
+chafing uncertainties of waiting, and instead of depressing they
+compelled advances in fresh directions which soon became exhilarating,
+advances upon which one started with stronger determination and fuller,
+not lessened, confidence.  O heart of Youth!  How unfluttered thy beat!
+How invincible thou art in thine own conceit!  What gift of heaven or
+earth can compare with thy supernal faith!  "No matter how small the
+cage the bird will sing if it has a voice."
+
+Had my letters been thrown into the wastepaper basket, after an
+impatient glance by the recipients, I should not have been surprised or
+more than a little nettled; but I received answers not encouraging from
+both Horace Greeley and Mr. Dana.
+
+Mr. Greeley was brief and final, but Mr. Dana, writing in his own hand
+(how friendly it was of him!), qualified an impulse to encourage with a
+tag for self-protection.  "Your letter does you credit," he wrote.
+Those five words put me on the threshold of my goal.  "Your letter does
+you credit, and I shall be glad to hear from you again----"  A door
+opened, and a flood of light and warmth from behind it enveloped me as
+in a gown of eiderdown.  "I shall be glad to hear from you again three
+or four years from now!"  The door slammed in my face, the gown slipped
+off, and left me with a chill.  But I did not accuse Mr. Dana of
+deliberately hurting me or think that he surmised how a polite evasion
+of that sort may without forethought be more cruel than the coldest and
+most abrupt negative.
+
+I went farther afield, despatching my letters to Chicago, Philadelphia,
+Boston, and Springfield.  In Philadelphia there was a little paper
+called the _Day_, and this is what its editor wrote to me:
+
+"There are several vacancies in the editorial department, but there is
+one vacancy still worse on the ground floor, and the cashier is its
+much-harried victim.  You might come here, but you would starve to
+death, and saddle your friends with the expenses of a funeral."
+
+A man with humour enough for that ought to have prospered, and I
+rejoiced to learn soon afterward that he (I think his name was Cobb)
+had been saved from his straits by an appointment to the United States
+Mint!
+
+His jocularity did not shake my faith in the seriousness of journalism.
+I had not done laughing when I opened another letter written in a fine,
+crabbed hand like the scratching of a diamond on a window-pane, and as
+I slowly deciphered its contents I could hardly believe what I read.
+It was from Samuel Bowles the elder, editor of the Springfield
+_Republican_, then as now one of the sanest, most respected, and
+influential papers in the country.  He wanted a young man to relieve
+him of some of his drudgery, and I might come on at once to serve as
+his private secretary.  He did not doubt that I could be useful to him,
+and he was no less sure that he could be useful to me.  Moreover, my
+idea of salary, he said--it was modest, but forty dollars a
+month--"just fitted his."  He was one of the great men of his time when
+papers were strong or weak, potent in authority or negligible, in
+proportion to the personality of the individual controlling them.  He
+himself was the _Republican_, as Mr. Greeley was the _Tribune_, Mr.
+Bennett the _Herald_, Mr. Dana the _Sun_, Mr. Watterson the
+_Courier-Journal_, and Mr. Murat Halstead the Cincinnati _Commercial_,
+though, of course, like them, he tacitly hid himself behind the sacred
+and inviolable screen of anonymity, and none of them exercised greater
+power over the affairs of the nation than he, out of the centre, did
+from that charming New England town to which he invited me.  The
+opportunity was worth a premium, such as is paid by apprentices in
+England for training in ships and in merchants' and lawyers' offices;
+the salary seemed like the gratuity of a too liberal and chivalric
+employer, for no fees could procure from any vocational institution so
+many advantages as were to be freely had in association with him.  He
+instructed and inspired, and if he perceived ability and readiness in
+his pupil (this was my experience of him), he was as eager to encourage
+and improve him as any father could be with a son, looking not for the
+most he could take out of him in return for pay, but for the most he
+could put into him for his own benefit.
+
+Journalism to him was not the medium of haste, passion, prejudice, and
+faction.  He fully recognized all its responsibilities, and the need of
+meeting them and respecting them by other than casual, haphazard, and
+slipshod methods.  He was an economist of words, with an abhorrence of
+redundance and irrelevance; not only an economist of words, but also an
+economist of syllables, choosing always the fewer, and losing nothing
+of force or precision by that choice.  He had what was not less than a
+passion for brevity.  "What," he was asked, "makes a journalist?" and
+he replied: "A nose for news."  But with him the news had to be sifted,
+verified, and reduced to an essence, not inflated, distorted and
+garnished with all the verbal spoils of the reporter's last scamper
+through the dictionary.
+
+How sedate and prosperous Springfield looked to me when I arrived there
+on an early spring day!  How clean, orderly, leisurely, and respectable
+after the untidiness and explosive anarchy of New York!  I made for the
+river, as I always do wherever a river is, and watched it flowing down
+in the silver-gray light and catching bits of the rain-washed blue sky.
+The trees had lost the brittleness and sharpness of winter's drawing
+and their outlines were softening into greenish velvet.  In the
+coverts, arbutus crept out with a hawthorn-like fragrance from patches
+of lingering snow.  The main street leading into the town from the
+Massasoit House and the station also had an air of repose and dignity
+as if those who had business in it were not preoccupied by the frenzy
+for bargains, but had time and the inclination for loitering,
+politeness, and sociability.  That was in 1870, and I fear that
+Springfield must have lost some of its old-world simplicity and
+leisureliness since then.  I regret that I have never been in it since,
+though I have passed through it hundreds of times.
+
+The office of the Republican was in keeping with its environment, an
+edifice of stone or brick not more than three or four stories high,
+neat, uncrowded, and quiet; very different from the newspaper offices
+of Park Row, with their hustle, litter, dust, and noise.  I met no one
+on my way upstairs to the editorial rooms, and quaked at the oppressive
+solemnity and detachment of it.  I wondered if people were observing me
+from the street and thought how much impressed they would be if they
+divined the importance of the person they were looking at, possibly
+another Tom Tower.  The vanity of youth is in the same measure as its
+valour; withdraw one, and the other droops.
+
+"Now," said Mr. Bowles sharply, after a brusque greeting, "we'll see
+what you can do."
+
+I was dubious of him in that first encounter.  He was crisp and quick
+in manner, clear-skinned, very spruce, and clear-eyed; his eyes
+appraised you in a glance.
+
+"Take that and see how short you can make it."
+
+He handed me a column from one of the "exchanges," as the copies of
+other papers are called.  I spent half an hour at it, striking out
+repetitions and superfluous adjectives and knitting long sentences into
+brief ones.  Condensation is a fine thing, as Charles Reade once said,
+and to know how to condense judiciously, to get all the juice, without
+any of the rind or pulp, is as important to the journalist as a
+knowledge of anatomy to the figure painter.
+
+I went over it a second time before I handed it back to him as the best
+I could do.  I had plucked the fatted column to a lean quarter of that
+length, yet I trembled and sweated.
+
+"Bah!" he cried, scoring it with a pencil, which sped as dexterously as
+a surgeon's knife.  "Read it now.  Have I omitted anything essential?"
+
+He had not; only the verbiage had gone.  All that was worthy of
+preservation remained in what the printer calls a "stickful."  That was
+my first lesson in journalism.
+
+
+
+
+HELEN ADAMS KELLER
+
+(1880-____)
+
+HOW SHE LEARNED TO SPEAK
+
+When nineteen months old Helen Keller was stricken with an illness
+which robbed her of both sight and hearing.  The infant that is blind
+and deaf is of course dumb also, for being unable to see or hear the
+speech of others, the child cannot learn to imitate it.
+
+Despite her enormous handicaps, Miss Keller to-day is a college
+graduate, a public speaker, and the author of several charming books.
+It need scarcely be explained that this miracle was not wrought by
+self-help alone.  But if she had not striven with all her might to
+respond to the efforts of her devoted teacher, Miss Keller would not
+to-day be mistress of the unusual talent for literary expression which
+makes her contributions sure of a welcome in the columns of the leading
+magazines.
+
+
+From "The Story of My Life," by Helen Keller.  Published by Doubleday,
+Page & Co.
+
+The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my
+teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me.  I am filled with wonder
+when I consider the immeasurable contrast between the two lives which
+it connects.  It was the third of March; 1887, three months before I
+was seven years old.
+
+On the afternoon of that eventful day I stood on the porch, dumb,
+expectant.  I guessed vaguely from my mother's signs and from the
+hurrying to and fro in the house that something unusual was about to
+happen, so I went to the door and waited on the steps.  The afternoon
+sun penetrated the mass of honeysuckle that covered the porch, and fell
+on my upturned face.  My fingers lingered almost unconsciously on the
+familiar leaves and blossoms which had just come forth to greet the
+sweet southern spring.  I did not know what the future held of marvel
+or surprise for me.  Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me
+continually for weeks, and a deep languor had succeeded this passionate
+struggle.
+
+Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a
+tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and
+anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and
+sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to
+happen?  I was like that ship before my education began, only I was
+without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near
+the harbour was.  "Light! give me light!" was the wordless cry of my
+soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour.
+
+I felt approaching footsteps.  I stretched out my hand as I supposed to
+my mother.  Some one took it, and I was caught up and held close in the
+arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me, and, more than all
+things else, to love me.
+
+The morning after my teacher came she led me into her room and gave me
+a doll.  The little blind children at the Perkins Institution had sent
+it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it; but I did not know this until
+afterward.  When I had played with it a little while, Miss Sullivan
+slowly spelled into my hand the word "d-o-l-l."  I was at once
+interested in this finger play and tried to imitate it.  When I finally
+succeeded in making the letters correctly I was flushed with childish
+pleasure and pride.  Running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand
+and made the letters for doll.  I did not know that I was spelling a
+word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in
+monkey-like imitation.  In the days that followed I learned to spell in
+this uncomprehending way a great many words, among them _pin_, _hat_,
+_cup_, and a few verbs like _sit_, _stand_, and _walk_.  But my teacher
+had been with me several weeks before I understood that everything has
+a name.
+
+One day, while I was playing with my new doll, Miss Sullivan put my big
+rag doll into my lap also, spelled "d-o-l-l" and tried to make me
+understand that "d-o-l-l" applied to both.  Earlier in the day we had
+had a tussle over the words "m-u-g" and "w-a-t-e-r."  Miss Sullivan had
+tried to impress it upon me that "m-u-g" is mug and that "w-a-t-e-r" is
+_water_, but I persisted in confounding the two.  In despair she had
+dropped the subject for the time, only to renew it at the first
+opportunity.  I became impatient at her repeated attempts and, seizing
+the new doll, I dashed it upon the floor.  I was keenly delighted when
+I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my feet.  Neither sorrow nor
+regret followed my passionate outburst.  I had not loved the doll.  In
+the still, dark world in which I lived there was no strong sentiment or
+tenderness.  I felt my teacher sweep the fragments to one side of the
+hearth, and I had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of my
+discomfort was removed.  She brought me my hat, and I knew I was going
+out into the warm sunshine.  This thought, if a wordless sensation may
+be called a thought, made me hop and skip with pleasure.
+
+We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance
+of the honeysuckle with which it was covered.  Some one was drawing
+water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout.  As the cool
+stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water,
+first slowly, then rapidly.  I stood still, my whole attention fixed
+upon the motions of her fingers.  Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness
+as of something forgotten--a thrill of returning thought; and somehow
+the mystery of language was revealed to me.  I knew then that
+"w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my
+hand.  That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set
+it free!  There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that
+could in time be swept away.
+
+I left the well-house eager to learn.  Everything had a name, and each
+name gave birth to a new thought.  As we returned to the house every
+object which I touched seemed to quiver with life.  That was because I
+saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me.  On
+entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken.  I felt my way to
+the hearth and picked up the pieces.  I tried vainly to put them
+together.  Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had
+done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow.
+
+I learned a great many new words that day.  I do not remember what they
+all were; but I do know that _mother_, _father_, _sister_, _teacher_
+were among them--words that were to make the world blossom for me,
+"like Aaron's rod, with flowers."  It would have been difficult to find
+a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib at the close of that
+eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought me, and for the
+first time longed for a new day to come.
+
+I had now the key to all language, and I was eager to learn to use it.
+Children who hear acquire language without any particular effort; the
+words that fall from others' lips they catch on the wing, as it were,
+delightedly, while the little deaf child must trap them by a slow and
+often painful process.  But whatever the process, the result is
+wonderful.  Gradually from naming an object we advance step by step
+until we have traversed the vast distance between our first stammered
+syllable and the sweep of thought in a line of Shakespeare.
+
+At first, when my teacher told me about a new thing I asked very few
+questions.  My ideas were vague, and my vocabulary was inadequate; but
+as my knowledge of things grew, and I learned more and more words, my
+field of inquiry broadened, and I would return again and again to the
+same subject, eager for further information.  Sometimes a new word
+revived an image that some earlier experience had engraved on my brain.
+
+I remember the morning that I first asked the meaning of the word,
+"love."  This was before I knew many words.  I had found a few early
+violets in the garden and brought them to my teacher.  She tried to
+kiss me; but at that time I did not like to have any one kiss me except
+my mother.  Miss Sullivan put her arm gently round me and spelled into
+my hand, "I love Helen."
+
+"What is love?" I asked.
+
+She drew me closer to her and said, "It is here," pointing to my heart,
+whose beats I was conscious of for the first time.  Her words puzzled
+me very much because I did not then understand anything unless I
+touched it.
+
+I smelt the violets in her hand and asked, half in words, half in
+signs, a question which meant, "Is love the sweetness of flowers?"
+
+"No," said my teacher.
+
+Again I thought.  The warm sun was shining on us.
+
+"Is this not love?" I asked, pointing in the direction from which the
+heat came, "Is this not love?"
+
+It seemed to me that there could be nothing more beautiful than the
+sun, whose warmth makes all things grow.  But Miss Sullivan shook her
+head, and I was greatly puzzled and disappointed.  I thought it strange
+that my teacher could not show me love.
+
+A day or two afterward I was stringing beads of different sizes in
+symmetrical groups--two large beads, three small ones, and so on.  I
+had made many mistakes, and Miss Sullivan had pointed them out again
+and again with gentle patience.  Finally I noticed a very obvious error
+in the sequence and for an instant I concentrated my attention on the
+lesson and tried to think how I should have arranged the beads.  Miss
+Sullivan touched my forehead and spelled with decided emphasis, "Think."
+
+In a flash I knew that the word was the name of the process that was
+going on in my head.  This was my first conscious perception of an
+abstract idea.
+
+For a long time I was still--I was not thinking of the beads in my lap,
+but trying to find a meaning for "love" in the light of this new idea.
+The sun had been under a cloud all day, and there had been brief
+showers; but suddenly the sun broke forth in all its southern splendour.
+
+Again I asked my teacher, "Is this not love?"
+
+"Love is something like the clouds that were in the sky before the sun
+came out," she replied.  Then in simpler words than these, which at
+that time I could not have understood, she explained: "You cannot touch
+the clouds, you know; but you feel the rain and know how glad the
+flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it after a hot day.  You
+cannot touch love either; but you feel the sweetness that it pours into
+everything.  Without love you would not be happy or want to play."
+
+The beautiful truth burst upon my mind--I felt that there were
+invisible lines stretched between my spirit and the spirits of others.
+
+From the beginning of my education Miss Sullivan made it a practice to
+speak to me as she would speak to any hearing child; the only
+difference was that she spelled the sentences into my hand instead of
+speaking them.  If I did not know the words and idioms necessary to
+express my thoughts she supplied them, even suggesting conversation
+when I was unable to keep up my end of the dialogue.
+
+This process was continued for several years; for the deaf child does
+not learn in a month, or even in two or three years, the numberless
+idioms and expressions used in the simplest daily intercourse.  The
+little hearing child learns these from constant repetition and
+imitation.  The conversation he hears in his home stimulates his mind
+and suggests topics and calls forth the spontaneous expression of his
+own thoughts.  This natural exchange of ideas is denied to the deaf
+child.  My teacher, realizing this, determined to supply the kinds of
+stimulus I lacked.  This she did by repeating to me as far as possible,
+verbatim, what she heard, and by showing me how I could take part in
+the conversation.  But it was a long time before I ventured to take the
+initiative, and still longer before I could find something appropriate
+to say at the right time.
+
+The next important step in my education was learning to read.
+
+As soon as I could spell a few words my teacher gave me slips of
+cardboard on which were printed words in raised letters.  I quickly
+learned that each printed word stood for an object, an act, or a
+quality.  I had a frame in which I could arrange the words in little
+sentences; but before I ever put sentences in the frame I used to make
+them in objects.  I found the slips of paper which represented, for
+example, "doll," "is," "on," "bed" and placed each name on its object;
+then I put my doll on the bed with the words _is_, _on_, _bed_ arranged
+beside the doll, thus making a sentence of the words, and at the same
+time carrying out the idea of the sentence with the things themselves.
+
+One day, Miss Sullivan tells me, I pinned the word _girl_ on my
+pinafore and stood in the wardrobe.  On the shelf I arranged the words,
+_is_, _in_, _wardrobe_.  Nothing delighted me so much as this game.  My
+teacher and I played it for hours at a time.  Often everything in the
+room was arranged in object sentences.
+
+From the printed slip it was but a step to the printed book.  I took my
+"Reader for Beginners" and hunted for the words I knew; when I found
+them my joy was like that of a game of hide-and-seek.  Thus I began to
+read.  Of the time when I began to read connected stories I shall speak
+later.
+
+For a long time I had no regular lessons.  Even when I studied most
+earnestly it seemed more like play than work.  Everything Miss Sullivan
+taught me she illustrated by a beautiful story or a poem.  Whenever
+anything delighted or interested me she talked it over with me just as
+if she were a little girl herself.  What many children think of with
+dread, as a painful plodding through grammar, hard sums and harder
+definitions, is to-day one of my most precious memories.
+
+I cannot explain the peculiar sympathy Miss Sullivan had with
+my pleasures and desires.  Perhaps it was the result of long
+association with the blind.  Added to this she had a wonderful
+faculty for description.  She went quickly over uninteresting
+details, and never nagged me with questions to see if I remembered the
+day-before-yesterday's lesson.  She introduced dry technicalities of
+science little by little, making every subject so real that I could not
+help remembering what she taught.
+
+We read and studied out of doors, preferring the sunlit woods to the
+house.  All my early lessons have in them the breath of the woods--the
+fine, resinous odour of pine needles, blended with the perfume of wild
+grapes.  Seated in the gracious shade of a wild tulip tree, I learned
+to think that everything has a lesson and a suggestion.
+
+Our favourite walk was to Keller's Landing, an old tumble-down
+lumber-wharf on the Tennessee River, used during the Civil War to land
+soldiers.  There we spent many happy hours and played at learning
+geography.  I built dams of pebbles, made islands and lakes, and dug
+river-beds, all for fun, and never dreamed that I was learning a
+lesson.  I listened with increasing wonder to Miss Sullivan's
+descriptions of the great round world with its burning mountains,
+buried cities, moving rivers of ice, and many other things as strange.
+She made raised maps in clay, so that I could feel the mountain ridges
+and valleys, and follow with my fingers the devious course of rivers.
+I liked this, too; but the division of the earth into zones and poles
+confused and teased my mind.  The illustrative strings and the orange
+stick representing the poles seemed so real that even to this day the
+mere mention of temperate zone suggests a series of twine circles; and
+I believe that if any one should set about it he could convince me that
+white bears actually climb the North Pole.
+
+Arithmetic seems to have been the only study I did not like.  From the
+first I was not interested in the science of numbers.  Miss Sullivan
+tried to teach me to count by stringing beads in groups, and by
+arranging kindergarten straws I learned to add and subtract.  I never
+had patience to arrange more than five or six groups at a time.  When I
+had accomplished this my conscience was at rest for the day, and I went
+out quickly to find my playmates.
+
+In this same leisurely manner I studied zoology and botany.
+
+Once a gentleman, whose name I have forgotten, sent me a collection of
+fossils--tiny mollusk shells beautifully marked, and bits of sandstone
+with the print of birds' claws, and a lovely fern in bas-relief.  These
+were the keys which unlocked the treasures of the antediluvian world
+for me.  With trembling fingers I listened to Miss Sullivan's
+descriptions of the terrible beasts, with uncouth, unpronounceable
+names, which once went tramping through the primeval forests, tearing
+down the branches of gigantic trees for food, and died in the dismal
+swamps of an unknown age.  For a long time these strange creatures
+haunted my dreams, and this gloomy period formed a sombre background to
+the joyous Now, filled with sunshine and roses and echoing with the
+gentle beat of my pony's hoof.
+
+Another time a beautiful shell was given me, and with a child's
+surprise and delight I learned how a tiny mollusk had built the
+lustrous coil for his dwelling place, and how on still nights, when
+there is no breeze stirring the waves, the Nautilus sails on the blue
+waters of the Indian Ocean in his "ship of pearl."
+
+It was in the spring of 1890 that I learned to speak.  The impulse to
+utter audible sounds had always been strong within me.  I used to make
+noises, keeping one hand on my throat while the other hand felt the
+movements of my lips.  I was pleased with anything that made a noise
+and liked to feel the cat purr and the dog bark.  I also liked to keep
+my hand on a singer's throat, or on a piano when it was being played.
+Before I lost my sight and hearing, I was fast learning to talk, but
+after my illness it was found that I had ceased to speak because I
+could not hear.  I used to sit in my mother's lap all day long and keep
+my hands on her face because it amused me to feel the motions of her
+lips; and I moved my lips, too, although I had forgotten what talking
+was.  My friends say that I laughed and cried naturally, and for a
+while I made many sounds and word-elements, not because they were a
+means of communication, but because the need of exercising my vocal
+organs was imperative.  There was, however, one word the meaning of
+which I still remembered, water.  I pronounced it "wa-wa."  Even this
+became less and less intelligible until the time when Miss Sullivan
+began to teach me.  I stopped using it only after I had learned to
+spell the word on my fingers.
+
+I had known for a long time that the people about me used a method of
+communication different from mine; and even before I knew that a deaf
+child could be taught to speak, I was conscious of dissatisfaction with
+the means of communication I already possessed.  One who is entirely
+dependent upon the manual alphabet has always a sense of restraint, of
+narrowness.  This feeling began to agitate me with a vexing,
+forward-reaching sense of a lack that should be filled.  My thoughts
+would often rise and beat up like birds against the wind; and I
+persisted in using my lips and voice.  Friends tried to discourage this
+tendency, fearing lest it would lead to disappointment.  But I
+persisted, and an accident soon occurred which resulted in the breaking
+down of this great barrier--I heard the story of Ragnhild Kaata.
+
+In 1890 Mrs. Lamson, who had been one of Laura Bridgman's teachers, and
+who had just returned from a visit to Norway and Sweden, came to see
+me, and told me of Ragnhild Kaata, a deaf and blind girl in Norway who
+had actually been taught to speak.  Mrs. Lamson had scarcely finished
+telling me about this girl's success before I was on fire with
+eagerness.  I resolved that I, too, would learn to speak.  I would not
+rest satisfied until my teacher took me, for advice and assistance, to
+Miss Sarah Fuller, principal of the Horace Mann School.  This lovely,
+sweet-natured lady offered to teach me herself, and we began the
+twenty-sixth of March, 1890.
+
+Miss Fuller's method was this: she passed my hand lightly over her
+face, and let me feel the position of her tongue and lips when she made
+a sound.  I was eager to imitate every motion, and in an hour had
+learned six elements of speech: M, P, A, S, T, I.  Miss Fuller gave me
+eleven lessons in all.  I shall never forget the surprise and delight I
+felt when I uttered my first connected sentence, "It is warm."  True,
+they were broken and stammering syllables; but they were human speech.
+My soul, conscious of new strength, came out of bondage, and was
+reaching through those broken symbols of speech to all knowledge and
+all faith.
+
+No deaf child who has earnestly tried to speak the words which he has
+never heard--to come out of the prison of silence, where no tone of
+love, on song of bird, no strain of music ever pierces the
+stillness--can forget the thrill of surprise, the joy of discovery
+which came over him when he uttered his first word.  Only such a one
+can appreciate the eagerness with which I talked to my toys, to stones,
+trees, birds and dumb animals, or the delight I felt when at my call
+Mildred ran to me or my dogs obeyed my commands.  It is an unspeakable
+boon to me to be able to speak in winged words that need no
+interpretation.  As I talked, happy thoughts fluttered up out of my
+words that might perhaps have struggled in vain to escape my fingers.
+
+But it must not be supposed that I could really talk in this short
+time.  I had learned only the elements of speech.  Miss Fuller and Miss
+Sullivan could understand me, but most people would not have understood
+one word in a hundred.  Nor is it true that, after I had learned these
+elements, I did the rest of the work myself.  But for Miss Sullivan's
+genius, untiring perseverance and devotion, I could not have progressed
+as far as I have toward natural speech.  In the first place, I laboured
+night and day before I could be understood even by my most intimate
+friends; in the second place, I needed Miss Sullivan's assistance
+constantly in my efforts to articulate each sound clearly and to
+combine all sounds in a thousand ways.  Even now she calls my attention
+every day to mispronounced words.
+
+All teachers of the deaf know what this means, and only they can at all
+appreciate the peculiar difficulties with which I had to contend.  In
+reading my teacher's lips I was wholly dependent on my fingers: I had
+to use the sense of touch in catching the vibrations of the throat, the
+movements of the mouth, and the expression of the face; and often this
+sense was at fault.  In such cases I was forced to repeat the words or
+sentences, sometimes for hours, until I felt the proper ring in my own
+voice.  My work was practice, practice, practice.  Discouragement and
+weariness cast me down frequently; but the next moment the thought that
+I should soon be at home and show my loved ones what I had
+accomplished, spurred me on, and I eagerly looked forward to their
+pleasure in my achievement.
+
+"My little sister will understand me now," was a thought stronger than
+all obstacles.  I used to repeat ecstatically, "I am not dumb now."  I
+could not be despondent while I anticipated the delight of talking to
+my mother and reading her responses from her lips.  It astonished me to
+find how much easier it is to talk than to spell with the fingers, and
+I discarded the manual alphabet as a medium of communication on my
+part; but Miss Sullivan and a few friends still use it in speaking to
+me, for it is more convenient and more rapid than lip-reading.
+
+Just here, perhaps, I had better explain our use of the manual
+alphabet, which seems to puzzle people who do not know us.  One who
+reads or talks to me spells with his hand, using the single-hand manual
+alphabet generally employed by the deaf.  I place my hand on the hand
+of the speaker so lightly as not to impede its movements.  The position
+of the hand is as easy to feel as it is to see.  I do not feel each
+letter any more than you see each letter separately when you read.
+Constant practice makes the fingers very flexible, and some of my
+friends spell rapidly--about as fast as an expert writes on a
+typewriter.  The mere spelling is, of course, no more a conscious act
+than it is in writing.
+
+When I had made speech my own, I could not wait to go home.  At last
+the happiest of happy moments arrived.  I had made my homeward journey,
+talking constantly to Miss Sullivan, not for the sake of talking, but
+determined to improve to the last minute.  Almost before I knew it, the
+train stopped at the Tuscumbia station, and there on the platform stood
+the whole family.  My eyes fill with tears now as I think how my mother
+pressed me close to her, speechless and trembling with delight, taking
+in every syllable that I spoke, while little Mildred seized my free
+hand and kissed it and danced, and my father expressed his pride and
+affection in a big silence.  It was as if Isaiah's prophecy had been
+fulfilled in me.  "The mountains and the hills shall break forth before
+you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their
+hands!"
+
+
+
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+<h1 align="center">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6), by
+Various, Edited by Asa Don Dickinson</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6)</p>
+<p>       Authors and Journalists</p>
+<p>Author: Various</p>
+<p>Editor: Asa Don Dickinson</p>
+<p>Release Date: June 15, 2006  [eBook #18598]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES OF ACHIEVEMENT, VOLUME IV (OF 6)***</p>
+<br><br><center><h3>E-text prepared by Al Haines</h3></center><br><br>
+<hr class="full" noshade>
+<BR>
+<BR>
+<BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-front"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="Robert Burns" BORDER="2" WIDTH="334" HEIGHT="519">
+<H3>
+[Frontispiece: Robert Burns]
+</H3>
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+STORIES OF ACHIEVEMENT
+</H1>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+EDITED BY
+<BR>
+ASA DON DICKINSON
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+Authors and Journalists
+</H2>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU<BR>
+ROBERT BURNS<BR>
+CHARLOTTE BRONTE<BR>
+CHARLES DICKENS<BR>
+HORACE GREELEY<BR>
+LOUISA M. ALCOTT<BR>
+HENRY GEORGE<BR>
+WILLIAM H. RIDEING<BR>
+JACOB A. RIIS<BR>
+HELEN KELLER<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+GARDEN CITY &mdash;&mdash; NEW YORK
+<BR>
+DOUBLEDAY, PAGE &amp; COMPANY
+<BR>
+1925
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H5 ALIGN="center">
+COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY
+<BR>
+DOUBLEDAY, PAGE &amp; COMPANY
+<BR>
+ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+</H5>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+ACKNOWLEDGMENT
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+In the preparation of this volume the publishers have received from
+several houses and authors generous permissions to reprint copyright
+material.  For this they wish to express their cordial gratitude.  In
+particular, acknowledgments are due to the Houghton Mifflin Company for
+permission to reprint the sketch of Horace Greeley; to Little, Brown &amp;
+Co. for permission to reprint passages from "The Life, Letters, and
+Journals of Louisa May Alcott"; to Mr. Henry George, Jr., for the
+extract from his life of his father; to William H. Rideing for
+permission to reprint extracts from his book "Many Celebrities and a
+Few Others"; to the Macmillan Company for permission to use passages
+from "The Making of an American," by Jacob A. Riis; to Miss Helen
+Keller for permission to reprint from "The Story of My Life."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+CONTENTS
+</H2>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+AUTHORS AND JOURNALISTS
+</H3>
+
+<H3>
+<A HREF="#chap01">
+JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Man to Whom Expression was Travail<BR>
+</A>
+</H3>
+
+<H3>
+<A HREF="#chap02">
+ROBERT BURNS<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Ploughman-poet<BR>
+</A>
+</H3>
+
+<H3>
+<A HREF="#chap03">
+HORACE GREELEY<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;How the Farm-boy Became an Editor<BR>
+</A>
+</H3>
+
+<H3>
+<A HREF="#chap04">
+CHARLES DICKENS<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Factory Boy<BR>
+</A>
+</H3>
+
+<H3>
+<A HREF="#chap05">
+CHARLOTTE BRONTE<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Country Parson's Daughter<BR>
+</A>
+</H3>
+
+<H3>
+<A HREF="#chap06">
+LOUISA MAY ALCOTT<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Journal of a Brave and Talented Girl<BR>
+</A>
+</H3>
+
+<H3>
+<A HREF="#chap07">
+HENRY GEORGE<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Troubles of a Job Printer<BR>
+</A>
+</H3>
+
+<H3>
+<A HREF="#chap08">
+JACOB RIIS<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"The Making of an American"<BR>
+</A>
+</H3>
+
+<H3>
+<A HREF="#chap09">
+WILLIAM H. RIDEING<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Rejected Manuscripts<BR>
+</A>
+</H3>
+
+<H3>
+<A HREF="#chap10">
+HELEN ADAMS KELLER<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;How She Learned to Speak<BR>
+</A>
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+(1712-1778)
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE MAN TO WHOM EXPRESSION WAS TRAVAIL
+</H3>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+From the "Confessions of Rousseau."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is strange to hear that those critics who spoke of Rousseau's
+"incomparable gift of expression," of his "easy, natural style," were
+ludicrously incorrect in their allusions.  From his "Confessions" we
+learn that he had no gift of clear, fluent expression; that he was by
+nature so incoherent that he could not creditably carry on an ordinary
+conversation; and that the ideas which stirred Europe, although
+spontaneously conceived, were brought forth and set before the world
+only after their progenitor had suffered the real pangs of labor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But after all it is the same old story over again.  Great things are
+rarely said or done easily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Two things very opposite unite in me, and in a manner which I cannot
+myself conceive.  My disposition is extremely ardent, my passions
+lively and impetuous, yet my ideas are produced slowly, with great
+embarrassment and after much afterthought.  It might be said my heart
+and understanding do not belong to the same individual.  A sentiment
+takes possession of my soul with the rapidity of lightning, but instead
+of illuminating, it dazzles and confounds me; I feel all, but see
+nothing; I am warm but stupid; to think I must be cool.  What is
+astonishing, my conception is clear and penetrating, if not hurried: I
+can make excellent impromptus at leisure, but on the instant could
+never say or do anything worth notice.  I could hold a tolerable
+conversation by the post, as they say the Spaniards play at chess, and
+when I read that anecdote of a duke of Savoy, who turned himself round,
+while on a journey, to cry out "<I>a votre gorge, marchand de Paris</I>!" I
+said, "Here is a trait of my character!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This slowness of thought, joined to vivacity of feeling, I am not only
+sensible of in conversation, but even alone.  When I write, my ideas
+are arranged with the utmost difficulty.  They glance on my imagination
+and ferment till they discompose, heat, and bring on a palpitation;
+during this state of agitation I see nothing properly, cannot write a
+single word, and must wait till all is over.  Insensibly the agitation
+subsides, the chaos acquires form, and each circumstance takes its
+proper place.  Have you never seen an opera in Italy where during the
+change of scene everything is in confusion, the decorations are
+intermingled, and any one would suppose that all would be overthrown;
+yet by little and little, everything is arranged, nothing appears
+wanting, and we feel surprised to see the tumult succeeded by the most
+delightful spectacle.  This is a resemblance of what passes in my brain
+when I attempt to write; had I always waited till that confusion was
+past, and then pointed, in their natural beauties, the objects that had
+presented themselves, few authors would have surpassed me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thence arises the extreme difficulty I find in writing; my manuscripts,
+blotted, scratched, and scarcely legible, attest the trouble they cost
+me; nor is there one of them but I have been obliged to transcribe four
+or five times before it went to press.  Never could I do anything when
+placed at a table, pen in hand; it must be walking among the rocks, or
+in the woods; it is at night in my bed, during my wakeful hours, that I
+compose; it may be judged how slowly, particularly for a man who has
+not the advantage of verbal memory, and never in his life could retain
+by heart six verses.  Some of my periods I have turned and returned in
+my head five or six nights before they were fit to be put to paper:
+thus it is that I succeed better in works that require laborious
+attention than those that appear more trivial, such as letters, in
+which I could never succeed, and being obliged to write one is to me a
+serious punishment; nor can I express my thoughts on the most trivial
+subjects without it costing me hours of fatigue.  If I write
+immediately what strikes me, my letter is a long, confused, unconnected
+string of expressions, which, when read, can hardly be understood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is not only painful to me to give language to my ideas but even to
+receive them.  I have studied mankind, and think myself a tolerable
+observer, yet I know nothing from what I see, but all from what I
+remember, nor have I understanding except in my recollections.  From
+all that is said, from all that passes in my presence, I feel nothing,
+conceive nothing, the exterior sign being all that strikes me;
+afterward it returns to my remembrance; I recollect the place, the
+time, the manner, the look, and gesture, not a circumstance escapes me;
+it is then, from what has been done or said, that I imagine what has
+been thought, and I have rarely found myself mistaken.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So little master of my understanding when alone, let any one judge what
+I must be in conversation, where to speak with any degree of ease you
+must think of a thousand things at the same time: the bare idea that I
+should forget something material would be sufficient to intimidate me.
+Nor can I comprehend how people can have the confidence to converse in
+large companies, where each word must pass in review before so many,
+and where it would be requisite to know their several characters and
+histories to avoid saying what might give offence.  In this particular,
+those who frequent the world would have a great advantage, as they know
+better where to be silent, and can speak with greater confidence; yet
+even they sometimes let fall absurdities; in what predicament then must
+he be who drops as it were from the clouds?  It is almost impossible he
+should speak ten minutes with impunity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a tête-à-tête there is a still worse inconvenience; that is, the
+necessity of talking perpetually, at least, the necessity of answering
+when spoken to, and keeping up the conversation when the other is
+silent.  This insupportable constraint is alone sufficient to disgust
+me with variety, for I cannot form an idea of a greater torment than
+being obliged to speak continually without time for recollection.  I
+know not whether it proceeds from my mortal hatred of all constraint;
+but if I am obliged to speak, I infallibly talk nonsense.  What is
+still worse, instead of learning how to be silent when I have
+absolutely nothing to say, it is generally at such times that I have a
+violent inclination; and, endeavoring to pay my debt of conversation as
+speedily as possible, I hastily gabble a number of words without ideas,
+happy when they only chance to mean nothing; thus endeavoring to
+conquer or hide my incapacity, I rarely fail to show it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I think I have said enough to show that, though not a fool, I have
+frequently passed for one, even among people capable of judging; this
+was the more vexatious, as my physiognomy and eyes promised otherwise,
+and expectation being frustrated, my stupidity appeared the more
+shocking.  This detail, which a particular occasion gave birth to, will
+not be useless in the sequel, being a key to many of my actions which
+might otherwise appear unaccountable; and have been attributed to a
+savage humor I do not possess.  I love society as much as any man, was
+I not certain to exhibit myself in it, not only disadvantageously, but
+totally different from what I really am.  The plan I have adopted of
+writing and retirement is what exactly suits me.  Had I been present,
+my worth would never have been known, no one would ever have suspected
+it; thus it was with Madam Dupin, a woman of sense, in whose house I
+lived for several years; indeed, she has often since owned it to me:
+though on the whole this rule may be subject to some exceptions.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The heat of the summer was this year (1749) excessive.  Vincennes is
+two leagues from Paris.  The state of my finances not permitting me to
+pay for hackney coaches, at two o'clock in the afternoon, I went on
+foot, when alone, and walked as fast as possible, that I might arrive
+the sooner.  The trees by the side of the road, always lopped,
+according to the custom of the country, afforded but little shade, and
+exhausted by fatigue, I frequently threw myself on the ground, being
+unable to proceed any farther.  I thought a book in my hand might make
+me moderate my pace.  One day I took the <I>Mercure de France</I>, and as I
+walked and read, I came to the following question proposed by the
+academy of Dijon, for the premium of the ensuing year: Has the progress
+of sciences and arts contributed to corrupt or purify morals?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The moment I had read this, I seemed to behold another world, and
+became a different man.  Although I have a lively remembrance of the
+impression it made upon me, the detail has escaped my mind, since I
+communicated it to M. de Malesherbes in one of my four letters to him.
+This is one of the singularities of my memory which merits to be
+remarked.  It serves me in proportion to my dependence upon it; the
+moment I have committed to paper that with which it was charged, it
+forsakes me, and I have no sooner written a thing than I had forgotten
+it entirely.  This singularity is the same with respect to music.
+Before I learned the use of notes I knew a great number of songs; the
+moment I had made a sufficient progress to sing an air of art set to
+music, I could not recollect any one of them; and, at present, I much
+doubt whether I should be able entirely to go through one of those of
+which I was the most fond.  All I distinctly recollect upon this
+occasion is, that on my arrival at Vincennes, I was in an agitation
+which approached a delirium.  Diderot perceived it; I told him the
+cause, and read to him the prosopopoeia of Fabricius, written with a
+pencil under a tree.  He encouraged me to pursue my ideas, and to
+become a competitor for the premium.  I did so, and from that moment I
+was ruined.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All the rest of my misfortunes during my life were the inevitable
+effect of this moment of error.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My sentiments became elevated with the most inconceivable rapidity to
+the level of my ideas.  All my little passions were stifled by the
+enthusiasm of truth, liberty, and virtue; and, what is most
+astonishing, this effervescence continued in my mind upward of five
+years, to as great a degree, perhaps, as it has ever done in that of
+any other man.  I composed the discourse in a very singular manner, and
+in that style which I have always followed in my other works, I
+dedicated to it the hours of the night in which sleep deserted me; I
+meditated in my bed with my eyes closed, and in my mind turned over and
+over again my periods with incredible labor and care; the moment they
+were finished to my satisfaction, I deposited in my memory, until I had
+an opportunity of committing them to paper; but the time of rising and
+putting on my clothes made me lose everything, and when I took up my
+pen I recollected but little of what I had composed.  I made Madam le
+Vasseur my secretary; I had lodged her with her daughter and husband
+nearer to myself; and she, to save me the expense of a servant, came
+every morning to make my fire, and to do such other little things as
+were necessary.  As soon as she arrived I dictated to her while in bed
+what I had composed in the night, and this method, which for a long
+time I observed, preserved me many things I should otherwise have
+forgotten.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As soon as the discourse was finished, I showed it to Diderot.  He was
+satisfied with the production, and pointed out some corrections he
+thought necessary to be made.  However, this composition, full of force
+and fire, absolutely wants logic and order; of all the works I ever
+wrote, this is the weakest in reasoning, and the most devoid of number
+and harmony.  With whatever talent a man may be born, the art of
+writing is not easily learned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I sent off this piece without mentioning it to anybody, except, I
+think, to Grimm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The year following (1750), not thinking more of my discourse, I learned
+it had gained the premium at Dijon.  This news awakened all the ideas
+which had dictated it to me, gave them new animation, and completed the
+fermentation of my heart of that first leaves of heroism and virtue
+which my father, my country, and Plutarch had inspired in my infancy.
+Nothing now appeared great in my eyes but to be free and virtuous,
+superior to fortune and opinion, and independent of all exterior
+circumstances; although a false shame, and the fear of disapprobation
+at first prevented me from conducting myself according to these
+principles, and from suddenly quarrelling with the maxims of the age in
+which I lived, I from that moment took a decided resolution to do
+it.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+ROBERT BURNS
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+(1759-1796)
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE PLOUGHMAN-POET
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+A note of pride in his humble origin rings throughout the following
+pages.  The ploughman poet was wiser in thought than in deed, and his
+life was not a happy one.  But, whatever his faults, he did his best
+with the one golden talent that Fate bestowed upon him.  Each book that
+he encountered was made to stand and deliver the message that it
+carried for him.  Sweethearting and good-fellowship were his bane, yet
+he won much good from his practice of the art of correspondence with
+sweethearts and boon companions.  And although Socrates was perhaps
+scarcely a name to him, he studied always to follow the Athenian's
+favourite maxim, <I>Know thyself</I>; realizing, with his elder brother of
+Warwickshire, that "the chiefest study of mankind is man."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+From an autobiographical sketch sent to Dr. Moore.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+[<I>To Dr. Moore</I>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+MAUCHLINE, August 2, 1787.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For some months past I have been rambling over the country, but I am
+now confined with some lingering complaints, originating, as I take it,
+in the stomach.  To divert my spirits a little in this miserable fog of
+ennui, I have taken a whim to give you a history of myself.  My name
+has made some little noise in this country; you have done me the honour
+to interest yourself very warmly in my behalf; and I think a faithful
+account of what character of a man I am, and how I came by that
+character, may perhaps amuse you in an idle moment.  I will give you an
+honest narrative, though I know it will be often at my own expense; for
+I assure you, sir, I have, like Solomon, whose character, excepting in
+the trifling affair of wisdom, I sometimes think I resemble&mdash;I have, I
+say, like him turned my eyes to behold madness and folly, and like him,
+too, frequently shaken hands with their intoxicating friendship.  After
+you have perused these pages, should you think them trifling and
+impertinent, I only beg leave to tell you that the poor author wrote
+them under some twitching qualms of conscience, arising from a
+suspicion that he was doing what he ought not to do; a predicament he
+has more than once been in before.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I have not the most distant pretensions to assume that character which
+the pye-coated guardians of escutcheons call a gentleman.  When at
+Edinburgh last winter I got acquainted in the <I>Herald's</I> office; and,
+looking through that granary of honors, I there found almost every name
+in the kingdom; but for me,
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;My ancient but ignoble blood<BR>
+Has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gules, purpure, argent, etc., quite disowned me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My father was of the north of Scotland, the son of a farmer, and was
+thrown by early misfortunes on the world at large; where, after many
+years' wanderings and sojournings, he picked up a pretty large quantity
+of observation and experience, to which I am indebted for most of my
+little pretensions to wisdom.  I have met with few who understood men,
+their manners and their ways, equal to him; but stubborn, ungainly
+integrity, and headlong, ungovernable irascibility, are disqualifying
+circumstances; consequently, I was born a very poor man's son.  For the
+first six or seven years of my life my father was gardener to a worthy
+gentleman of small estate in the neighbourhood of Ayr.  Had he
+continued in that station, I must have marched off to be one of the
+little underlings about a farmhouse; but it was his dearest wish and
+prayer to have it in his power to keep his children under his own eye
+till they could discern between good and evil; so with the assistance
+of his generous master, my father ventured on a small farm on his
+estate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At those years, I was by no means a favourite with anybody.  I was a
+good deal noted for a retentive memory, a stubborn, sturdy something in
+my disposition, and an enthusiastic, idiotic piety.  I say idiotic
+piety because I was then but a child.  Though it cost the schoolmaster
+some thrashings, I made an excellent English scholar; and by the time I
+was ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs,
+and particles.  In my infant and boyish days, too, I owe much to an old
+woman who resided in the family, remarkable for her ignorance,
+credulity, and superstition.  She had, I suppose, the largest
+collection in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts,
+fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles,
+dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers,
+dragons, and other trumpery.  This cultivated the latent seeds of
+poetry; but had so strong an effect on my imagination that to this hour
+in my nocturnal rambles I sometimes keep a sharp lookout in suspicious
+places; and though nobody can be more sceptical than I am in such
+matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these
+idle terrors.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The earliest composition that I recollect taking pleasure in was "The
+Vision of Mirza," and a hymn of Addison's beginning, "How are thy
+servants blest, O Lord!"  I particularly remember one half-stanza which
+was music to my boyish ear&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+For though on dreadful whirls we hung<BR>
+High on the broken wave--<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I met with these pieces in Mason's English Collection, one of my
+schoolbooks.  The first two books I ever read in private, and which
+gave me more pleasure than any two books I ever read since, were "The
+Life of Hannibal" and "The History of Sir William Wallace."  Hannibal
+gave my young ideas such a turn that I used to strut in raptures up and
+down after the recruiting drum and bagpipe and wish myself tall enough
+to be a soldier; while the story of Wallace poured a Scottish prejudice
+into my veins, which will boil along there till the floodgates of life
+shut in eternal rest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Polemical divinity about this time was putting the country half mad,
+and I, ambitious of shining in conversation parties on Sundays, between
+sermons, at funerals, etc., used a few years afterward to puzzle
+Calvinism with so much heat and indiscretion that I raised a hue and
+cry of heresy against me, which has not ceased to this hour.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My vicinity to Ayr was of some advantage to me.  My social disposition,
+when not checked by some modifications of spirited pride, was like our
+catechism definition of infinitude, without bounds or limits.  I formed
+several connections with other younkers, who possessed superior
+advantages; the youngling actors who were busy in the rehearsal of
+parts, in which they were shortly to appear on the stage of life,
+where, alas! I was destined to drudge behind the scenes.  It is not
+commonly at this green age that our young gentry have a just sense of
+the immense distance between them and their ragged playfellows.  It
+takes a few dashes into the world to give the young, great man that
+proper, decent, unnoticing disregard for the poor, insignificant,
+stupid devils, the mechanics and peasantry around him, who were,
+perhaps, born in the same village.  My young superiors never insulted
+the clouterly appearance of my plough-boy carcase, the two extremes of
+which were often exposed to all the inclemencies of all the seasons.
+They would give me stray volumes of books; among them, even then, I
+could pick up some observations, and one, whose heart, I am sure, not
+even the "Munny Begum" scenes have tainted, helped me to a little
+French.  Parting with these my young friends and benefactors, as they
+occasionally went off for the East or West Indies, was often to me a
+sore affliction; but I was soon called to more serious evils.  My
+father's generous master died, the farm proved a ruinous bargain; and
+to clench the misfortune, we fell into the hands of a factor, who sat
+for the picture I have drawn of one in my tale of "Twa Dogs."  My
+father was advanced in life when he married; I was the eldest of seven
+children, and he, worn out by early hardships, was unfit for labour.
+My father's spirit was soon irritated, but not easily broken.  There
+was a freedom in his lease in two years more, and to weather these two
+years, we retrenched our expenses.  We lived very poorly; I was a
+dexterous ploughman for my age; and the next eldest to me was a brother
+(Gilbert), who could drive the plough very well, and help me to thrash
+the corn.  A novel-writer might, perhaps, have viewed these scenes with
+some satisfaction, but so did not I; my indignation yet boils at the
+recollection of the scoundrel factor's insolent, threatening letters,
+which used to set us all in tears.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This kind of life&mdash;the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with the unceasing
+moil of a galley slave, brought me to my sixteenth year; a little
+before which period I first committed the sin of rhyme.  You know our
+country custom of coupling a man and woman together as partners in the
+labours of harvest.  In my fifteenth autumn my partner was a bewitching
+creature, a year younger than myself.  My scarcity of English denies me
+the power of doing her justice in that language, but you know the
+Scottish idiom: she was a "bonnie, sweet, sonsie (engaging) lass."  In
+short, she, altogether unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that
+delicious passion, which, in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse
+prudence, and bookworm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human
+joys, our dearest blessing here below!  How she caught the contagion I
+cannot tell; you medical people talk much of infection from breathing
+the same air, the touch, etc., but I never expressly said I loved her.
+Indeed I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with
+her when returning in the evening from our labours; why the tones of
+her voice made my heartstrings thrill like an Aeolian harp; and
+particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ratan, when I looked and
+fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and
+thistles.  Among her other love-inspiring qualities, she sung sweetly;
+and it was her favourite reel to which I attempted giving an embodied
+vehicle in rhyme.  I was not so presumptuous as to imagine that I could
+make verses like printed ones, composed by men who had Greek and Latin;
+but my girl sung a song which was said to be composed by a small
+country laird's son, on one of his father's maids with whom he was in
+love; and I saw no reason why I might not rhyme as well as he; for,
+excepting that he could smear sheep, and cast peats, his father living
+in the moorlands, he had no more scholar-craft than myself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus with me began love and poetry, which at times have been my only,
+and till within the last twelve months have been my highest, enjoyment.
+My father struggled on till he reached the freedom in his lease, when
+he entered on a larger farm, about ten miles farther in the country.
+The nature of the bargain he made was such as to throw a little ready
+money into his hands at the commencement of his lease, otherwise the
+affair would have been impracticable.  For four years we lived
+comfortably here, but a difference commencing between him and his
+landlord as to terms, after three years' tossing and whirling in the
+vortex of litigation, my father was just saved from the horrors of a
+jail by a consumption which, after two years' promises, kindly stepped
+in, and carried him away, to where the wicked cease from troubling, and
+where the weary are at rest!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is during the time that we lived on this farm that my little story
+is most eventful.  I was, at the beginning of this period, perhaps the
+most ungainly, awkward boy in the parish&mdash;no hermit was less acquainted
+with the ways of the world.  What I knew of ancient story was gathered
+from Salmon's and Guthrie's Geographical Grammars; and the ideas I had
+formed of modern manners, of literature, and criticism, I got from the
+<I>Spectator</I>.  These, with Pope's Works, some Plays of Shakespeare,
+Tull, and Dickson on Agriculture, The "Pantheon," Locke's "Essay on the
+Human Understanding," Stackhouse's "History of the Bible," Justice's
+"British  Gardener's  Directory," Boyle's "Lectures," Allan Ramsay's
+Works, Taylor's "Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin," "A Select
+Collection of English Songs," and Hervey's "Meditations," had formed
+the whole of my reading.  The collection of songs was my companion, day
+and night.  I pored over them driving my cart, or walking to labour,
+song by song, verse by verse; carefully noting the true, tender, or
+sublime, from affectation and fustian.  I am convinced I owe to this
+practice much of my critic-craft, such as it is.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In my seventeenth year, to give my manners a brush, I went to a country
+dancing-school.  My father had an unaccountable antipathy against these
+meetings, and my going was, what to this moment I repent, in opposition
+to his wishes.  My father, as I said before, was subject to strong
+passions; from that instance of disobedience in me he took a sort of
+dislike to me, which, I believe, was one cause of the dissipation which
+marked my succeeding years.  I say dissipation, comparatively with the
+strictness, and sobriety, and regularity of Presbyterian country life;
+for though the will-o'-wisp meteors of thoughtless whim were almost the
+sole lights of my path, yet early ingrained piety and virtue kept me
+for several years afterward within the line of innocence.  The great
+misfortune of my life was to want an aim.  I had felt early some
+stirrings of ambition, but they were the blind gropings of Homer's
+Cyclops round the walls of his cave.  I saw my father's situation
+entailed on me perpetual labour.  The only two openings by which I
+could enter the temple of fortune were the gate of niggardly economy or
+the path of little chicaning bargain-making.  The first is so
+contracted an aperture I never could squeeze myself into it; the last I
+always hated&mdash;there was contamination in the very entrance!  Thus
+abandoned of aim or view in life, with a strong appetite for
+sociability, as well from native hilarity as from a pride of
+observation and remark; a constitutional melancholy or hypochondriasm
+that made me fly solitude; add to these incentives to social life my
+reputation for bookish knowledge, a certain wild, logical talent, and a
+strength of thought, something like the rudiments of good sense; and it
+will not seem surprising that I was generally a welcome guest where I
+visited, or any great wonder that always, where two or three met
+together, there was I among them.  But far beyond all other impulses of
+my heart was a leaning toward the adorable half of humankind.  My heart
+was completely tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or
+other; and, as in every other warfare in this world, my fortune was
+various; sometimes I was received with favour, and sometimes I was
+mortified with a repulse.  At the plough, scythe, or reap-hook I feared
+no competitor, and thus I set absolute want at defiance; and as I never
+cared further for my labours than while I was in actual exercise, I
+spent the evenings in the way after my own heart.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another circumstance in my life which made some alteration in my mind
+and manners was that I spent my nineteenth summer on a smuggling coast,
+a good distance from home, at a noted school, to learn mensuration,
+surveying, dialling, etc., in which I made a pretty good progress.  But
+I made a greater progress in the knowledge of mankind.  The contraband
+trade was at that time very successful, and it sometimes happened to me
+to fall with those who carried it on.  Scenes of swaggering riot and
+roaring dissipation were, till this time, new to me; but I was no enemy
+to social life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My reading meantime was enlarged with the very important addition of
+Thomson's and Shenstone's Works.  I had seen human nature in a new
+phase; and I engaged several of my schoolfellows to keep up a literary
+correspondence with me.  This improved me in composition.  I had met
+with a collection of letters by the wits of Queen Anne's reign, and
+pored over them most devoutly.  I kept copies of any of my own letters
+that pleased me, and a comparison between them and the composition of
+most of my correspondents flattered my vanity.  I carried this whim so
+far that, though I had not three farthings' worth of business in the
+world, yet almost every post brought me as many letters as if I had
+been a broad plodding son of the day-book and ledger.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My life flowed on much in the same course till my twenty-third year.
+The addition of two more authors to my library gave me great pleasure:
+Sterne and Mackenzie&mdash;"Tristram Shandy" and the "Man of Feeling"&mdash;were
+my bosom favourites.  Poesy was still a darling walk for my mind, but
+it was only indulged in according to the humour of the hour.  I had
+usually half a dozen or more pieces on hand; I took up one or other, as
+it suited the momentary tone of the mind, and dismissed the work as it
+bordered on fatigue.  My passions, when once lighted up, raged like so
+many devils, till they got vent in rhyme; and then the conning over my
+verses, like a spell, soothed all into quiet!  None of the rhymes of
+those days are in print, except "Winter, a Dirge," the eldest of my
+printed pieces; "The Death of Poor Maillie," "John Barleycorn," and
+Songs First, Second, and Third.  Song Second was the ebullition of that
+passion which ended the forementioned school business.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My twenty-third year was to me an important era.  Partly through whim,
+and partly that I wished to set about doing something in life, I joined
+a flax-dresser in a neighbouring town (Irvine), to learn the trade.
+This was an unlucky affair.  As we were giving a welcome carousal to
+the new year, the shop took fire and burned to ashes, and I was left,
+like a true poet, not worth a sixpence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I was obliged to give up this scheme, the clouds of misfortune were
+gathering thick round my father's head; and, what was worst of all, he
+was visibly far gone in a consumption; and to crown my distresses, a
+beautiful girl, whom I adored, and who had pledged her soul to meet me
+in the field of matrimony, jilted me, with peculiar circumstances of
+mortification.  The finishing evil that brought up the rear of this
+infernal file was my constitutional melancholy being increased to such
+a degree that for three months I was in a state of mind scarcely to be
+envied by the hopeless wretches who have got their mittimus&mdash;depart
+from me, ye cursed!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From this adventure I learned something of a town life; but the
+principal thing which gave my mind a turn was a friendship I formed
+with a young fellow, a very noble character, but a hapless son of
+misfortune.  He was the son of a simple mechanic; but a great man in
+the neighbourhood taking him under his patronage, gave him a genteel
+education, with a view of bettering his situation in life.  The patron
+dying just as he was ready to launch out into the world, the poor
+fellow in despair went to sea; where, after a variety of good and ill
+fortune, a little before I was acquainted with him he had been set on
+shore by an American privateer, on the wild coast of Connaught,
+stripped of everything.  I cannot quit this poor fellow's story without
+adding that he is at this time master of a large West Indiaman
+belonging to the Thames.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His mind was fraught with independence, magnanimity, and every manly
+virtue.  I loved and admired him to a degree of enthusiasm, and of
+course strove to imitate him.  In some measure I succeeded; I had pride
+before, but he taught it to flow in proper channels.  His knowledge of
+the world was vastly superior to mine, and I was all attention to
+learn.&#8230;  My reading only increased while in this town by two stray
+volumes of "Pamela," and one of "Ferdinand Count Fathom," which gave me
+some idea of novels.  Rhyme, except some religious pieces that are in
+print, I had given up; but meeting with Fergusson's Scottish Poems, I
+strung anew my wildly sounding lyre with emulating vigour.  When my
+father died his all went among the hell-hounds that growl in the kennel
+of justice; but we made a shift to collect a little money in the family
+amongst us, with which to keep us together; my brother and I took a
+neighbouring farm.  My brother wanted my hare-brained imagination, as
+well as my social and amorous madness; but in good sense, and every
+sober qualification, he was far my superior.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I entered on this farm with a full resolution, "come, go to, I will be
+wise!"  I read farming books, I calculated crops; I attended markets;
+and, in short, in spite of the devil, and the world, and the flesh, I
+believe I should have been a wise man; but the first year, from
+unfortunately buying bad seed, the second from a late harvest, we lost
+half our crops.  This overset all my wisdom, and I returned, "like the
+dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the
+mire."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I now began to be known in the neighbourhood as a maker of rhymes.  The
+first of my poetic offspring that saw the light was a burlesque
+lamentation on a quarrel between two reverend Calvinists, both of them
+figuring in my "Holy Fair."  I had a notion myself that the piece had
+some merit; but, to prevent the worst, I gave a copy of it to a friend,
+who was very fond of such things, and told him that I could not guess
+who was the author of it, but that I thought it pretty clever.  With a
+certain description of the clergy, as well as laity, it met with a roar
+of applause.  "Holy Willie's Prayer" next made its appearance, and
+alarmed the kirk-session so much, that they held several meetings to
+look over their spiritual artillery, if haply any of it might be
+pointed against profane rhymers.  Unluckily for me, my wanderings led
+me on another side, within point-blank shot of their heaviest metal.
+This is the unfortunate story that gave rise to my printed poem, "The
+Lament."  This was a most melancholy affair, which I cannot yet bear to
+reflect on, and had very nearly given me one or two of the principal
+qualifications for a place among those who have lost the chart, and
+mistaken the reckoning of rationality.  I gave up my part of the farm
+to my brother; in truth, it was only nominally mine; and made what
+little preparation was in my power for Jamaica.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But before leaving my native country forever, I resolved to publish my
+poems.  I weighed my productions as impartially as was in my power; I
+thought they had merit; and it was a delicious idea that I should be
+called a clever fellow, even though it should never reach my ears&mdash;a
+poor Negro driver&mdash;or perhaps a victim to that inhospitable clime, and
+gone to the world of spirits!  I can truly say that, poor and unknown
+as I then was, I had pretty nearly as high an idea of myself and of my
+works as I have at this moment, when the public has decided in their
+favour.  It ever was my opinion that the mistakes and blunders, both in
+a rational and religious point of view, of which we see thousands daily
+guilty, are owing to their ignorance of themselves.  To know myself had
+been all along my constant study.  I weighed myself alone; I balanced
+myself with others.  I watched every means of information, to see how
+much ground I occupied as a man and as a poet; I studied assiduously
+Nature's design in my formation&mdash;where the lights and shades in my
+character were intended.  I was pretty confident my poems would meet
+with some applause; but at the worst, the roar of the Atlantic would
+deafen the voice of censure, and the novelty of West Indian scenes make
+me forget neglect.  I threw off six hundred copies, of which I had got
+subscriptions for about three hundred and fifty.  My vanity was highly
+gratified by the reception I met with from the public; and besides I
+pocketed, all expenses deducted, nearly twenty pounds.  This sum came
+very seasonably, as I was thinking of indenting myself for want of
+money to procure my passage.  As soon as I was master of nine guineas,
+the price of wafting me to the torrid zone, I took a steerage passage
+in the first ship that was to sail from the Clyde, for
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+Hungry ruin had me in the wind.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+I had been for some days skulking from covert to covert, under all the
+terrors of a jail; as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the
+merciless pack of the law at my heels.  I had taken the last farewell
+of my few friends; my chest was on the road to Greenock; I had composed
+the last song I should ever measure in Caledonia&mdash;"The Gloomy Night Is
+Gathering Fast," when a letter from Dr. Blacklock to a friend of mine
+overthrew all my schemes by opening new prospects to my poetic
+ambition.  The doctor belonged to a set of critics for whose applause I
+had not dared to hope.  His opinion, that I would meet with
+encouragement in Edinburgh for a second edition, fired me so much, that
+away I posted for that city, without a single acquaintance, or a single
+letter of introduction.  The baneful star that had so long shed its
+blasting influence in my zenith for once made a revolution to the
+nadir; and a kind Providence placed me under the patronage of one of
+the noblest of men, the Earl of Glencairn.  <I>Oublie moi, grand Dieu, si
+jamais je l'oublie</I>  [Forget me, Great God, if I ever forget him!].
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I need relate no further.  At Edinburgh I was in a new world; I mingled
+among many classes of men, but all of them new to me, and I was all
+attention to "catch" the characters and "the manners living as they
+rise."  Whether I have profited, time will show.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+POETS ARE BORN&mdash;THEN MADE
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+[<I>To Dr. Moore</I>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+ELLISLAND, 4th January, 1789.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+&#8230;The character and employment of a poet were formerly my pleasure,
+but are now my pride.  I know that a very great deal of my late <I>éclat</I>
+was owing to the singularity of my situation and the honest prejudice
+of Scotsmen; but still, as I said in the preface to my first edition, I
+do look upon myself as having some pretensions from nature to the
+poetic character.  I have not a doubt but the knack, the aptitude, to
+learn the muses' trade, is a gift bestowed by Him "who forms the secret
+bias of the soul"; but I as firmly believe that <I>excellence</I> in the
+profession is the fruit of industry, labour, attention, and pains.  At
+least I am resolved to try my doctrine by the test of experience.
+Another appearance from the press I put off to a very distant day, a
+day that may never arrive&mdash;but poesy I am determined to prosecute with
+all my vigour.  Nature has given very few, if any, of the profession,
+the talents of shining in every species of composition.  I shall try
+(for until trial it is impossible to know) whether she has qualified me
+to shine in any one.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE KINDLY CRITIC IS THE POET'S BEST FRIEND
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+[<I>To Mr. Moore</I>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The worst of it is, by the time one has finished a piece, it has been
+so often viewed and reviewed before the mental eye that one loses, in a
+good measure, the power of critical discrimination.  Here the best
+criterion I know is a friend&mdash;not only of abilities to judge, but with
+good nature enough like a prudent teacher with a young learner to
+praise a little more than is exactly just, lest the thin-skinned animal
+fall into that most deplorable of all diseases&mdash;heart-breaking
+despondency of himself.  Dare I, sir, already immensely indebted to
+your goodness, ask the additional obligation of your being that friend
+to me?&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+HORACE GREELEY
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+(1811-1872)
+</H3>
+
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+HOW THE FARM-BOY BECAME AN EDITOR
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Horace Greeley, the farmer's son, lived most of his life in the
+metropolis, yet he always looked like a farmer, and most people would
+be willing to admit that he retained the farmer's traditional goodness
+of heart, if not quite all of his traditional simplicity.  His judgment
+was keen and shrewd, and for many years the cracker-box philosophers of
+the village store impatiently awaited the sorting of the mail chiefly
+that they might learn what "Old Horace" had to say about some new
+picture in the kaleidoscope of politics.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+From "Captains of Industry," by James Parton.  Houghton, Mifflin &amp; Co.,
+1884.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I have seldom been more interested than in hearing Horace Greeley tell
+the story of his coming to New York, in 1831, and gradually working his
+way into business there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was living at the age of twenty years with his parents in a small
+log-cabin in a new clearing of Western Pennsylvania, about twenty miles
+from Erie.  His father, a Yankee by birth, had recently moved to that
+region and was trying to raise sheep there, as he had been accustomed
+to do in Vermont.  The wolves were too numerous there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was part of the business of Horace and his brother to watch the
+flock of sheep, and sometimes they camped out all night, sleeping with
+their feet to the fire, Indian fashion.  He told me that occasionally a
+pack of wolves would come so near that he could see their eyeballs
+glare in the darkness and hear them pant.  Even as he lay in the loft
+of his father's cabin he could hear them howling in the fields.  In
+spite of all their care, the wolves killed in one season a hundred of
+his father's sheep, and then he gave up the attempt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The family were so poor that it was a matter of doubt sometimes whether
+they could get food enough to live through the long winter, and so
+Horace, who had learned the printer's trade in Vermont, started out on
+foot in search of work in a village printing office.  He walked from
+village to village, and from town to town, until at last he went to
+Erie, the largest place in the vicinity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There he was taken for a runaway apprentice, and certainly his
+appearance justified suspicion.  Tall and gawky as he was in person,
+with tow-coloured hair, and a scanty suit of shabbiest homespun, his
+appearance excited astonishment or ridicule wherever he went.  He had
+never worn a good suit of clothes in his life.  He had a singularly
+fair, white complexion, a piping, whining voice, and these
+peculiarities gave the effect of his being wanting in intellect.  It
+was not until people conversed with him that they discovered his worth
+and intelligence.  He had been an ardent reader from his childhood up,
+and had taken of late years the most intense interest in politics and
+held very positive opinions, which he defended in conversation with
+great earnestness and ability.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A second application at Erie procured him employment for a few months
+in the office of the Erie <I>Gazette</I>, and he won his way, not only to
+the respect, but to the affection of his companions and his employer.
+That employer was Judge J. M. Sterrett, and from him I heard many
+curious particulars of Horace Greeley's residence in Erie.  As he was
+only working in the office as a substitute, the return of the absentee
+deprived him of his place, and he was obliged to seek work elsewhere.
+His employer said to him one day:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, Horace, you have a good deal of money coming to you; don't go
+about the town any longer in that outlandish rig.  Let me give you an
+order on the store.  Dress up a little, Horace."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The young man looked down on his clothes as though he had never seen
+them before, and then said, by way of apology:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You see, Mr. Sterrett, my father is on a new place, and I want to help
+him all I can."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In fact, upon the settlement of his account at the end of his seven
+months' labour, he had drawn for his personal expenses six dollars
+only.  Of the rest of his wages he retained fifteen dollars for
+himself, and gave all the rest, amounting to about a hundred and twenty
+dollars, to his father, who, I am afraid, did not make the very best
+use of all of it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With the great sum of fifteen dollars in his pocket, Horace now
+resolved upon a bold movement.  After spending a few days at home, he
+tied up his spare clothes in a bundle, not very large, and took the
+shortest road through the woods that led to the Erie Canal.  He was
+going to New York, and he was going cheap!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A walk of sixty miles or so, much of it through the primeval forest,
+brought him to Buffalo, where he took passage on the Erie Canal, and
+after various detentions he reached Albany on a Thursday morning just
+in time to see the regular steamboat of the day move out into the
+stream.  At ten o'clock on the same morning he embarked on board of a
+towboat, which required nearly twenty-four hours to descend the river,
+and thus afforded him ample time to enjoy the beauty of its shores.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the 18th of August, 1831, about sunrise, he set foot in the city of
+New York, then containing about two hundred thousand inhabitants.&#8230;
+He had managed his affairs with such strict economy that his journey of
+six hundred miles had cost him little more than five dollars, and he
+had ten left with which to begin life in the metropolis.  This sum of
+money and the knowledge of the printer's trade made up his capital.
+There was not a person in all New York, as far as he knew, who had ever
+seen him before.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His appearance, too, was much against him, for although he had a really
+fine face, a noble forehead, and the most benign expression I ever saw
+upon a human countenance, yet his clothes and bearing quite spoiled
+him.  His round jacket made him look like a tall boy who had grown too
+fast for his strength; he stooped a little and walked in a
+loose-jointed manner.  He was very bashful, and totally destitute of
+the power of pushing his way, or arguing with a man who said, "No" to
+him.  He had brought no letters of recommendation, and had no kind of
+evidence to show that he had even learned his trade.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The first business was, of course, to find an extremely cheap
+boarding-house, as he had made up his mind only to try New York as an
+experiment, and, if he did not succeed in finding work, to start
+homeward while he still had a portion of his money.  After walking a
+while he went into what looked to him like a low-priced tavern, at the
+corner of Wall and Broad streets.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How much do you charge for board?" he asked the barkeeper, who was
+wiping his decanters, and putting his bar in trim for the business of
+the day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The barkeeper gave the stranger a look-over and said to him:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I guess we're too high for you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, how much do you charge?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Six dollars."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, that's more than I can afford."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He walked on until he descried on the North River, near Washington
+Market, a boarding-house so very mean and squalid that he was tempted
+to go in and inquire the price of board there.  The price was two
+dollars and a half a week.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah!" said Horace, "that sounds more like it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In ten minutes more he was taking his breakfast at the landlord's
+table.  Mr. Greeley gratefully remembered this landlord, who was a
+friendly Irishman by the name of McGorlick.  Breakfast done, the
+newcomer sallied forth in quest of work, and began by expending nearly
+half of his capital in improving his wardrobe.  It was a wise action.
+He that goes courting should dress in his best, particularly if he
+courts so capricious a jade as Fortune.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he began the weary round of the printing offices, seeking for work
+and finding none, all day long.  He would enter an office and ask in
+his whining note:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you want a hand?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," was the inevitable reply, upon receiving which he left without a
+word.  Mr. Greeley chuckled as he told the reception given him at the
+office of the <I>Journal of Commerce</I>, a newspaper he was destined to
+contend with for many a year in the columns of the <I>Tribune</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you want a hand?" he said to David Hale, one of the owners of the
+paper.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Hale looked at him from head to foot, and then said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My opinion is, young man, that you're a runaway apprentice, and you'd
+better go home to your master."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The applicant tried to explain, but the busy proprietor merely replied:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Be off about your business, and don't bother us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The young man laughed good-humouredly and resumed his walk.  He went to
+bed Saturday night thoroughly tired and a little discouraged.  On
+Sunday he walked three miles to attend a church, and remembered to the
+end of his days the delight he had, for the first time in his life, in
+hearing a sermon that he entirely agreed with.  In the meantime he had
+gained the good will of his landlord and the boarders, and to that
+circumstance he owed his first chance in the city.  His landlord
+mentioned his fruitless search for work to an acquaintance who happened
+to call that Sunday afternoon.  That acquaintance, who was a shoemaker,
+had accidently heard that printers were wanted at No. 85 Chatham Street.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At half-past five on Monday morning Horace Greeley stood before the
+designated house, and discovered the sign, "West's Printing Office,"
+over the second story, the ground floor being occupied as a bookstore.
+Not a soul was stirring up stairs or down.  The doors were locked, and
+Horace sat down on the steps to wait.  Thousands of workmen passed by;
+but it was nearly seven before the first of Mr. West's printers
+arrived, and he, too, finding the door locked, sat down by the side of
+the stranger, and entered into conversation with him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I saw," said the printer to me many years after, "that he was an
+honest, good young man, and being a Vermonter myself, I determined to
+help him if I could."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus, a second time in New York already, <I>the native quality of the
+man</I> gained him, at the critical moment, the advantage that decided his
+destiny.  His new friend did help him, and it was very much through his
+urgent recommendation that the foreman of the printing office gave him
+a chance.  The foreman did not in the least believe that the
+green-looking young fellow before him could set in type one page of the
+polyglot Testament for which help was needed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fix up a case for him," said he, "and we'll see if he <I>can</I> do
+anything."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace worked all day with silent intensity, and when he showed to the
+foreman at night a printer's proof of his day's work, it was found to
+be the best day's work that had yet been done on that most difficult
+job.  It was greater in quantity and much more correct.  The battle was
+won.  He worked on the Testament for several months, making long hours
+and earning only moderate wages, saving all his surplus money, and
+sending the greater part of it to his father, who was still in debt for
+his farm and not sure of being able to keep it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Ten years passed.  Horace Greeley from journeyman printer made his way
+slowly to partnership in a small printing office.  He founded the <I>New
+Yorker</I>, a weekly paper, the best periodical of its class in the United
+States.  It brought him great credit and no profit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In 1840, when General Harrison was nominated for the Presidency against
+Martin Van Buren, his feelings as a politician were deeply stirred, and
+he started a little campaign paper called <I>The Log-Cabin</I>, which was
+incomparably the most spirited thing of the kind ever published in the
+United States.  It had a circulation of unprecedented extent, beginning
+with forty-eight thousand, and rising week after week until it reached
+ninety thousand.  The price, however, was so low that its great sale
+proved rather an embarrassment than a benefit to the proprietors, and
+when the campaign ended the firm of Horace Greeley &amp; Co. was rather
+more in debt than it was when the first number of <I>The Log-Cabin</I> was
+published.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The little paper had given the editor two things which go far toward
+making a success in business: great reputation and some confidence in
+himself.  The first penny paper had been started.  The New York
+<I>Herald</I> was making a great stir.  The <I>Sun</I> was already a profitable
+sheet.  And now the idea occurred to Horace Greeley to start a daily
+paper which should have the merits of cheapness and abundant news,
+without some of the qualities possessed by the others.  He wished to
+found a cheap daily paper that should be good and salutary as well as
+interesting.  The last number of <I>The Log-Cabin</I> announced the
+forthcoming <I>Tribune</I>, price one cent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The editor was probably not solvent when he conceived the scheme, and
+he borrowed a thousand dollars of his old friend, James Coggeshall,
+with which to buy the indispensable material.  He began with six
+hundred subscribers, printed five thousand of the first number, and
+found it difficult to give them all away.  The <I>Tribune</I> appeared on
+the day set apart in New York for the funeral procession in
+commemoration of President Harrison, who died a month after his
+inauguration.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a chilly, dismal day in April, and all the town was absorbed in
+the imposing pageant.  The receipts during the first week were
+ninety-two dollars; the expenses five hundred and twenty-five.  But the
+little paper soon caught public attention, and the circulation
+increased for three weeks at the rate of about three hundred a day.  It
+began its fourth week with six thousand; its seventh week with eleven
+thousand.  The first number contained four columns of advertisements;
+the twelfth, nine columns; the hundredth, thirteen columns.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a word, the success of the paper was immediate and very great.  It
+grew a little faster than the machinery for producing it could be
+provided.  Its success was due chiefly to the fact that the original
+idea of the editor was actually carried out.  He aimed to produce a
+paper which should morally benefit the public.  It was not always
+right, but it always meant to be.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap04"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHARLES DICKENS
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+(1812-1870)
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE FACTORY BOY
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+This factory boy felt in his heart that he was qualified for a better
+position in life, and great was his humiliation at the wretched
+meanness of his surroundings.  But his demeanor must have been
+admirable, for he succeeded not only in retaining the respect of his
+associates, but also in winning their regard.  In his case, as in that
+of so many others, it was darkest just before the dawn of a better day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They are his own words which follow:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An autobiographical fragment from Forster's "Life."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In an evil hour for me, as I often bitterly thought&nbsp;&#8230; James Lamert,
+who had lived with us in Bayham Street, seeing how I was employed from
+day to day, and knowing what our domestic circumstances then were,
+proposed that I should go into the blacking warehouse, to be as useful
+as I could, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week.  I am not
+clear whether it was six or seven.  I am inclined to believe, from my
+uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first, and seven
+afterward.  At any rate, the offer was accepted very willingly by my
+father and mother, and on a Monday morning I went down to the blacking
+warehouse to begin my business life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is wonderful to me how I could have been so easily cast away at such
+an age.  It is wonderful to me that, even after my descent into the
+poor little drudge I had been since we came to London, no one had
+compassion enough on me&mdash;a child of singular abilities, quick, eager,
+delicate, and soon hurt, bodily or mentally&mdash;to suggest that something
+might have been spared, as certainly it might have been, to place me at
+any common school.  Our friends, I take it, were tired out.  No one
+made any sign.  My father and mother were quite satisfied.  They could
+hardly have been more so if I had been twenty years of age,
+distinguished at a grammar school, and going to Cambridge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Our relative had kindly arranged to teach me something in the
+dinner-hour, from twelve to one, I think it was, every day.  But an
+arrangement so incompatible with counting-house business soon died
+away, from no fault of his or mine; and for the same reason, my small
+work-table, and my grosses of pots, my papers, string, scissors,
+paste-pot, and labels, by little and little, vanished out of the recess
+in the counting-house, and kept company with the other small
+work-tables, grosses of pots, papers, string, scissors, and paste-pots,
+downstairs.  It was not long before Bob Fagin and I, and another boy
+whose name was Paul Green, but who was currently believed to have been
+christened Poll (a belief which I transferred, long afterward again, to
+Mr. Sweedlepipe, in "Martin Chuzzlewit"), worked generally side by
+side.  Bob Fagin was an orphan, and lived with his brother-in-law, a
+waterman.  Poll Green's father had the additional distinction of being
+a fireman, and was employed at Drury Lane Theatre, where another
+relation of Poll's, I think his little sister, did imps in the
+pantomimes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this
+companionship; compared these every-day associates with those of my
+happier childhood; and felt my early hopes of growing up to be a
+learned and distinguished man crushed in my breast.  The deep
+remembrance of the sense I had of being utterly neglected and hopeless;
+of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young
+heart to believe that, day by day, what I had learned, and thought, and
+delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, was passing
+away from me, never to be brought back any more, cannot be written.  My
+whole nature was so penetrated with the grief and humiliation of such
+considerations that even now, famous and caressed and happy, I often
+forget in my dreams that I have a dear wife and children; even that I
+am a man; and wander desolately back to that time of my life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the
+scantiness of my resources and the difficulties of my life.  I know
+that if a shilling or so were given me by any one, I spent it in a
+dinner or a tea.  I know that I worked, from morning to night, with
+common men and boys, a shabby child.  I know that I tried, but
+ineffectually, not to anticipate my money, and to make it last the week
+through; by putting it away in a drawer I had in the counting-house,
+wrapped into six little parcels, each parcel containing the same
+amount, and labelled with a different day.  I know that I have lounged
+about the streets, insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed.  I know
+that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care
+that was taken of me, a little robber or a little vagabond.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+A LITTLE GENTLEMAN
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+But I held some station at the blacking warehouse, too.  Besides that
+my relative at the counting-house did what a man so occupied, and
+dealing with a thing so anomalous, could, to treat me as one upon a
+different footing from the rest, I never said, to man or boy, how it
+was that I came to be there, or gave the least indication of being
+sorry that I was there.  That I suffered in secret, and that I suffered
+exquisitely, no one ever knew but I.  How much I suffered, it is, as I
+have said already, utterly beyond my power to tell.  No man's
+imagination can overstep the reality.  But I kept my own counsel, and I
+did my work.  I knew from the first that if I could not do my work as
+well as any of the rest I could not hold myself above slight and
+contempt.  I soon became at least as expeditious and as skilful with my
+hands as either of the other boys.  Though perfectly familiar with
+them, my conduct and manners were different enough from theirs to place
+a space between us.  They and the men always spoke of me as "the young
+gentleman."  A certain man (a soldier once) named Thomas, who was the
+foreman, and another man Harry, who was the carman, and wore a red
+jacket, used to call me "Charles" sometimes in speaking to me; but I
+think it was mostly when we were very confidential, and when I had made
+some efforts to entertain them over our work with the results of some
+of the old readings, which were fast perishing out of my mind.  Poll
+Green uprose once, and rebelled against the "young gentleman" usage;
+but Bob Fagin settled him speedily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My rescue from this kind of existence I considered quite hopeless, and
+abandoned as such, altogether; though I am solemnly convinced that I
+never, for one hour, was reconciled to it, or was otherwise than
+miserably unhappy.  I felt keenly, however, the being so cut off from
+my parents, my brothers, and sisters; and, when my day's work was done,
+going home to such a miserable blank.  And <I>that</I>, I thought, might be
+corrected.  One Sunday night I remonstrated with my father on this head
+so pathetically and with so many tears that his kind nature gave way.
+He began to think that it was not quite right.  I do believe he had
+never thought so before, or thought about it.  It was the first
+remonstrance I had ever made about my lot, and perhaps it opened up a
+little more than I intended.  A back-attic was found for me at the
+house of an insolvent court agent, who lived in Lant Street in the
+Borough, where Bob Sawyer lodged many years afterward.  A bed and
+bedding were sent over for me, and made up on the floor.  The little
+window had a pleasant prospect of a timber-yard; and when I took
+possession of my new abode, I thought it was a paradise.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+A FRIEND IN NEED
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Bob Fagin was very good to me on the occasion of a bad attack of my old
+disorder, cramps.  I suffered such excruciating pain that time that
+they made a temporary bed of straw in my old recess in the
+counting-house, and I rolled about on the floor, and Bob filled empty
+blacking-bottles with hot water, and applied relays of them to my side,
+half the day.  I got better, and quite easy toward evening; but Bob
+(who was much bigger and older than I) did not like the idea of my
+going home alone, and took me under his protection.  I was too proud to
+let him know about the prison; and after making several efforts to get
+rid of him, to all of which Bob Fagin, in his goodness, was deaf, shook
+hands with him on the steps of a house near Southwark Bridge on the
+Surrey side, making believe that I lived there.  As a finishing piece
+of reality in case of his looking back, I knocked at the door, I
+recollect, and asked, when the woman opened it, if that was Mr. Robert
+Fagin's house.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My usual way home was over Blackfriars Bridge, and down that turning in
+the Blackfriars Road which has Rowland Hill's chapel on one side, and
+the likeness of a golden dog licking a golden pot over a shop door on
+the other.  There are a good many little low-browed old shops in that
+street, of a wretched kind; and some are unchanged now.  I looked into
+one a few weeks ago, where I used to buy bootlaces on Saturday nights,
+and saw the corner where I once sat down on a stool to have a pair of
+ready-made half-boots fitted on.  I have been seduced more than once,
+in that street on a Saturday night, by a show-van at a corner; and have
+gone in, with a very motley assemblage, to see the Fat Pig, the Wild
+Indian, and the Little Lady.  There were two or three hat manufactories
+there then (I think they are there still); and among the things which,
+encountered anywhere, or under any circumstances, will instantly recall
+that time, is the smell of hat-making.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I was such a little fellow, with my poor white hat, little jacket, and
+corduroy trousers, that frequently, when I went into the bar of a
+strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter to wash down the
+saveloy and the loaf I had eaten in the street, they didn't like to
+give it me.  I remember, one evening (I had been somewhere for my
+father, and was going back to the Borough over Westminster Bridge),
+that I went into a public-house in Parliament Street, which is still
+there, though altered, at the corner of the short street leading into
+Cannon Row, and said to the landlord behind the bar, "What is your very
+best&mdash;the VERY <I>best</I>&mdash;ale a glass?"  For the occasion was a festive
+one, for some reasons: I forget why.  It may have been my birthday, or
+somebody else's.  "Twopence," says he.  "Then," says I, "just draw me a
+glass of that, if you please, with a good head to it."  The landlord
+looked at me, in return, over the bar, from head to foot, with a
+strange smile on his face; and instead of drawing the beer, looked
+round the screen and said something to his wife, who came out from
+behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me.
+Here we stand, all three, before me now, in my study in Devonshire
+Terrace.  The landlord in his shirt-sleeves, leaning against the bar
+window-frame; his wife looking over the little half-door; and I, in
+some confusion, looking up at them from outside the partition.  They
+asked me a good many questions, as what my name was, how old I was,
+where I lived, how I was employed, etc., etc.  To all of which, that I
+might commit nobody, I invented appropriate answers.  They served me
+with the ale, though I suspect it was not the strongest on the
+premises; and the landlord's wife, opening the little half-door and
+bending down, gave me a kiss that was half-admiring and
+half-compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am sure.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+DELIVERANCE AT LAST
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+At last, one day, my father and the relative so often mentioned
+quarrelled; quarrelled by letter, for I took the letter from my father
+to him which caused the explosion, but quarrelled very fiercely.  It
+was about me.  It may have had some backward reference, in part, for
+anything I know, to my employment at the window.  All I am certain of
+is that, soon after I had given him the letter, my cousin (he was a
+sort of cousin by marriage) told me he was very much insulted about me;
+and that it was impossible to keep me after that.  I cried very much,
+partly because it was so sudden, and partly because in his anger he was
+violent about my father, though gentle to me.  Thomas, the old soldier,
+comforted me, and said he was sure it was for the best.  With a relief
+so strange that it was like oppression, I went home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My mother set herself to accommodate the quarrel, and did so next day.
+She brought home a request for me to return next morning, and a high
+character of me, which I am very sure I deserved.  My father said I
+should go back no more, and should go to school.  I do not write
+resentfully or angrily, for I know how all these things have worked
+together to make me what I am, but I never afterward forgot, I never
+shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being
+sent back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From that hour until this at which I write no word of that part of my
+childhood, which I have now gladly brought to a close, has passed my
+lips to any human being.  I have no idea how long it lasted; whether
+for a year, or much more, or less.  From that hour until this, my
+father and my mother have been stricken dumb upon it.  I have never
+heard the least allusion to it, however far off and remote, from either
+of them.  I have never, until I now impart it to this paper, in any
+burst of confidence with any one, my own wife not excepted, raised the
+curtain I then dropped, thank God.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Dickens sent the following sketch of his early career to Wilkie
+Collins.  It will be noted that he omits all reference to his
+experiences in the blacking factory.  The <I>naïve</I> touches of
+self-appreciation are delightful to the true lover of "The Inimitable."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+TAVISTOCK HOUSE, June 6, 1856.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I have never seen anything about myself in print which has much
+correctness in it&mdash;any biographical account of myself I mean.  I do not
+supply such particulars when I am asked for them by editors and
+compilers, simply because I am asked for them every day.  If you want
+to prime Forgues, you may tell him, without fear of anything wrong,
+that I was born at Portsmouth on the 7th of February, 1812; that my
+father was in the Navy Pay Office; that I was taken by him to Chatham
+when I was very young, and lived and was educated there till I was
+twelve or thirteen, I suppose; that I was then put to a school near
+London, where (as at other places) I distinguished myself like a brick;
+that I was put in the office of a solicitor, a friend of my father's,
+and didn't much like it; and after a couple of years (as well as I can
+remember) applied myself with a celestial or diabolical energy to the
+study of such things as would qualify me to be a first-rate
+parliamentary reporter&mdash;at that time a calling pursued by many clever
+men who were young at the Bar; that I made my debut in the gallery (at
+about eighteen, I suppose), engaged on a voluminous publication no
+longer in existence, called the <I>Mirror of Parliament</I>; that when the
+<I>Morning Chronicle</I> was purchased by Sir John Easthope and acquired a
+large circulation, I was engaged there, and that I remained there until
+I had begun to publish "Pickwick," when I found myself in a condition
+to relinquish that part of my labours; that I left the reputation
+behind me of being the best and most rapid reporter ever known, and
+that I could do anything in that way under any sort of circumstances,
+and often did.  (I daresay I am at this present writing the best
+shorthand writer in the world.)
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That I began, without any interest or introduction of any kind, to
+write fugitive pieces for the old <I>Monthly Magazine</I>, when I was in the
+gallery for the <I>Mirror of Parliament</I>; that my faculty for descriptive
+writing was seized upon the moment I joined the <I>Morning Chronicle</I>,
+and that I was liberally paid there and handsomely acknowledged, and
+wrote the greater part of the short descriptive "Sketches by Boz" in
+that paper; that I had been a writer when I was a mere baby, and always
+an actor from the same age; that I married the daughter of a writer to
+the signet in Edinburgh, who was the great friend and assistant of
+Scott, and who first made Lockhart known to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And that here I am.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Finally, if you want any dates of publication of books, tell Wills and
+he'll get them for you.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This is the first time I ever set down even these particulars, and,
+glancing them over, I feel like a wild beast in a caravan describing
+himself in the keeper's absence.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+Ever faithfully.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The following letter, criticising the work of an inexperienced author,
+is valuable in itself, and reveals clearly the essential kindliness of
+the man.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+OFFICE OF HOUSEHOLD WORDS,
+Monday, June 1, 1857.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+MY DEAR STONE:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I know that what I am going to say will not be agreeable; but I rely on
+the authoress's good sense; and say it knowing it to be the truth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+These "Notes" are destroyed by too much smartness.  It gives the
+appearance of perpetual effort, stabs to the heart the nature that is
+in them, and wearies by the manner and not by the matter.  It is the
+commonest fault in the world (as I have constant occasion to observe
+here) but it is a very great one.  Just as you couldn't bear to have an
+épergne or a candlestick on your table, supported by a light figure
+always on tip-toe and evidently in an impossible attitude for the
+sustainment of its weight, so all readers would be more or less
+oppressed and worried by this presentation of everything in one smart
+point of view, when they know it must have other, and weightier, and
+more solid properties.  Airiness and good spirits are always
+delightful, and are inseparable from notes of a cheerful trip; but they
+should sympathize with many things as well as see them in a lively way.
+It is but a word or a touch that expresses this humanity, but without
+that little embellishment of good nature there is no such thing as
+humour.  In this little MS. everything is too much patronized and
+condescended to, whereas the slightest touch of feeling for the rustic
+who is of the earth earthy, or of sisterhood with the homely servant
+who has made her face shine in her desire to please, would make a
+difference that the writer can scarcely imagine without trying it.  The
+only relief in the twenty-one slips is the little bit about the chimes.
+It is a relief, simply because it is an indication of some kind of
+sentiment.  You don't want any sentiment laboriously made out in such a
+thing.  You don't want any maudlin show of it.  But you do want a
+pervading suggestion that it is there.  It makes all the difference
+between being playful and being cruel.  Again I must say, above all
+things&mdash;especially to young people writing: For the love of God don't
+condescend!  Don't assume the attitude of saying, "See how clever I am,
+and what fun everybody else is!"  Take any shape but that.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I observe an excellent quality of observation throughout, and think the
+boy at the shop, and all about him, particularly good.  I have no doubt
+whatever that the rest of the journal will be much better if the writer
+chooses to make it so.  If she considers for a moment within herself,
+she will know that she derived pleasure from everything she saw,
+because she saw it with innumerable lights and shades upon it, and
+bound to humanity by innumerable fine links; she cannot possibly
+communicate anything of that pleasure to another by showing it from one
+little limited point only, and that point, observe, the one from which
+it is impossible to detach the exponent as the patroness of a whole
+universe of inferior souls.  This is what everybody would mean in
+objecting to these notes (supposing them to be published), that they
+are too smart and too flippant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As I understand this matter to be altogether between us three, and as I
+think your confidence and hers imposes a duty of friendship on me, I
+discharge it to the best of my ability.  Perhaps I make more of it than
+you may have meant or expected; if so, it is because I am interested
+and wish to express it.  If there had been anything in my objection not
+perfectly easy of removal, I might, after all, have hesitated to state
+it; but that is not the case.  A very little indeed would make all this
+gayety as sound and wholesome and good-natured in the reader's mind as
+it is in the writer's.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+Affectionately always.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+"THE INFINITE CAPACITY FOR TAKING PAINS"
+</H3>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+[<I>To his sixth son, Henry Fielding Dickens, born in 1849</I>]
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+BALTIMORE, U. S.,<BR>
+TUESDAY, February 11, 1868.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+MY DEAR HARRY:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I should have written to you before now but for constant and arduous
+occupation.&#8230;  I am very glad to hear of the success of your
+reading, and still more glad that you went at it in downright earnest.
+I should never have made my success in life if I had been shy of taking
+pains, or if I had not bestowed upon the least thing I have ever
+undertaken exactly the same attention and care that I have bestowed
+upon the greatest.  Do everything at your best.  It was but this last
+year that I set to and learned every word of my readings; and from ten
+years ago to last night, I have never read to an audience but I have
+watched for an opportunity of striking out something better somewhere.
+Look at such of my manuscripts as are in the library at Gad's, and
+think of the patient hours devoted year after year to single
+lines.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Ever, my dear Harry,
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+Your affectionate Father.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+"FAREWELL?  MY BLESSING SEASON THIS IN THEE"
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+[Dickens's last child, Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, was born in 1852.
+At sixteen he went to Australia, with this parting word from his
+father:]
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+MY DEAREST PLORN:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I write this note to-day because your going away is much upon my mind,
+and because I want you to have a few parting words from me to think of
+now and then at quiet times.  I need not tell you that I love you
+dearly, and am very, very sorry in my heart to part with you.  But this
+life is half made up of partings, and these pains must be borne.  It is
+my comfort and my sincere conviction that you are going to try the life
+for which you are best fitted.  I think its freedom and wildness more
+suited to you than any experiment in a study or office would ever have
+been; and without that training, you could have followed no other
+suitable occupation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What you have already wanted until now has been a set, steady, constant
+purpose.  I therefore exhort you to persevere in a thorough
+determination to do whatever you have to do as well as you can do it.
+I was not so old as you are now when I first had to win my food, and do
+this out of this determination, and I have never slackened in it since.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Never take a mean advantage of any one in any transaction, and never be
+hard upon people who are in your power.  Try to do to others as you
+would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail
+sometimes.  It is much better for you that they should fail in obeying
+the greatest rule laid down by our Saviour than that you should.  I put
+a New Testament among your books for the very same reasons, and with
+the very same hopes that made me write an easy account of it for you,
+when you were a little child.  Because it is the best book that ever
+was, or will be, known in the world; and because it teaches you the
+best lessons by which any human creature, who tries to be truthful and
+faithful to duty, can possibly be guided.  As your brothers have gone
+away, one by one, I have written to each such words as I am now writing
+to you, and have entreated them all to guide themselves by this Book,
+putting aside the interpretations and inventions of man.  You will
+remember that you have never at home been harassed about religious
+observances or mere formalities.  I have always been anxious not to
+weary my children with such things before they are old enough to form
+opinions respecting them.  You will therefore understand the better
+that I now most solemnly impress upon you the truth and beauty of the
+Christian Religion, as it came from Christ Himself, and the
+impossibility of your going far wrong if you humbly but heartily
+respect it.  Only one thing more on this head.  The more we are in
+earnest as to feeling it, the less we are disposed to hold forth about
+it.  Never abandon the wholesome practice of saying your own private
+prayers, night and morning.  I have never abandoned it myself, and I
+know the comfort of it.  I hope you will always be able to say in after
+life that you had a kind father.  You cannot show your affection for
+him so well, or make him so happy, as by doing your duty.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap05"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHARLOTTE BRONTË
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+(1816-1855)
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE COUNTRY PARSON'S DAUGHTER
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Gaskell's "Life of Charlotte Brontë" is one of the great
+biographies of literature, but like other works on the same theme, it
+is really a history of the Brontë family during the period of
+Charlotte's life.  The individuals of this family were for many years
+as closely associated with one another as they were closely hidden from
+the outside world.  The personality of each was influenced by its
+house-mates to an unusual degree.  They studied each other and they
+studied every book that came within reach.  Themselves they knew well:
+the world, through books only.  This probably accounts for the weird
+and even morbid character of much of their work.  Their vivid
+imaginations, unchecked by experience, in a commonplace world were
+allowed free play, and as a result we find some of the most original
+creations in the whole realm of literature.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The life of the Brontë sisterhood should convince the literary aspirant
+that the creative imagination is sufficient unto itself and independent
+of the stimulus of contact with the busy hum of men.  If it be
+necessary, the literary genius by divination can portray life without
+seeing it.  Bricks are produced without straw.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+From "Life of Charlotte Brontë," by Mrs. E. C. Gaskell.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the children did not want society.  To small infantine gayeties
+they were unaccustomed.  They were all in all to each other.  I do not
+suppose that there ever was a family more tenderly bound to each other.
+Maria read the newspapers, and reported intelligence to her younger
+sisters which it is wonderful they could take an interest in.  But I
+suspect that they had no "children's books," and their eager minds
+"browzed undisturbed among the wholesome pasturage of English
+literature," as Charles Lamb expresses it.  The servants of the
+household appear to have been much impressed with the little Brontës'
+extraordinary cleverness.  In a letter which I had from him on this
+subject, their father writes: "The servants often said they had never
+seen such a clever little child" (as Charlotte), "and that they were
+obliged to be on their guard as to what they said and did before her.
+Yet she and the servants always lived on good terms with each
+other.&#8230;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I return to the father's letter.  He says:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When mere children, as soon as they could read and write, Charlotte
+and her brothers and sisters used to invent and act little plays of
+their own in which the Duke of Wellington, my daughter Charlotte's
+hero, was sure to come off conqueror; when a dispute would not
+unfrequently arise amongst them regarding the comparative merits of
+him, Bonaparte, Hannibal, and Caesar.  When the argument got warm, and
+rose to its height, as their mother was then dead, I had sometimes to
+come in as arbitrator, and settle the dispute according to the best of
+my judgment.  Generally, in the management of these concerns, I
+frequently thought that I discovered signs of rising talent, which I
+had seldom or never before seen in any of their age.&#8230;  A
+circumstance now occurs to my mind which I may as well mention.  When
+my children were very young, when, as far as I can remember, the oldest
+was about ten years of age, and the youngest about four, thinking they
+knew more than I had yet discovered, in order to make them speak with
+less timidity, I deemed that if they were put under a sort of cover I
+might gain my end; and happening to have a mask in the house, I told
+them all to stand and speak boldly from under cover of the mask.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I began with the youngest (Anne, afterward Acton Bell), and asked what
+a child like her most wanted; she answered, 'Age and experience.'  I
+asked the next (Emily, afterward Ellis Bell) what I had best do with
+her brother Branwell, who was sometimes a naughty boy; she answered,
+'Reason with him, and when he won't listen to reason, whip him.'  I
+asked Branwell what was the best way of knowing the difference between
+the intellects of men and women; he answered, 'By considering the
+difference between them as to their bodies.'  I then asked Charlotte
+what was the best book in the world; she answered, 'The Bible.'  And
+what was the next best; she answered, 'The Book of Nature.'  I then
+asked the next what was the best mode of education for a woman; she
+answered, 'That which would make her rule her house well.'  Lastly I
+asked the oldest what was the best mode of spending time; she answered,
+'By laying it out in preparation for a happy eternity.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I may not have given precisely their words, but I have nearly done so,
+as they made a deep and lasting impression on my memory.  The
+substance, however, was exactly what I have stated."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The strange and quaint simplicity of the mode taken by the father to
+ascertain the hidden characters of his children, and the tone and
+character of these questions and answers, show the curious education
+which was made by the circumstances surrounding the Brontës.  They knew
+no other children.  They knew no other modes of thought than what were
+suggested to them by the fragments of clerical conversation which they
+overheard in the parlour, or the subjects of village and local interest
+which they heard discussed in the kitchen.  Each had their own strong
+characteristic flavour.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They took a vivid interest in the public characters, and the local and
+foreign politics discussed in the newspapers.  Long before Maria Brontë
+died, at the age of eleven, her father used to say he would converse
+with her on any of the leading topics of the day with as much freedom
+and pleasure as with any grown-up person.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Branwell instructed the children at regular hours in all she could
+teach, making her bed-chamber into their schoolroom.  Their father was
+in the habit of relating to them any public news in which he felt an
+interest; and from the opinions of his strong and independent mind they
+would gather much food for thought; but I do not know whether he gave
+them any direct instruction.  Charlotte's deep, thoughtful spirit
+appears to have felt almost painfully the tender responsibility which
+rested upon her with reference to her remaining sisters.  She was only
+eighteen months older than Emily; but Emily and Anne were simply
+companions and playmates, while Charlotte was motherly friend and
+guardian to both; and this loving assumption of duties beyond her years
+made her feel considerably older than she really was.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I have had a curious packet confided to me, containing an immense
+amount of manuscript, in an inconceivably small space; tales, dramas,
+poems, romances, written principally by Charlotte, in a hand which is
+almost impossible to decipher without the aid of a magnifying
+glass.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As each volume contains from sixty to a hundred pages&nbsp;&#8230; the amount
+of the whole seems very great, if we remember that it was all written
+in about fifteen months.  So much for the quantity; the quality strikes
+me as of singular merit for a girl of thirteen or fourteen.  Both as a
+specimen of her prose style at this time, and also as revealing
+something of the quiet domestic life led by these children, I take an
+extract from the introduction to "Tales of the Islanders," the title of
+one of their "Little Magazines":
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+"JUNE the 31st, 1829.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The play of the 'Islanders' was formed in December, 1827, in the
+following manner: One night, about the time when cold sleet and stormy
+fogs of November are succeeded by the snowstorms and high, piercing
+night-winds of confirmed winter, we were all sitting round the warm
+blazing kitchen fire, having just concluded a quarrel with Tabby
+concerning the propriety of lighting a candle, from which she came off
+victorious, no candle having been produced.  A long pause succeeded,
+which was at last broken by Branwell saying in a lazy manner, 'I don't
+know what to do.'  This was echoed by Emily and Anne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tabby.  'Wha ya may go t'bed.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Branwell.  'I'd rather do anything than that.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Charlotte.  'Why are you so glum to-night, Tabby?  Oh! suppose we had
+each an island of our own.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Branwell.  'If we had I would choose the Island of Man.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Charlotte.  'And I would choose the Isle of Wight.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Emily.  'The Isle of Arran for me.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Anne.  'And mine should be Guernsey.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We then chose who would be chief men in our Islands.  Branwell chose
+John Bull, Astley Cooper, and Leigh Hunt; Emily, Walter Scott, Mr.
+Lockhart, Johnny Lockhart; Anne, Michael Sadler, Lord Bentinck, Sir
+Henry Halford.  I chose the Duke of Wellington and two sons,
+Christopher North and Co., and Mr. Abernethy.  Here our conversation
+was interrupted by the, to us, dismal sound of the clock striking
+seven, and we were summoned off to bed.  The next day we added many
+others to our list of men, till we got almost all the chief men of the
+kingdom.  After this, for a long time, nothing worth noticing occurred.
+In June, 1828, we erected a school on a fictitious island, which was to
+contain 1,000 children.  The manner of the building was as follows: The
+island was fifty miles in circumference, and certainly appeared more
+like the work of enchantment than anything real," etc.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+There is another scrap of paper in this all but illegible handwriting,
+written about this time, and which gives some idea of the sources of
+their opinions.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"Papa and Branwell are gone for the newspaper, the Leeds
+<I>Intelligencer</I>, a most excellent Tory newspaper, edited by Mr. Wood,
+and the proprietor, Mr. Henneman.  We take two, and see three,
+newspapers a week.  We take the Leeds <I>Intelligencer</I>, Tory, and the
+Leeds <I>Mercury</I>, Whig, edited by Mr. Baines, and his brother,
+son-in-law, and his two sons, Edward and Talbot.  We see the <I>John
+Bull</I>; it is a high Tory, very violent.  Mr. Driver lends us it, as
+likewise <I>Blackwood's Magazine</I>, the most able periodical there is.
+The editor is Mr. Christopher North, an old man seventy-four years of
+age; the 1st of April is his birthday; his company are Timothy Tickler,
+Morgan O'Doherty, Macrabin Mordecai, Mullion, Warnell, and James Hogg,
+a man of most extraordinary genius, a Scottish shepherd.  Our plays
+were established, 'Young Men,' June, 1826; 'Our Fellows,' July, 1827;
+'Islanders,' December, 1827.  These are our three great plays that are
+not kept secret.  Emily's and my best plays were established the 1st of
+December, 1827; the others March, 1828.  Best plays mean secret plays,
+they are very nice ones.  All our plays are very strange ones.  Their
+nature I need not write on paper, for I think I shall always remember
+them.  The 'Young Men's' play took its rise from some wooden soldiers
+Branwell had; 'Our Fellows' from 'Aesop's Fables'; and the 'Islanders'
+from several events which happened.  I will sketch out the origin of
+our plays more explicitly if I can.  First, 'Young Men.'  Papa brought
+Branwell some wooden soldiers at Leeds; when papa came home it was
+night, and we were in bed, so next morning Branwell came to our door
+with a box of soldiers.  Emily and I jumped out of bed, and I snatched
+up one and exclaimed, 'This is the Duke of Wellington!  This shall be
+the Duke!'  When I had said this Emily likewise took one up and said it
+should be hers; when Anne came down, she said one should be hers.  Mine
+was the prettiest of the whole, and the tallest, and the most perfect
+in every part.  Emily's was a grave-looking fellow, and we called him
+'Gravey.'  Anne's was a queer little thing, much like herself, and we
+called him 'Waiting-boy.'  Branwell chose his, and called him
+'Buonaparte.'"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The foregoing extract shows something of the kind of reading in which
+the little Brontës were interested; but their desire for knowledge must
+have been excited in many directions, for I find a "list of painters
+whose works I wish to see," drawn up by Charlotte Brontë when she was
+scarcely thirteen: "Guido Reni, Julio Romano Titian, Raphael, Michael
+Angelo, Coreggio, Annibal Carracci, Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Bartolomeo,
+Carlo Cignani, Vandyke, Rubens, Bartolomeo Ramerghi."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Here is this little girl, in a remote Yorkshire parsonage, who has
+probably never seen anything worthy the name of a painting in her life
+studying the names and characteristics of the great old Italian and
+Flemish masters, whose works she longs to see some time, in the dim
+future that lies before her!  There is a paper remaining which contains
+minute studies of, and criticisms upon, the engravings in "Friendship's
+Offering for 1829," showing how she had early formed those habits of
+close observation and patient analysis of cause and effect, which
+served so well in after-life as handmaids to her genius.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The way in which Mr. Brontë made his children sympathize with him in
+his great interest in politics must have done much to lift them above
+the chances of their minds being limited or tainted by petty local
+gossip.  I take the only other remaining personal fragment out of
+"Tales of the Islanders"; it is a sort of apology, contained in the
+introduction to the second volume, for their not having been continued
+before; the writers have been for a long time too busy and lately too
+much absorbed in politics:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"Parliament was opened, and the great Catholic question was brought
+forward, and the Duke's measures were disclosed, and all was slander,
+violence, party spirit, and confusion.  Oh, those six months, from the
+time of the King's speech to the end!  Nobody could write, think, or
+speak on any subject but the Catholic question, and the Duke of
+Wellington, and Mr. Peel.  I remember the day when the <I>Intelligence
+Extraordinary</I> came with Mr. Peel's speech in it, containing the terms
+on which the Catholics were to be let in!  With what eagerness papa
+tore off the cover, and how we all gathered round him, and with what
+breathless anxiety we listened, as one by one they were disclosed, and
+explained, and argued upon so ably and so well; and then when it was
+all out, how aunt said that she thought it was excellent, and that the
+Catholics could do no harm with such good security.  I remember also
+the doubts as to whether it would pass the House of Lords, and the
+prophecies that it would not; and when the paper came which was to
+decide the question, the anxiety was almost dreadful with which we
+listened to the whole affair; the opening of the doors, the hush; the
+royal dukes in their robes, and the great duke in green sash and
+waistcoat; the rising of all the peeresses when he rose; the reading of
+his speech&mdash;papa saying that his words were like precious gold; and
+lastly, the majority of one to four (sic) in favour of the Bill.  But
+this is a digression."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+This must have been written when she was between thirteen and fourteen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was an indefatigable student; constantly reading and learning; with
+a strong conviction of the necessity and value of education very
+unusual in a girl of fifteen.  She never lost a moment of time, and
+seemed almost to grudge the necessary leisure for relaxation and
+play-hours, which might be partly accounted for by the awkwardness in
+all games occasioned by her shortness of sight.  Yet, in spite of these
+unsociable habits, she was a great favourite with her school-fellows.
+She was always ready to try and do what they wished, though not sorry
+when they called her awkward, and left her out of their sports.  Then,
+at night, she was an invaluable story-teller, frightening them almost
+out of their wits as they lay in bed.  On one occasion the effect was
+such that she was led to scream out loud, and Miss Wooler, coming
+upstairs, found that one of the listeners had been seized with violent
+palpitations, in consequence of the excitement produced by Charlotte's
+story.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her indefatigable craving for knowledge tempted Miss Wooler on into
+setting her longer and longer tasks of reading for examination; and
+toward the end of the two years that she remained as a pupil at Roe
+Head, she received her first bad mark for an imperfect lesson.  She had
+had a great quantity of Blair's "Lectures on Belles-Lettres" to read;
+and she could not answer some of the questions upon it; Charlotte
+Brontë had a bad mark.  Miss Wooler was sorry, and regretted that she
+had over-tasked so willing a pupil.  Charlotte cried bitterly.  But her
+school-fellows were more than sorry&mdash;they were indignant.  They
+declared that the infliction of ever so slight a punishment on
+Charlotte Brontë was unjust&mdash;for who had tried to do her duty like
+her?&mdash;and testified their feeling in a variety of ways, until Miss
+Wooler, who was in reality only too willing to pass over her good
+pupil's first fault, withdrew the bad mark.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After her return home she employed herself in teaching her sisters over
+whom she had had superior advantages.  She writes thus, July 21, 1832,
+of her course of life at the parsonage:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"An account of one day is an account of all.  In the morning, from nine
+o'clock till half-past twelve, I instruct my sisters, and draw; then we
+walk till dinner-time.  After dinner I sew till tea-time, and after tea
+I either write, read, or do a little fancywork, or draw, as I please.
+Thus, in one delightful though somewhat monotonous course, my life is
+passed.  I have been out only twice to tea since I came home.  We are
+expecting company this afternoon, and on Tuesday next we shall have all
+the female teachers of the Sunday-school to tea."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+It was about this time that Mr. Brontë provided his children with a
+teacher in drawing, who turned out to be a man of considerable talent
+but very little principle.  Although they never attained to anything
+like proficiency, they took great interest in acquiring this art;
+evidently from an instinctive desire to express their powerful
+imaginations in visible forms.  Charlotte told me that at this period
+of her life drawing and walking out with her sisters formed the two
+great pleasures and relaxations of her day.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Quiet days, occupied in teaching and feminine occupations in the house,
+did not present much to write about; and Charlotte was naturally driven
+to criticise books.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of these there were many in different plights, and according to their
+plight, kept in different places.  The well bound were ranged in the
+sanctuary of Mr. Brontë's study; but the purchase of books was a
+necessary luxury to him, and as it was often a choice between binding
+an old one, or buying a new one, the familiar volume, which had been
+hungrily read by all the members of the family, was sometimes in such a
+condition that the bedroom shelf was considered its fitting place.  Up
+and down the house were to be found many standard works of a solid
+kind.  Sir Walter Scott's writings, Wadsworth's and Southey's poems
+were among the lighter literature; while, as having a character of
+their own&mdash;earnest, wild, and occasionally fanatical, may be named some
+of the books which came from the Branwell side of the family&mdash;from the
+Cornish followers of the saintly John Wesley&mdash;and which are touched on
+in the account of the works to which Caroline Helstone had access in
+"Shirley":  "Some venerable Lady's Magazines, that had once performed a
+voyage with their owner, and undergone a storm"&mdash;(possibly part of the
+relics of Mrs. Brontë's possessions, contained in the ship wrecked on
+the coast of Cornwall)&mdash;"and whose pages were stained with salt water;
+some mad Methodist Magazines full of miracles and apparitions, and
+preternatural warnings, ominous dreams, and frenzied fanaticism; and
+the equally mad Letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe from the Dead to the
+Living."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Brontë encouraged a taste for reading in his girls; and though Miss
+Branwell kept it in due bounds by the variety of household occupations,
+in which she expected them not merely to take a part, but to become
+proficients, thereby occupying regularly a good portion of every day,
+they were allowed to get books from the circulating library at
+Keighley; and many a happy walk up those long four miles must they have
+had burdened with some new book into which they peeped as they hurried
+home.  Not that the books were what would generally be called new; in
+the beginning of 1833 the two friends [Charlotte and "E.," a school
+friend] seem almost simultaneously to have fallen upon "Kenilworth,"
+and Charlotte writes as follows about it:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"I am glad you like 'Kenilworth'; it is certainly more resembling a
+romance than a novel; in my opinion, one of the most interesting works
+that ever emanated from the great Sir Walter's pen.  Varney is
+certainly the personification of consummate villainy; and in the
+delineation of his dark and profoundly and artful mind, Scott exhibits
+a wonderful knowledge of human nature, as well as surprising skill in
+embodying his perceptions, so as to enable others to become
+participators in that knowledge.&#8230;"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile, "The Professor" had met with many refusals from different
+publishers; some, I have reason to believe, not over-courteously worded
+in writing to an unknown author, and none alleging any distinct reasons
+for its rejection.  Courtesy is always due; but it is, perhaps, hardly
+to be expected that, in the press of business in a great publishing
+house, they should find time to explain why they decline particular
+works.  Yet, though one course of action is not to be wondered at, the
+opposite may fall upon a grieved and disappointed mind with all the
+graciousness of dew; and I can well sympathize with the published
+account which "Currer Bell" gives, of the feelings experienced on
+reading Messrs. Smith and Elder's letter containing the rejection of
+"The Professor."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"As a forlorn hope, we tried one publishing house more.  Ere long, in a
+much shorter space than that on which experience had taught him to
+calculate, there came a letter, which he opened in the dreary
+anticipation of finding two hard, hopeless lines, intimating that
+'Messrs. Smith and Elder were not disposed to publish the MS.,' and,
+instead, he took out the envelope a letter of two pages.  He read it,
+trembling.  It declined, indeed, to publish that tale, for business
+reasons, but it discussed its merits and demerits so courteously, so
+considerately, in a spirit so rational, with a discrimination so
+enlightened, that this very refusal cheered the author better than a
+vulgarly expressed acceptance would have done.  It was added, that a
+work in three volumes would meet with careful attention."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Smith has told me a little circumstance connected with the
+reception of this manuscript which seems to me indicative of no
+ordinary character.  It came (accompanied by the note given below) in a
+brown paper parcel, to 65 Cornhill.  Besides the address to Messrs.
+Smith &amp; Co., there were on it those of other publishers to whom the
+tale had been sent, not obliterated, but simply scored through, so that
+Messrs.  Smith at once perceived the names of some of the houses in the
+trade to which the unlucky parcel had gone, without success.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+[<I>To Messrs. Smith and Elder</I>]
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+"JULY 15th, 1847.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Gentlemen&mdash;I beg to submit to your consideration the accompanying
+manuscript.  I should be glad to learn whether it be such as you
+approve, and would undertake to publish at as early a period as
+possible.  Address, Mr. Currer Bell, under cover to Miss Brontë,
+Haworth, Bradford, Yorkshire."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Some time elapsed before an answer was returned.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+[<I>To Messrs. Smith and Elder</I>]
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+"AUGUST 2nd, 1847.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Gentlemen&mdash;About three weeks since I sent for your consideration a MS.
+entitled 'The Professor, a Tale by Currer Bell.'  I should be glad to
+know whether it reached your hands safely, and likewise to learn, at
+your earliest convenience, whether it be such as you can undertake to
+publish.  I am, gentlemen, yours respectfully,
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+"CURRER BELL.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+"I enclose a directed cover for your reply."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+This time her note met with a prompt answer; for, four days later, she
+writes (in reply to the letter she afterward characterized in the
+Preface to the second edition of "Wuthering Heights," as containing a
+refusal so delicate, reasonable, and courteous as to be more cheering
+than some acceptances):
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"Your objection to the want of varied interest in the tale is, I am
+aware, not without grounds; yet it appears to me that it might be
+published without serious risk, if its appearance were speedily
+followed up by another work from the same pen, of a more striking and
+exciting character.  The first work might serve as an introduction, and
+accustom the public to the author's name: the success of the second
+might thereby be rendered more probable.  I have a second narrative in
+three volumes, now in progress, and nearly completed, to which I have
+endeavoured to impart a more vivid interest than belongs to 'The
+Professor.'  In about a month I hope to finish it, so that if a
+publisher were found for 'The Professor' the second narrative might
+follow as soon as was deemed advisable; and thus the interest of the
+public (if any interest was aroused) might not be suffered to cool.
+Will you be kind enough to favour me with your judgment on this
+plan?"&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Brontë, too, had his suspicions of something going on; but, never
+being spoken to, he did not speak on the subject, and consequently his
+ideas were vague and uncertain, only just prophetic enough to keep him
+from being actually stunned when, later on, he heard of the success of
+"Jane Eyre"; to the progress of which we must now return.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+[<I>To Messrs. Smith and Elder</I>]
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+"AUGUST 24th.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I now send you per rail a MS. entitled 'Jane Eyre,' a novel in three
+volumes, by Currer Bell.  I find I cannot prepay the carriage of the
+parcel, as money for that purpose is not received at the small
+station-house where it is left.  If, when you acknowledge the receipt
+of the MS., you would have the goodness to mention the amount charged
+on delivery, I will immediately transmit it in postage stamps.  It is
+better in future to address Mr. Currer Bell, under cover to Miss
+Brontë, Haworth, Bradford, Yorkshire, as there is a risk of letters
+otherwise directed not reaching me at present.  To save trouble, I
+enclose an envelope."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"Jane Eyre" was accepted, and printed and published by October
+16th.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the manuscript of "Jane Eyre" had been received by the future
+publishers of that remarkable novel, it fell to the share of a
+gentleman connected with the firm to read it first.  He was so
+powerfully struck by the character of the tale that he reported his
+impression in very strong terms to Mr. Smith, who appears to have been
+much amused by the admiration excited.  "You seem to have been so
+enchanted that I do not know how to believe you," he laughingly said.
+But when a second reader, in the person of a clear-headed Scotchman,
+not given to enthusiasm, had taken the MS. home in the evening, and
+became so deeply interested in it as to sit up half the night to finish
+it, Mr. Smith's curiosity was sufficiently excited to prompt him to
+read it for himself; and great as were the praises which had been
+bestowed upon it, he found that they had not exceeded the truth.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap06"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+(1832-1888)
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+He is a hard-hearted churl who can read with unmoistened eyes this
+journal of a brave and talented girl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With what genuine, <I>personal</I> pleasure one remembers that a full
+measure of success and recognition was finally won by her efforts.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+From "Louisa Mary Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals."  Little,
+Brown &amp; Co., 1889.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+1852.&mdash;<I>High Street, Boston</I>.&mdash;After the smallpox summer, we went to a
+house in High Street.  Mother opened an intelligence office, which grew
+out of her city missionary work and a desire to find places for good
+girls.  It was not fit work for her, but it paid; and she always did
+what came to her in the work of duty or charity, and let pride, taste,
+and comfort suffer for love's sake.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anna and I taught; Lizzie was our little housekeeper&mdash;our angel in a
+cellar kitchen; May went to school; father wrote and talked when he
+could get classes or conversations.  Our poor little home had much love
+and happiness in it, and it was a shelter for lost girls, abused wives,
+friendless children, and weak or wicked men.  Father and mother had no
+money to give, but gave them time, sympathy, help; and if blessings
+would make them rich, they would be millionaires.  This is practical
+Christianity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My first story was printed, and $5 paid for it.  It was written in
+Concord when I was sixteen.  Great rubbish!  Read it aloud to sisters,
+and when they praised it, not knowing the author, I proudly announced
+her name.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Made a resolution to read fewer novels, and those only of the best.
+List of books I like:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+Carlyle's French Revolution and Miscellanies.<BR>
+Hero and Hero-Worship.<BR>
+Goethe's poems, plays, and novels.<BR>
+Plutarch's Lives.<BR>
+Madame Guion.<BR>
+Paradise Lost and Comus.<BR>
+Schiller's Plays.<BR>
+Madame de Staël.<BR>
+Bettine.<BR>
+Louis XIV.<BR>
+Jane Eyre.<BR>
+Hypatia.<BR>
+Philothea.<BR>
+Uncle Tom's Cabin.<BR>
+Emerson's Poems.&#8230;<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+1853.&mdash;In January I started a little school&mdash;E. W., W. A., two L's, two
+H's&mdash;about a dozen in our parlor.  In May, when my school closed, I
+went to L. as second girl.  I needed the change, could do the wash, and
+was glad to earn my $2 a week.  Home in October with $34 for my wages.
+After two days' rest, began school again with ten children.  Anna went
+to Syracuse to teach; father to the West to try his luck&mdash;so poor, so
+hopeful, so serene.  God be with him!  Mother had several boarders, and
+May got on well at school.  Betty was still the home bird, and had a
+little romance with C.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Pleasant letters from father and Anna.  A hard year.  Summer
+distasteful and lonely; winter tiresome with school and people I didn't
+like; I miss Anna, my one bosom friend and comforter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+1854.&mdash;<I>Pinckney Street</I>.&mdash;I have neglected my journal for months, so
+must write it up.  School for me month after month.  Mother busy with
+boarders and sewing.  Father doing as well as a philosopher can in a
+money-loving world.  Anna at S.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I earned a good deal by sewing in the evening when my day's work was
+done.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In February father came home.  Paid his way, but no more.  A dramatic
+scene when he arrived in the night.  We were waked by hearing the bell.
+Mother flew down, crying "My husband!"  We rushed after, and five white
+figures embraced the half-frozen wanderer who came in hungry, tired,
+cold, and disappointed, but smiling bravely and as serene as ever.  We
+fed and warmed and brooded over him, longing to ask if he had made any
+money; but no one did till little May said, after he had told all the
+pleasant things, "Well, did people pay you?"  Then, with a queer look,
+he opened his pocketbook and showed one dollar, saying with a smile
+that made our eyes fill, "Only that!  My overcoat was stolen, and I had
+to buy a shawl.  Many promises were not kept, and travelling is costly;
+but I have opened the way, and another year shall do better."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I shall never forget how beautifully mother answered him, though the
+dear, hopeful soul had built much on his success; but with a beaming
+face she kissed him, saying, "I call that doing <I>very well</I>.  Since you
+are safely home, dear, we don't ask anything more."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anna and I choked down our tears, and took a little lesson in real
+love, which we never forgot, nor the look that the tired man and the
+tender woman gave one another.  It was half tragic and comic, for
+father was very dirty and sleepy, and mother in a big nightcap and
+funny old jacket.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+[I began to see the strong contrasts and the fun and follies in
+every-day life about this time&mdash;L. M. A.]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Anna came home in March.  Kept our school all summer.  I got "Flower
+Fables" ready to print.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Louisa also tried service with a relative in the country for a short
+time, but teaching, sewing, and writing were her principal occupations
+during this residence in Boston.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+These seven years, from Louisa's sixteenth to her twenty-third year,
+might be called an apprenticeship to life.  She tried various paths,
+and learned to know herself and the world about her, although she was
+not even yet certain of success in the way which finally opened before
+her and led her so successfully to the accomplishment of her
+life-purpose.  She tried teaching, without satisfaction to herself or
+perhaps to others.  The kind of education she had herself received
+fitted her admirably to understand and influence children, but not to
+carry on the routine of a school.  Sewing was her resource when nothing
+else offered, but it is almost pitiful to think of her as confined to
+such work when great powers were lying dormant in her mind.  Still
+Margaret Fuller said that a year of enforced quiet in the country
+devoted mainly to sewing was very useful to her, since she reviewed and
+examined the treasures laid up in her memory; and doubtless Louisa
+Alcott thought out many a story which afterward delighted the world
+while her fingers busily plied the needle.  Yet it was a great
+deliverance when she first found that the products of her brain would
+bring in the needed money for family support.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+[<I>L. in Boston to A. in Syracuse</I>]
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THURSDAY, 27th.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+DEAREST NAN: I was so glad to hear from you, and hear that all are well.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I am grubbing away as usual, trying to get money enough to buy mother a
+nice warm shawl.  I have eleven dollars, all my own earnings&mdash;five for
+a story, and four for the pile of sewing I did for the ladies of Dr.
+Gray's society, to give him as a present.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+&#8230;I got a crimson ribbon for a bonnet for May, and I took my straw
+and fixed it nicely with some little duds I had.  Her old one has
+haunted me all winter, and I want her to look neat.  She is so graceful
+and pretty and loves beauty so much it is hard for her to be poor and
+wear other people's ugly things.  You and I have learned not to mind
+<I>much</I>; but when I think of her I long to dash out and buy the finest
+hat the limited sum often dollars can procure.  She says so sweetly in
+one of her letters: "It is hard sometimes to see other people have so
+many nice things and I so few; but I try not to be envious, but
+contented with my poor clothes, and cheerful about it."  I hope the
+little dear will like the bonnet and the frills I made her and some
+bows I fixed over from bright ribbons L. W. threw away.  I get half my
+rarities from her rag-bag, and she doesn't know her own rags when fixed
+over.  I hope I shall live to see the dear child in silk and lace, with
+plenty of pictures and "bottles of cream," Europe, and all she longs
+for.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For our good little Betty, who is wearing all the old gowns we left, I
+shall soon be able to buy a new one, and send it with my blessing to
+the cheerful saint.  She writes me the funniest notes, and tries to
+keep the old folks warm and make the lonely house in the snowbanks
+cosey and bright.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To father I shall send new neckties and some paper; then he will be
+happy, and can keep on with the beloved diaries though the heavens fall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Don't laugh at my plans; I'll carry them out, if I go to service to do
+it.  Seeing so much money flying about, I long to honestly get a little
+and make my dear family more comfortable.  I feel weak-minded when I
+think of all they need and the little I can do.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now about you: Keep the money you have earned by so many tears and
+sacrifices, and clothe yourself; for it makes me mad to know that my
+good little lass is going round in shabby things, and being looked down
+upon by people who are not worthy to touch her patched shoes or the hem
+of her ragged old gowns.  Make yourself tidy, and if any is left over
+send it to mother; for there are always many things needed at home,
+though they won't tell us.  I only wish I, too, by any amount of
+weeping and homesickness could earn as much.  But my mite won't come
+amiss; and if tears can add to its value, I've shed my quart&mdash;first,
+over the book not coming out; for that was a sad blow, and I waited so
+long it was dreadful when my castle in the air came tumbling about my
+ears.  Pride made me laugh in public; but I wailed in private, and no
+one knew it.  The folks at home think I rather enjoyed it, for I wrote
+a jolly letter.  But my visit was spoiled; and now I'm digging away for
+dear life, that I may not have come entirely in vain.  I didn't mean to
+groan about it; but my lass and I must tell some one our trials, and so
+it becomes easy to confide in one another.  I never let mother know how
+unhappy you were in S. till Uncle wrote.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My doings are not much this week.  I sent a little tale to the Gazette,
+and Clapp asked H. W. if five dollars would be enough.  Cousin H. said
+yes, and gave it to me, with kind words and a nice parcel of paper,
+saying in his funny way, "Now, Lu, the door is open, go in and win."
+So I shall try to do it.  Then cousin L. W. said Mr. B. had got my
+play, and told her that if Mrs. B. liked it as well, it must be clever,
+and if it didn't cost too much, he would bring it out by and by.  Say
+nothing about it yet.  Dr. W. tells me Mr. F. is very sick; so the
+farce cannot be acted yet.  But the Doctor is set on its coming out,
+and we have fun about it.  H. W. takes me often to the theatre when L.
+is done with me.  I read to her all the P. M. often, as she is poorly,
+and in that way I pay my debt to them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I'm writing another story for Clapp.  I want more fives, and mean to
+have them, too.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Uncle wrote that you were Dr. W.'s pet teacher, and every one loved you
+dearly.  But if you are not well, don't stay.  Come home, and be
+cuddled by your old
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+Lu.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+<I>Pinckney Street, Boston</I>, January 1, 1855.&mdash;The principal event of the
+winter is the appearance of my book "Flower Fables."  An edition of
+sixteen hundred.  It has sold very well, and people seem to like it.  I
+feel quite proud that the little tales that I wrote for Ellen E. when I
+was sixteen should now bring money and fame.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I will put in some of the notices as "varieties," mothers are always
+foolish over their first-born.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Wealthy Stevens paid for the book, and I received $32.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+[A pleasing contrast to the receipts of six months only, in 1886, being
+$8,000 for the sale of books, and no new one; but I was prouder over
+the $32 than the $8,000.&mdash;L. M. A., 1886.]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>April</I>, 1855.&mdash;I am in the garret with my papers round me, and a pile
+of apples to eat while I write my journal, plan stories, and enjoy the
+patter of rain on the roof, in peace and quiet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+[Jo in the garret.&mdash;L. M. A.]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Being behindhand, as usual, I'll make note of the main events up to
+date, for I don't waste ink in poetry and pages of rubbish now.  I've
+begun to live, and have no time for sentimental musing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In October I began my school; father talked, mother looked after her
+boarders, and tried to help everybody.  Anna was in Syracuse teaching
+Mrs. S&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;'s children.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My book came out; and people began to think that topsy-turvy Louisa
+would amount to something after all, since she could do so well as
+housemaid, teacher, seamstress, and story-teller.  Perhaps she may.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In February I wrote a story for which C. paid $5 and asked for more.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In March I wrote a farce for W. Warren, and Dr. W. offered it to him;
+but W. W. was too busy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Also began another tale, but found little time to work on it, with
+school, sewing, and housework.  My winter's earnings are:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;School, one quarter  . . . . . $50<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Sewing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Stories  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+if I am ever paid.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A busy and a pleasant winter, because, though hard at times, I do seem
+to be getting on a little; and that encourages me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Have heard Lowell and Hedge lecture, acted in plays, and thanks to our
+rag-money and good cousin H., have been to the theatre several
+times&mdash;always my great joy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Summer plans are yet unsettled.  Father wants to go to England: not a
+wise idea, I think.  We shall probably stay here, and A. and I go into
+the country as governesses.  It's a queer way to live, but dramatic,
+and I rather like it; for we never know what is to come next.  We are
+real "Micawbers," and always "ready for a spring."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I have planned another Christmas book, and hope to be able to write it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+1855.&mdash;Cousin L. W. asks me to pass the summer at Walpole with her.  If
+I can get no teaching, I shall go; for I long for the hills, and can
+write my fairy tales there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I delivered my burlesque lecture on "Woman, and Her Position; by
+Oronthy Bluggage," last evening at Deacon G's.  Had a merry time, and
+was asked by Mr. R. to do it at H. for money.  Read "Hamlet" at our
+club&mdash;my favorite play.  Saw Mrs. W. H. Smith about the farce; says she
+will do it at her benefit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>May</I>.&mdash;Father went to C. to talk with Mr. Emerson about the England
+trip.  I am to go to Walpole.  I have made my own gowns, and had money
+enough to fit up the girls.  So glad to be independent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+[I wonder if $40 fitted up the whole family.  Perhaps so, as my
+wardrobe was made up of old clothes from cousins and friends.&mdash;L. M. A.]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>Walpole, N. H., June, 1855</I>.&mdash;Pleasant journey and a kind welcome.
+Lovely place, high among the hills.  So glad to run and skip in the
+woods and up the splendid ravine.  Shall write here, I know.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Helped cousin L. in her garden; and the smell of the fresh earth and
+the touch of green leaves did me good.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. T. came and praised my first book, so I felt much inspired to go
+and do another.  I remember him at Scituate years ago, when he was a
+young shipbuilder and I a curly-haired hoyden of five or six.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Up at five, and had a lovely run in the ravine, seeing the woods wake.
+Planned a little tale which ought to be fresh and true, as it came at
+that hour and place&mdash;"King Goldenrod."  Have lively days&mdash;writing in A.
+M., driving in P. M., and fun in the eve.  My visit is doing me much
+good.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>July</I>, 1855.&mdash;Read "Hyperion."  On the 16th the family came to live in
+Mr. W.'s house, rent free.  No better plan offered, and we were all
+tired of the city.  Here father can have a garden, mother can rest and
+be near her good niece; the children have freedom and fine air; and A.
+and I can go from here to our teaching, wherever it may be.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Busy and happy times as we settle in the little house in the lane near
+by my dear ravine&mdash;plays, picnics, pleasant people, and good neighbors.
+Fanny Kemble came up, Mrs. Kirkland, and others, and Dr. Bellows is the
+gayest of the gay.  We acted the "Jacobite," "Rivals," and
+"Bonnycastles," to an audience of a hundred, and were noticed in the
+Boston papers.  H. T. was our manager, and Dr. B., D. D., our dramatic
+director.  Anna was the star, her acting being really very fine.  I did
+"Mrs. Malaprop," "Widow Pottle," and the old ladies.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Finished fairy book in September.  Ann had an offer from Dr. Wilbur of
+Syracuse to teach at the great idiot asylum.  She disliked it, but
+decided to go.  Poor dear! so beauty-loving, timid, and tender.  It is
+a hard trial; but she is so self-sacrificing she tries to like it
+because it is duty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>October</I>.&mdash;A. to Syracuse.  May illustrated my book and tales called
+"Christmas Elves." Better than "Flower Fables."  Now I must try to sell
+it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+[Innocent Louisa, to think that a Christmas book could be sold in
+October.&mdash;L. M. A.]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>November</I>.&mdash;Decided to seek my fortune; so with my little trunk of
+home-made clothes, $20 earned by stories sent to the <I>Gazette</I>, and my
+MSS., I set forth with mother's blessing one rainy day in the dullest
+month in the year.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+[My birth-month; always to be a memorable one.&mdash;L. M. A.]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Found it too late to do anything with the book, so put it away and
+tried for teaching, sewing, or any honest work.  Won't go home to sit
+idle while I have a head and pair of hands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>December</I>.&mdash;H. and L. W. very kind, and my dear cousins the Sewalls
+take me in.  I sew for Mollie and others, and write stories.  C. gave
+me books to notice.  Heard Thackeray.  Anxious times; Anna very
+homesick.  Walpole very cold and dull now the summer butterflies have
+gone.  Got $5 for a tale and $12 for sewing; sent home a Christmas box
+to cheer the dear souls in the snow-banks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>January, 1856</I>.&mdash;C. paid $6 for "A Sister's Trial."  Gave me more
+books to notice, and wants more tales.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+[Should think he would at that price.&mdash;L. M. A.]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sewed for L. W. Sewall and others.  Mr. J. M. Field took my farce to
+Mobile to bring out; Mr. Barry of the Boston Theatre has the play.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Heard Curtis lecture.  Began a book for summer&mdash;"Beach Bubbles."  Mr.
+F. of the <I>Courier</I> printed a poem of mine on "Little Nell."  Got $10
+for "Bertha," and saw great yellow placards stuck up announcing it.
+Acted at the W.'s.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>March</I>.&mdash;Got $10 for "Genevieve."  Prices go up, as people like the
+tales and ask who wrote them.  Finished "Twelve Bubbles."  Sewed a
+great deal, and got very tired; one job for Mr. G. of a dozen pillow
+cases, one dozen sheets, six fine cambric neckties, and two dozen
+handkerchiefs, at which I had to work all one night to get them done,
+as they were a gift to him.  I got only $4.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sewing won't make my fortune; but I can plan my stories while I work,
+and then scribble 'em down on Sundays.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Poem on "Little Paul"; Curtis's lecture on "Dickens" made it go well.
+Hear Emerson on "England."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>May</I>.&mdash;Anna came on her way home, sick and worn out; the work was too
+much for her.  We had some happy days visiting about.  Could not
+dispose of B. B. in book form, but C. took them for his paper.  Mr.
+Field died, so the farce fell through there.  Altered the play for Mrs.
+Barrow to bring out next winter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>June, 1856</I>.&mdash;Home, to find dear Betty very ill with scarlet-fever
+caught from some poor children mother nursed when they fell sick,
+living over a cellar where pigs had been kept.  The landlord (a deacon)
+would not clean the place till mother threatened to sue him for
+allowing a nuisance.  Too late to save two of the poor babies or Lizzie
+and May from the fever.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+[L. never recovered, but died of it two years later.&mdash;L. M. A.]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An anxious time, I nursed, did housework, and wrote a story a month
+through the summer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dr. Bellows and Father had Sunday eve conversations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>October</I>.&mdash;Pleasant letters from father, who went on a tour to New
+York, Philadelphia, and Boston.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Made plans to go to Boston for the winter, as there is nothing to do
+here, and there I can support myself and help the family.  C. offers
+$10 a month, and perhaps more.  L. W., M. S., and others, have plenty
+of sewing; the play may come out, and Mrs. R. will give me a sky-parlor
+for $3 a week, with fire and board.  I sew for her also.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If I can get A. L. to governess I shall be all right.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I was born with a boy's spirit under my bib and tucker.  I <I>can't wait</I>
+when I <I>can work</I>, so I took my little talent in my hand and forced the
+world again, braver than before and wiser for my failures.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+[Jo in N. Y.&mdash;L. M. A.]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I don't often pray in words; but when I set out that day with all my
+worldly goods in the little old trunk, my own earnings ($25) in my
+pocket, and much hope and resolution in my soul, my heart was very
+full, and I said to the Lord, "Help us all, and keep us for one
+another," as I never said it before, while I looked back at the dear
+faces watching me, so full of love and hope and faith.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+[<I>Journal</I>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Boston, <I>November, 1856: Mrs. David Reed's</I>.&mdash;I find my little room up
+in the attic very cosey and a house full of boarders very amusing to
+study.  Mrs. Reed very kind.  Fly around and take C. his stories.  Go
+to see Mrs. L. about A.  Don't want me.  A blow, but I cheer up and
+hunt for sewing.  Go to hear Parker, and he does me good.  Asks me to
+come Sunday evenings to his house.  I did go there, and met Phillips,
+Garrison, Hedge, and other great men, and sit in my corner weekly,
+staring and enjoying myself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When I went Mr. Parker said, "God bless you, Louisa; come again"; and
+the grasp of his hand gave me courage to face another anxious week.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>November 3d</I>.&mdash;Wrote all the morning.  In the P. M. went to see the
+Sumner reception as he comes home after the Brooks affair.  I saw him
+pass up Beacon Street, pale and feeble, but smiling and bowing.  I
+rushed to Hancock Street, and was in time to see him bring his proud
+old mother to the window when the crowd gave three cheers for her.  I
+cheered, too, and was very much excited.  Mr. Parker met him somewhere
+before the ceremony began, and the above P. cheered like a boy; and
+Sumner laughed and nodded as his friend pranced and shouted, bareheaded
+and beaming.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My kind cousin, L. W., got tickets for a course of lectures on "Italian
+Literature," and seeing my old cloak sent me a new one, with other
+needful and pretty things such as girls love to have.  I shall never
+forget how kind she has always been to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>November 5th</I>.&mdash;Went with H. W. to see Manager Barry about the
+everlasting play which is always coming out but never comes.  We went
+all over the great new theatre, and I danced a jig on the immense
+stage.  Mr. B. was very kind, and gave me a pass to come whenever I
+liked.  This was such richness I didn't care if the play was burnt on
+the spot, and went home full of joy.  In the eve I saw La Grange as
+Norma, and felt as if I knew all about that place.  Quite stage-struck,
+and imagined myself in her place, with white robes and oak-leaf crown.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>November 6th</I>.&mdash;Sewed happily on my job of twelve sheets for H. W.,
+and put lots of good will into the work after his kindness to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Walked to Roxbury to see cousin Dr. W. about the play and tell the fine
+news.  Rode home in the new cars, and found them very nice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the eve went to teach at Warren Street Chapel Charity School.  I'll
+help as I am helped if I can.  Mother says no one so poor he can't do a
+little for some one poorer yet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>Sunday</I>.&mdash;Heard Parker on "Individuality of Character," and liked it
+much.  In the eve I went to his house.  Mrs. Howe was there, and Sumner
+and others.  I sat in my usual corner, but Mr. P. came up and said, in
+that cordial way of his, "Well, child, how goes it?"  "Pretty well,
+sir."  "That's brave"; and with his warm handshake he went on, leaving
+me both proud and happy, though I have my trials.  He is like a great
+fire where all can come and be warmed and comforted.  Bless him!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Had a talk at tea about him, and fought for him when W. R. said he was
+not a Christian.  He is my <I>sort</I>; for though he may lack reverence for
+other people's God, he works bravely for his own, and turns his back on
+no one who needs help, as some of the pious do.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>Monday, 14th</I>.&mdash;May came full of expectation and joy to visit good
+aunt B. and study drawing.  We walked about and had a good home talk,
+then my girl went off to Auntie's to begin what I hope will be a
+pleasant and profitable winter.  She needs help to develop her talent,
+and I can't give it to her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Went to see Forrest as Othello.  It is funny to see how attentive all
+the once cool gentlemen are to Miss Alcott now she has a pass to the
+new theatre.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>November 29th</I>.&mdash;My birthday.  Felt forlorn so far from home.  Wrote
+all day.  Seem to be getting on slowly, so should be contented.  To a
+little party at the B.'s in the eve.  May looked very pretty, and
+seemed to be a favorite.  The boys teased me about being an authoress,
+and I said I'd be famous yet.  Will if I can, but something else may be
+better for me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Found a pretty pin from father and a nice letter when I got home.  Mr.
+H. brought them with letters from mother and Betty, so I went to bed
+happy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>December</I>.&mdash;Busy with Christmas and New Year's tales.  Heard a good
+lecture by E. P. Whipple on "Courage."  Thought I needed it, being
+rather tired of living like a spider&mdash;spinning my brains out for money.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Wrote a story, "The Cross on the Church Tower," suggested by the tower
+before my window.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Called on Mrs. L., and she asked me to come and teach A. for three
+hours each day.  Just what I wanted; and the children's welcome was
+very pretty and comforting to "Our Olly," as they called me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now board is all safe, and something over for home, if stories and
+sewing fail.  I don't do much, but can send little comforts to mother
+and Betty, and keep May neat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>December 18th</I>.&mdash;Begin with A. L., in Beacon Street.  I taught C. when
+we lived in High Street, A. in Pinckney Street, and now Al; so I seem
+to be an institution and a success, since I can start the boy, teach
+one girl, and take care of the little invalid.  It is hard work, but I
+can do it; and am glad to sit in a large, fine room part of each day,
+after my sky-parlor, which has nothing pretty in it, and only the gray
+tower and blue sky outside as I sit at the window writing.  I love
+luxury, but freedom and independence better.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+[<I>To her father, written from Mrs. Reed's</I>]
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+<I>Boston, November 29, 1856</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+DEAREST FATHER: Your little parcel was very welcome to me as I sat
+alone in my room, with snow falling fast outside, and a few tears in
+(for birthdays are dismal times to me); and the fine letter, the pretty
+gift, and, most of all, the loving thought so kindly taken for your old
+absent daughter, made the cold, dark day as warm and bright as summer
+to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now, with the birthday pin upon my bosom, many thanks on my lips,
+and a whole heart full of love for its giver, I will tell you a little
+about my doings, stupid as they will seem after your own grand
+proceedings.  How I wish I could be with you, enjoying what I have
+always longed for&mdash;fine people, fine amusements, and fine books.  But
+as I can't, I am glad you are; for I love to see your name first among
+the lecturers, to hear it kindly spoken of in papers and inquired about
+by good people here&mdash;to say nothing of the delight and pride I take in
+seeing you at last filling the place you are so fitted for, and which
+you have waited for so long and patiently.  If the New Yorkers raise a
+statue to the modern Plato, it will be a wise and highly creditable
+action.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+<HR WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center">
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+I am very well and very happy.  Things go smoothly, and I think I shall
+come out right, and prove that though an <I>Alcott</I> I <I>can</I> support
+myself.  I like the independent feeling; and though not an easy life,
+it is a free one, and I enjoy it.  I can't do much with my hands; so I
+will make a battering-ram of my head and make a way through this
+rough-and-tumble world.  I have very pleasant lectures to amuse my
+evenings&mdash;Professor Gajani on "Italian Reformers," the Mercantile
+Library course, Whipple, Beecher, and others, and, best of all, a free
+pass at the Boston Theatre.  I saw Mr. Barry, and he gave it to me with
+many kind speeches, and promises to bring out the play very soon.  I
+hope he will.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My farce is in the hands of Mrs. W. H. Smith, who acts at Laura Keene's
+theatre in New York.  She took it, saying she would bring it out there.
+If you see or hear anything about it, let me know.  I want something
+doing.  My mornings are spent in writing.  C. takes one a month, and I
+am to see Mr. B., who may take some of my wares.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the afternoons I walk and visit my hundred relations, who are all
+kind and friendly, and seem interested in our various successes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sunday evenings I go to Parker's parlor, and there meet Phillips,
+Garrison, Scherb, Sanborn, and many other pleasant people.  All talk,
+and I sit in a corner listening, and wishing a certain placid,
+gray-haired gentleman was there talking, too.  Mrs. Parker calls on me,
+reads my stories, and is very good to me.  Theodore asks Louisa "how
+her worthy parents do," and is otherwise very friendly to the large,
+bashful girl who adorns his parlor steadily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Abby is preparing for a busy and, I hope, a profitable winter.  She has
+music lessons already, French and drawing in store, and, if her eyes
+hold out, will keep her word and become what none of us can be, "an
+accomplished Alcott."  Now, dear Father, I shall hope to hear from you
+occasionally, and will gladly answer all epistles from the Plato, whose
+parlor parish is becoming quite famous.  I got the <I>Tribune</I> but not
+the letter, and shall look it up.  I have been meaning to write, but
+did not know where you were.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Good-bye, and a happy birthday from your ever-loving child,
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+LOUISA.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+[<I>Journal</I>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>January, 1857</I>.&mdash;Had my first new silk dress from good little L. W.;
+very fine; and I felt as if all the Hancocks and Quincys beheld me as I
+went to two parties in it on New Year's eve.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A busy, happy month&mdash;taught, wrote, sewed, read aloud to the "little
+mother," and went often to the theatre; heard good lectures; and
+enjoyed my Parker evenings very much.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Father came to see me on his way home; little money; had had a good
+time, and was asked to come again.  Why don't rich people who enjoy his
+talk pay for it?  Philosophers are always poor, and too modest to pass
+round their own hats.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sent by him a good bundle to the poor Forlomites among the ten-foot
+drifts in W.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>February</I>.&mdash;Ran home as a valentine on the 14th.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>March</I>.&mdash;Have several irons in the fire now, and try to keep 'em all
+hot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>April</I>.&mdash;May did a crayon head of mother with Mrs. Murdock; very good
+likeness.  All of us as proud as peacocks of our "little Raphael."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Heard Mrs. Butler read; very fine.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>May</I>.&mdash;Left the L.'s with my $33; glad to rest.  May went home with
+her picture, happy in her winter's work and success.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Father had three talks at W. F. Channing's.  Good company&mdash;Emerson,
+Mrs. Howe, and the rest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Saw young Booth in Brutus, and liked him better than his father; went
+about and rested after my labors; glad to be with Father, who enjoyed
+Boston and friends.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Home on the 10th, passing Sunday at the Emersons'.  I have done what I
+planned&mdash;supported myself, written eight stories, taught four months,
+earned a hundred dollars, and sent money home.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap07"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+HENRY GEORGE
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+(1839-1897)
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE TROUBLES OF A JOB PRINTER
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Henry George was a self-helped man, if ever there was one.  When less
+than fourteen years of age, he left school and started to earn his own
+living.  He never afterward returned to school.  In adolescence, his
+eager mind was obsessed by the glamor of the sea, so he began life as a
+sailor.  After a few years came the desperate poverty of his early
+married life in California, as here described.  His work as a printer
+led to casual employment as a journalist.  This was the first step in
+his subsequently life-long career as an independent thinker, writer,
+and speaker.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An apparent failure in life, he was obliged when twenty-six years of
+age to beg money from a stranger on the street to keep his wife and
+babies from actual starvation.  But his misery may have been of
+incalculable value to the human race, for his bitter personal
+experience convinced him that the times were out of joint, and his
+brain began to seek the remedy.  The doctrine of <I>single tax</I>, already
+on trial in some parts of the world, is his chief contribution to
+economic theory.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+From "The Life of Henry George, by His Son."  Doubleday, Page &amp;
+Company, 1900.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus heavily weighted at the outset, the three men opened their office.
+But hard times had come.  A drought had shortened the grain crop,
+killed great numbers of cattle and lessened the gold supply, and the
+losses that the farming, ranching, and mineral regions suffered
+affected all the commercial and industrial activities of the State, so
+that there was a general depression.  Business not coming into their
+office, the three partners went out to hunt for it; and yet it was
+elusive, so that they had very little to do and soon were in
+extremities for living necessities, even for wood for the kitchen fire.
+Henry George had fitfully kept a pocket diary during 1864, and a few
+entries at this job-printing period tell of the pass of affairs.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"<I>December 25</I>.&mdash;Determined to keep a regular journal, and to cultivate
+habits of determination, energy, and industry.  Feel that I am in a bad
+situation, and must use my utmost effort to keep afloat and go ahead.
+Will try to follow the following general rules for one week:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"1st.  In every case to determine rationally what is best to be done.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"2nd.  To do everything determined upon immediately, or as soon as an
+opportunity presents.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"3rd.  To write down what I shall determine upon doing for the
+succeeding day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Saw landlady and told her I was not able to pay rent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>December 26</I>, 7 A. M.:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"1st.  Propose to-day, in addition to work in office, to write to Boyne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"2nd.  To get wood in trade.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"3rd.  To talk with Dr. Eaton, and, perhaps, Dr. Morse.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Rose at quarter to seven.  Stopped at six wood yards trying to get
+wood in exchange for printing, but failed.  Did very little in office.
+Walked and talked with Ike.  Felt very blue and thought of drawing out.
+Saw Dr. Eaton, but failed to make a trade.  In evening saw Dr. Morse.
+Have not done all, nor as well as I could wish.  Also wrote to Boyne,
+but did not mail letter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>January 1 (Sunday)</I>.&mdash;Annie not very well.  Got down town about 11
+o'clock.  Went with Ike to Chinaman's to see about paper bags.
+Returned to office and worked off a lot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>January 2</I>.&mdash;Got down town about 8 o'clock.  Worked some labels.  Not
+much doing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>January 3</I>.&mdash;Working in office all day.  De Long called to talk about
+getting out a journal.  Did our best day's work."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+From time to time they got a little business, enough at any rate to
+encourage Trump and George to continue with the office, though Daley
+dropped out; and each day that the money was there the two partners
+took out of the business twenty-five cents apiece, which they together
+spent for food, Trump's wife being with her relatives and he taking his
+dinner with the Georges.  They lived chiefly on cornmeal and milk,
+potatoes, bread and sturgeon, for meat they could not afford and
+sturgeon was the cheapest fish they could find.[1]  Mr. George
+generally went to the office early without breakfast, saying that he
+would get it down town; but knowing that he had no money, his wife more
+than suspected that many a morning passed without his getting a
+mouthful.  Nor could he borrow money except occasionally, for the
+drought that had made general business so bad had hurt all his friends,
+and, indeed, many of them had already borrowed from him while he had
+anything to lend; and he was too proud to complain now to them.  Nor
+did his wife complain, though what deepened their anxieties was that
+they looked for the coming of a second child.  Mrs. George would not
+run up bills that she did not have money to meet.  She parted with her
+little pieces of jewellery and smaller trinkets one by one, until only
+her wedding ring had not been pawned.  And then she told the milkman
+that she could no longer afford to take milk, but he offered to
+continue to supply it for printed cards, which she accepted.  Mr.
+George's diary is blank just here, but at another time he said:[2]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I came near starving to death, and at one time I was so close to it
+that I think I should have done so but for the job of printing a few
+cards which enabled us to buy a little cornmeal.  In this darkest time
+in my life my second child was born."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The baby came at seven o'clock in the morning of January 27, 1865.
+When it was born the wife heard the doctor say: "Don't stop to wash the
+child; he is starving.  Feed him!"  After the doctor had gone and
+mother and baby had fallen asleep, the husband left them alone in the
+house, and taking the elder child to a neighbour's, himself went to his
+business in a desperate state of mind, for his wife's condition made
+money&mdash;some money&mdash;an absolute and immediate necessity.  But nothing
+came into the office and he did not know where to borrow.  What then
+happened he told sixteen years subsequently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I walked along the street and made up my mind to get money from the
+first man whose appearance might indicate that he had it to give.  I
+stopped a man&mdash;a stranger&mdash;and told him I wanted $5.  He asked what I
+wanted it for.  I told him that my wife was confined and that I had
+nothing to give her to eat.  He gave me the money.  If he had not, I
+think I was desperate enough to have killed him." [3]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The diary notes commence again twenty days after the new baby's birth
+and show that the struggle for subsistence was still continuing, that
+Henry George abandoned the job-printing office, and that he and his
+wife and babies had moved into a smaller house where he had to pay a
+rent of only nine dollars a month&mdash;just half of his former rent.  This
+diary consists simply of two half-sheets of white note paper, folded
+twice and pinned in the middle, forming two small neat books of eight
+pages each of about the size of a visiting card.  The writing is very
+small, but clear.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"<I>February 17, 1865 (Friday)</I> 10:40 P.M.&mdash;Gave I. Trump this day bill
+of sale for my interest in office, with the understanding that if he
+got any money by selling, I am to get some.  I am now afloat again,
+with the world before me.  I have commenced this little book as an
+experiment&mdash;to aid me in acquiring habits of regularity, punctuality,
+and purpose.  I will enter in it each evening the principal events of
+the day, with notes, if they occur, errors committed or the reverse,
+and plans for the morrow and future.  I will make a practice of looking
+at it on rising in the morning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am starting out afresh, very much crippled and embarrassed, owing
+over $200.  I have been unsuccessful in everything.  I wish to profit
+by my experience and to cultivate those qualities necessary to success
+in which I have been lacking.  I have not saved as much as I ought, and
+am resolved to practice a rigid economy until I have something ahead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"1st.  To make every cent I can.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"2nd.  To spend nothing unnecessarily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"3rd.  To put something by each week, if it is only a five-cent piece
+borrowed for the purpose.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"4th.  Not to run in debt if it can be avoided."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"1st.  To endeavour to make an acquaintance and friend of every one
+with whom I am brought in contact.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"2nd.  To stay at home less, and be more social.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"3rd.  To strive to think consecutively and decide quickly."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"<I>February 18</I>.&mdash;Rose at 6 o'clock.  Took cards to woodman.  Went to
+post-office and got two letters, one from Wallazz and another from
+mother.  Heard that Smith was up and would probably not go down.  Tried
+to hunt him up.  Ran around after him a great deal.  Saw him; made an
+appointment, but he did not come.  Finally met him about 4.  He said
+that he had written up for a man, who had first choice; but he would do
+all he could.  I was much disappointed.  Went back to office; then
+after Knowlton, but got no money.  Then went to <I>Alta</I> office.  Smith
+there.  Stood talking till they went to work.  Then to job office.  Ike
+had got four bits [50 cents] from Dr. Josselyn.  Went home, and he came
+out to supper.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Got up in good season.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tried to be energetic about seeing Smith.  Have not done with that
+matter yet, but will try every means.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To-morrow will write to Cousin Sophia,[5] and perhaps to Wallazz and
+mother, and will try to make acquaintances.  Am in very desperate
+plight.  Courage!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>February 19 (Sunday)</I>.&mdash;Rose about 9.  Ran a small bill with Wessling
+for flour, coffee, and butter.  After breakfast took Harry around to
+Wilbur's.  Talked a while.  Went down town.  Could not get in office.
+Went into <I>Alta</I> office several times.  Then walked around, hoping to
+strike Smith.  Ike to dinner.  Afterward walked with him, looking for
+house.  Was at <I>Alta</I> office at 6, but no work.  Went with Ike to
+Stickney's and together went to <I>Californian</I> office.  Came home and
+summed up assets and liabilities.  At 10 went to bed, with
+determination of getting up at 6 and going to <I>Bulletin</I> office.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have wasted a great deal of time in looking for Smith.  Think it would
+have been better to have hunted him at once or else trusted to luck.
+There seems to be very little show for me down there.  Don't know what
+to do.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>February 20</I>.&mdash;Got up too late to go to the <I>Bulletin office</I>.  Got
+$1 from woodman.  Got my pants from the tailor.  Saw Smith and had a
+long talk with him.  He seemed sorry that he had not thought of me, but
+said another man had been spoken to and was anxious to go.  Went to
+<I>Alta</I> office several times.  Came home early and went to <I>Alta</I> office
+at 6 and to <I>Call</I> at 7, but got no work.  Went to Ike Trump's room,
+and then came home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Was not prompt enough in rising.  Have been walking around a good part
+of the day without definite purpose, thereby losing time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>February 21</I>.&mdash;Worked for Ike.  Did two cards for $1.  Saw about
+books, and thought some of travelling with them.  Went to <I>Alta</I> before
+coming home.  In evening had row with Chinaman.  Foolish.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>February 22</I>.&mdash;Hand very sore.  Did not go down till late.  Went to
+work in <I>Bulletin</I> at 12.  Got $3.  Saw Boyne.  Went to library in
+evening.  Thinking of economy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>February 26</I>.&mdash;Went to <I>Bulletin</I>; no work.  Went with Ike Trump to
+look at house on hill; came home to breakfast.  Decided to take house
+on Perry Street with Mrs. Stone; took it.  Came home and moved.  Paid
+$5 of rent.  About 6 o'clock went down town.  Saw Ike; got 50 cents.
+Walked around and went to Typographical Union meeting.  Then saw Ike
+again.  Found Knowlton had paid him for printing plant, and demanded
+some of the money.  He gave me $5 with very bad humour.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>February 27</I>.&mdash;Saw Ike in afternoon and had further talk.  In evening
+went to work for Col. Strong on <I>Alta</I>.  Smith lent me $3.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>February 28</I>.&mdash;Worked again for Strong.  Got $5 from John McComb.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>February 29</I>.&mdash;Got $5 from Barstow, and paid Charlie Coddington the
+$10 I had borrowed from him on Friday last.  On Monday left at Mrs.
+Lauder's [the Russ Street landlady] $1.25 for extra rent and $1.50 for
+milkman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>March 1</I>.&mdash;Rose early, went to <I>Bulletin</I>; but got no work.  Looked
+in at Valentine's and saw George Foster, who told me to go to Frank
+Eastman's [printing office].  Did so and was told to call again.  Came
+home; had breakfast.  Went to <I>Alta</I> in evening, but no work.  Went to
+Germania Lodge and then to Stickney's.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>March 2</I>.&mdash;Went to Eastman's about 11 o'clock and was put to work.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>March 3</I>.&mdash;At work.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>March 4</I>.&mdash;At work.  Got $5 in evening."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The strength of the storm had now passed.  The young printer began to
+get some work at "subbing," though it was scant and irregular.  His
+wife, who paid the second month's rent of the Perry Street house by
+sewing for her landlady, remarked to her husband how contentedly they
+should be able to live if he could be sure of making regularly twenty
+dollars a week.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+BEGINS WRITING AND TALKING
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Henry George's career as a writer should be dated from the commencement
+of 1865, when he was an irregular, substitute printer at Eastman's and
+on the daily newspapers, just after his severe job-office experience.
+He now deliberately set himself to self-improvement.  These few diary
+notes for the end of March and beginning of April are found in a small
+blank book that in 1878, while working on "Progress and Poverty," he
+also used as a diary.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Saturday, March 25, 1865</I>.&mdash;As I knew we would have no letter this
+morning, I did not hurry down to the office.  After getting breakfast,
+took the wringing machine which I had been using as a sample back to
+Faulkner's; then went to Eastman's and saw to bill; loafed around until
+about 2 P. M.  Concluded that the best thing I could do would be to go
+home and write a little.  Came home and wrote for the sake of practice
+an essay on the 'Use of Time,' which occupied me until Annie prepared
+dinner.  Went to Eastman's by six, got money.  Went to Union meeting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Sunday, March 26</I>.&mdash;Did not get out until 11 o'clock.  Took Harry
+down town and then to Wilbur's.  Proposed to have Dick [the new baby]
+baptised in afternoon; got Mrs. Casey to come to the house for that
+purpose, but concluded to wait.  Went to see Dull, who took me to his
+shop and showed me the model of his wagon brake.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Monday, March 27</I>.&mdash;Got down to office about one o'clock; but no
+proofs yet.  Strolled around a little.  Went home and wrote
+communication for Aleck Kenneday's new paper, <I>Journal of the Trades
+and Workingmen</I>.  Took it down to him.  In the evening called on Rev.
+Mr. Simonds.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Tuesday, 28</I>.&mdash;Got down late.  No work.  In afternoon wrote article
+about laws relating to sailors.  In evening went down to Dull's shop
+while he was engaged on model.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Wednesday, 29</I>.&mdash;Went to work about 10:30.  In evening corrected
+proof for <I>Journal of the Trades and Workingmen</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Thursday, 30</I>.&mdash;At work.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Tuesday, April 4</I>.&mdash;Despatch received stating that Richmond and
+Petersburgh are both in our possession.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Wednesday, 5</I>.&mdash;Took model of wagon brake to several carriage shops;
+also to <I>Alta</I> office.  In evening signed agreement with Dull.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Saturday, 8</I>.&mdash;Not working; bill for week, $23.  Paid Frank Mahon the
+$5 I have been owing for some time.  Met Harrison, who had just come
+down from up the country.  He has a good thing up there.  Talked with
+Dull and drew up advertisement.  In evening, nothing."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Thus while he was doing haphazard type-setting, and trying to interest
+carriage builders in a new wagon brake, he was also beginning to write.
+The first and most important of these pieces of writing mentioned in
+the diary notes&mdash;on "The Use of Time"&mdash;was sent by Mr. George to his
+mother, as an indication of his intention to improve himself.
+Commencing with boyhood, Henry George, as has been seen, had the power
+of simple and clear statement, and if this essay served no other
+purpose than to show the development of that natural power, it would be
+of value.  But as a matter of fact, it has a far greater value; for
+while repeating his purpose to practise writing&mdash;"to acquire facility
+and elegance in the expression" of his thought&mdash;it gives an
+introspective glimpse into the naturally secretive mind, revealing an
+intense desire, if not for the "flesh pots of Egypt," at least for such
+creature and intellectual comforts as would enable him and those close
+to him "to bask themselves in the warm sunshine of the brief day."
+This paper is presented in full:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+<I>Essay, Saturday Afternoon, March 25, 1865</I>.
+</P>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+"ON THE PROFITABLE EMPLOYMENT OF TIME."
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+"Most of us have some principal object of desire at any given time of
+our lives; something which we wish more than anything else, either
+because its want is more felt, or that it includes other desirable
+things, and we are conscious that in gaining it we obtain the means of
+gratifying other of our wishes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"With most of us this power, in one shape or the other&mdash;is money, or
+that which is its equivalent or will bring it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For this end we subject ourselves to many sacrifices; for its gain we
+are willing to confine ourselves and employ our minds and bodies in
+duties which, for their own sakes, are irksome; and if we do not throw
+the whole force of our natures into the effort to gain this, it is that
+we do not possess the requisite patience, self-command, and penetration
+where we may direct our efforts.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am constantly longing for wealth; the wide difference between my
+wishes and the means of gratifying them at my command keeps me in
+perpetual disquiet.  It would bring me comfort and luxury which I
+cannot now obtain; it would give me more congenial employment and
+associates; it would enable me to cultivate my mind and exert to a
+fuller extent my powers; it would give me the ability to minister to
+the comfort and enjoyment of those whom I love most, and, therefore, it
+is my principal object in life to obtain wealth, or at least more of it
+than I have at present.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Whether this is right or wrong, I do not now consider; but that it is
+so I am conscious.  When I look behind at my past life I see that I
+have made little or no progress, and am disquieted; when I consider my
+present, it is difficult to see that I am moving toward it at all; and
+all my comfort in this respect is in the hope of what the future may
+bring forth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And yet my hopes are very vague and indistinct, and my efforts in any
+direction, save the beaten track in which I have been used to earn my
+bread, are, when perceptible, jerky, irregular, and without
+intelligent, continuous direction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When I succeed in obtaining employment, I am industrious and work
+faithfully, though it does not satisfy my wishes.  When I have nothing
+to do, I am anxious to be in some way labouring toward the end I wish,
+and yet from hour to hour I cannot tell at what to employ myself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To secure any given result it is only necessary to rightly supply
+sufficient force.  Some men possess a greater amount of natural power
+than others and produce quicker and more striking results; yet it is
+apparent that the abilities of the majority, if properly and
+continuously applied, are sufficient to accomplish much more than they
+generally do.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The hours which I have idled away, though made miserable by the
+consciousness of accomplishing nothing, had been sufficient to make me
+master of almost any common branch of study.  If, for instance, I had
+applied myself to the practice of bookkeeping and arithmetic I might
+now have been an expert in those things; or I might have had the
+dictionary at my fingers' ends; been a practised, and perhaps an able,
+writer; a much better printer; or been able to read and write French,
+Spanish, or any other modern or ancient language to which I might have
+directed my attention; and the mastery of any of these things now would
+give me an additional, appreciable power, and means by which to work to
+my end, not to speak of that which would have been gained by exercise
+and good mental habits.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"These truths are not sudden discoveries; but have been as apparent for
+years as at this present time; but always wishing for some chance to
+make a sudden leap forward, I have never been able to direct my mind
+and concentrate my attention upon those slow processes by which
+everything mental (and in most cases material) is acquired.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Constantly the mind works, and if but a tithe of its attention was
+directed to some end, how many matters might it have taken up in
+succession, increasing its own stores and power while mastering them?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To sum up for the present, though this essay has hardly taken the
+direction and shape which at the outset I intended, it is evident to me
+that I have not employed the time and means at my command faithfully
+and advantageously as I might have done, and consequently, that I have
+myself to blame for at least a part of my non-success.  And this being
+true of the past, in the future like results will flow from like
+causes.  I will, therefore, try (though, as I know from experience, it
+is much easier to form good resolutions than to faithfully carry them
+out) to employ my mind in acquiring useful information or practice,
+when I have nothing leading more directly to my end claiming my
+attention.  When practicable, or when I cannot decide upon anything
+else, I will endeavour to acquire facility and elegance in the
+expression of my thought by writing essays or other matters which I
+will preserve for future comparison.  And in this practice it will be
+well to aim at mechanical neatness and grace, as well as at proper and
+polished language."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of the two other pieces of writing spoken of in the diary notes, the
+"article about laws relating to sailors," has left no trace, but a copy
+of the one for the <I>Journal of the Trades and Workingmen</I> has been
+preserved.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+[1] Unlike that fish on the Atlantic Coast, sturgeon on the Pacific
+Coast, or at any rate in California waters, is of fine quality and
+could easily be substituted on the table for halibut.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+[2] Meeker notes, October, 1897.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+[3] Henry George related this incident to Dr. James E. Kelly in a
+conversation in Dublin during the winter of 1881-82, in proof that
+environment has more to do with human actions, and especially with
+so-called criminal actions, than we generally concede; and to show how
+acute poverty may drive sound-minded, moral men to the commission of
+deeds that are supposed to belong entirely to hardened evil natures.
+Out of long philosophical and physiological talks together at that time
+the two men formed a warm friendship, and subsequently, when he came to
+the United States and established himself in New York, Dr. Kelly became
+Henry George's family physician and attended him at his deathbed.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+[4] She was now a widow, James George having died in the preceding
+August.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap08"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+JACOB RIIS.
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+(1849-1914)
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+"THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN"
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The intimate friend at once of "the children of the tenements" and of
+Theodore Roosevelt, Jacob A. Riis was beloved by countless New Yorkers
+for his gallant "battle with the slums," and for the message he brought
+as to "how the other half lives."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From experiences that would have spelled permanent degradation to a man
+of baser metal, he won the knowledge, sympathy, and inspiration that
+made him one of the most exceptionally useful and exceptionally loved
+of American citizens.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+From "The Making of an American," by Jacob A. Riis.  The Macmillan
+Company.  Copyright, 1901-'08.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The steamer <I>Iowa</I>, from Glasgow, made port after a long and stormy
+voyage, on Whitsunday, 1870.  She had come up during the night, and
+cast anchor off Castle Garden.  It was a beautiful spring morning, and
+as I looked over the rail at the miles of straight streets, the green
+heights of Brooklyn, and the stir of ferryboats and pleasure craft on
+the river, my hopes rose high that somewhere in this teeming hive there
+would be a place for me.  What kind of a place I had myself no clear
+notion of; I would let that work out as it could.  Of course I had my
+trade to fall back on, but I am afraid that is all the use I thought of
+putting it to.  The love of change belongs to youth, and I meant to
+take a hand in things as they came along.  I had a pair of strong
+hands, and stubbornness enough to do for two; also a strong belief that
+in a free country, free from the dominion of custom, of caste, as well
+as of men, things would somehow come right in the end, and a man get
+shaken into the corner where he belonged if he took a hand in the game.
+I think I was right in that.  If it took a lot of shaking to get me
+where I belonged, that was just what I needed.  Even my mother admits
+that now.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I made it my first business to buy a navy revolver of the largest size,
+investing in the purchase exactly one-half of my capital.  I strapped
+the weapon on the outside of my coat and strode up Broadway, conscious
+that I was following the fashion of the country.  I knew it upon the
+authority of a man who had been there before me and had returned, a
+gold digger in the early days of California; but America was America to
+us.  We knew no distinction of West and East.  By rights there ought to
+have been buffaloes and red Indians charging up and down Broadway.  I
+am sorry to say that it is easier even to-day to make lots of people
+over there believe that than that New York is paved, and lighted with
+electric lights, and quite as civilized as Copenhagen.  They will have
+it that it is in the wilds.  I saw none of the signs of this, but I
+encountered a friendly policeman, who, sizing me and my pistol up,
+tapped it gently with his club and advised me to leave it home, or I
+might get robbed of it.  This, at first blush, seemed to confirm my
+apprehensions; but he was a very nice policeman, and took time to
+explain, seeing that I was very green.  And I took his advice and put
+the revolver away, secretly relieved to get rid of it.  It was quite
+heavy to carry around.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I had letters to the Danish Consul and to the president of the American
+Banknote Company, Mr. Goodall.  I think perhaps he was not then the
+president, but became so afterward.  Mr. Goodall had once been wrecked
+on the Danish coast and rescued by the captain of the lifesaving crew,
+a friend of my family.  But they were both in Europe, and in just four
+days I realized that there was no special public clamor for my services
+in New York, and decided to go West.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A missionary in Castle Garden was getting up a gang of men for the
+Brady's Bend Iron Works on the Allegheny River, and I went along.  We
+started a full score, with tickets paid, but only two of us reached the
+Bend.  The rest calmly deserted in Pittsburg and went their way.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The [iron works] company mined its own coal.  Such as it was, it
+cropped out of the hills right and left in narrow veins, sometimes too
+shallow to work, seldom affording more space to the digger than barely
+enough to permit him to stand upright.  You did not go down through a
+shaft, but straight in through the side of a hill to the bowels of the
+mountain, following a track on which a little donkey drew the coal to
+the mouth of the mine and sent it down the incline to run up and down a
+hill a mile or more by its own gravity before it reached the place of
+unloading.  Through one of these we marched in, Adler and I, one summer
+morning, with new pickaxes on our shoulders and nasty little oil lamps
+fixed in our hats to light us through the darkness, where every second
+we stumbled over chunks of slate rock, or into pools of water that
+oozed through from above.  An old miner whose way lay past the fork in
+the tunnel where our lead began showed us how to use our picks and the
+timbers to brace the slate that roofed over the vein, and left us to
+ourselves in a chamber perhaps ten feet wide and the height of a man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We were to be paid by the ton&mdash;I forget how much, but it was very
+little&mdash;and we lost no time getting to work.  We had to dig away the
+coal at the floor without picks, lying on our knees to do it, and
+afterward drive wedges under the roof to loosen the mass.  It was hard
+work, and, entirely inexperienced as we were, we made but little
+headway.  As the day wore on, the darkness and silence grew very
+oppressive, and made us start nervously at the least thing.  The sudden
+arrival of our donkey with its cart gave me a dreadful fright.  The
+friendly beast greeted us with a joyous bray and rubbed its shaggy
+sides against us in the most companionable way.  In the flickering
+light of my lamp I caught sight of its long ears waving over me&mdash;I
+don't believe I had seen three donkeys before in my life; there were
+none where I came from&mdash;and heard that demoniac shriek, and I verily
+believe I thought the evil one had come for me in person.  I know that
+I nearly fainted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That donkey was a discerning animal.  I think it knew when it first set
+eyes on us that we were not going to overwork it; and we didn't.  When,
+toward evening, we quit work, after narrowly escaping being killed by a
+large stone that fell from the roof in consequence of our neglect to
+brace it up properly, our united efforts had resulted in barely filling
+two of the little carts, and we had earned, if I recollect aright,
+something like sixty cents each.  The fall of the roof robbed us of all
+desire to try mining again.  It knocked the lamps from our hats, and,
+in darkness that could almost be felt, we groped our way back to the
+light along the track, getting more badly frightened as we went.  The
+last stretch of way we ran, holding each other's hands as though we
+were not men and miners, but two frightened children in the dark.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+[A short time later he learned of the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian
+War, and at once determined to enlist.]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+I reached New York with just one cent in my pocket, and put up at a
+boarding-house where the charge was one dollar a day.  In this no moral
+obliquity was involved.  I had simply reached the goal for which I had
+sacrificed all, and felt sure that the French people or the Danish
+Consul would do the rest quickly.  But there was evidently something
+wrong somewhere.  The Danish Consul could only register my demand to be
+returned to Denmark in the event of war.  They have my letter at the
+office yet, he tells me, and they will call me out with the reserves.
+The French were fitting out no volunteer army that I could get on the
+track of, and nobody was paying the passage of fighting men.  The end
+of it was that, after pawning my revolver and my top-boots, the only
+valuable possessions I had left, to pay for my lodging, I was thrown on
+the street, and told to come back when I had more money.  That night I
+wandered about New York with a gripsack that had only a linen duster
+and a pair of socks in it, turning over in my mind what to do next.
+Toward midnight I passed a house in Clinton Place that was lighted up
+festively.  Laughter and the hum of many voices came from within.  I
+listened.  They spoke French.  A society of Frenchmen having their
+annual dinner, the watchman in the block told me.  There at last was my
+chance.  I went up the steps and rang the bell.  A flunkey in a
+dress-suit opened, but when he saw that I was not a guest, but to all
+appearances a tramp, he tried to put me out.  I, on my part, tried to
+explain.  There was an altercation and two gentlemen of the society
+appeared.  They listened impatiently to what I had to say, then,
+without a word, thrust me into the street, and slammed the door in my
+face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was too much.  Inwardly raging, I shook the dust of the city from my
+feet and took the most direct route out of it, straight up Third
+Avenue.  I walked till the stars in the east began to pale, and then
+climbed into a wagon that stood at the curb, to sleep.  I did not
+notice that it was a milk-wagon.  The sun had not risen yet when the
+driver came, unceremoniously dragged me out by the feet, and dumped me
+into the gutter.  On I went with my gripsack, straight ahead, until
+toward noon I reached Fordham College, famished and footsore.  I had
+eaten nothing since the previous day, and had vainly tried to make a
+bath in the Bronx River do for breakfast.  Not yet could I cheat my
+stomach that way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The college gates were open, and I strolled wearily in, without aim or
+purpose.  On a lawn some young men were engaged in athletic exercises,
+and I stopped to look and admire the beautiful shade-trees and the
+imposing building.  So at least it seems to me at this distance.  An
+old monk in a cowl, whose noble face I sometimes recall in my dreams,
+came over and asked kindly if I was not hungry.  I was in all
+conscience fearfully hungry, and I said so, though I did not mean to.
+I had never seen a real live monk before, and my Lutheran training had
+not exactly inclined me in their favor.  I ate of the food set before
+me, not without qualms of conscience, and with a secret suspicion that
+I would next be asked to abjure my faith, or at least do homage to the
+Virgin Mary, which I was firmly resolved not to do.  But when, the meal
+finished, I was sent on my way with enough to do me for supper, without
+the least allusion having been made to my soul, I felt heartily ashamed
+of myself.  I am just as good a Protestant as I ever was.  Among my own
+I am a kind of heretic even, because I cannot put up with the apostolic
+succession; but I have no quarrel with the excellent charities of the
+Roman Church, or with the noble spirit that animated them.  I learned
+that lesson at Fordham thirty years ago.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Up the railroad track I went, and at night hired out to a truck-farmer,
+with the freedom of his hay-mow for my sleeping quarters.  But when I
+had hoed cucumbers three days in a scorching sun, till my back ached as
+if it were going to break, and the farmer guessed that he would call it
+square for three shillings, I went farther.  A man is not necessarily a
+philanthropist, it seems, because he tills the soil.  I did not hire
+out again.  I did odd jobs to earn my meals, and slept in the fields at
+night, still turning over in my mind how to get across the sea.  An
+incident of those wanderings comes to mind while I am writing.  They
+were carting in hay, and when night came on, somewhere about Mount
+Vernon, I gathered an armful of wisps that had fallen from the loads,
+and made a bed for myself in a wagon-shed by the roadside.  In the
+middle of the night I was awakened by a loud outcry.  A fierce light
+shone in my face.  It was the lamp of a carriage that had been driven
+into the shed.  I was lying between the horse's feet unhurt.  A
+gentleman sprang from the carriage, more frightened than I, and bent
+over me.  When he found that I had suffered no injury, he put his hand
+in his pocket and held out a silver quarter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go," he said, "and drink it up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Drink it up yourself!" I shouted angrily.  "What do you take me for?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were rather high heroics, seeing where I was, but he saw nothing
+to laugh at.  He looked earnestly at me for a moment, then held out his
+hand and shook mine heartily.  "I believe you," he said; "yet you need
+it, or you would not sleep here.  Now will you take it from me?"  And I
+took the money.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next day it rained, and the next day after that, and I footed it
+back to the city, still on my vain quest.  A quarter is not a great
+capital to subsist on in New York when one is not a beggar and has no
+friends.  Two days of it drove me out again to find at least the food
+to keep me alive; but in those two days I met the man who, long years
+after, was to be my honored chief, Charles A. Dana, the editor of the
+<I>Sun</I>.  There had been an item in the <I>Sun</I> about a volunteer regiment
+being fitted out for France.  I went up to the office, and was admitted
+to Mr. Dana's presence.  I fancy I must have appealed to his sense of
+the ludicrous, dressed in top-boots and a linen duster much the worse
+for wear, and demanding to be sent out to fight.  He knew nothing about
+recruiting.  Was I French?  No, Danish; it had been in his paper about
+the regiment.  He smiled a little at my faith, and said editors
+sometimes did not know about everything that was in their papers.  I
+turned to go, grievously disappointed, but he called me back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you," he said, looking searchingly at me; "have you had your
+breakfast?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No, God knows that I did not; neither that day nor for many days
+before.  That was one of the things I had at last learned to consider
+among the superfluities of an effete civilization.  I suppose I had no
+need of telling it to him, for it was plain to read in my face.  He put
+his hand in his pocket and pulled out a dollar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There," he said, "go and get your breakfast; and better give up the
+war."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Give up the war! and for a breakfast.  I spurned the dollar hotly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I came here to enlist, not to beg money for breakfast," I said, and
+strode out of the office, my head in the air, but my stomach crying out
+miserably in rebellion against my pride.  I revenged myself upon it by
+leaving my top-boots with the "uncle," who was my only friend and
+relative here, and filling my stomach upon the proceeds.  I had one
+good dinner, anyhow, for when I got through there was only twenty-five
+cents left of the dollar I borrowed upon my last article of "dress."
+That I paid for a ticket to Perth Amboy, near which place I found work
+in Pfeiffer's clay-bank.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Pfeiffer was a German, but his wife was Irish and so were his hands,
+all except a giant Norwegian and myself.  The third day was Sunday, and
+was devoted to drinking much beer, which Pfeiffer, with an eye to
+business, furnished on the premises.  When they were drunk, the tribe
+turned upon the Norwegian, and threw him out.  It seems that this was a
+regular weekly occurrence.  Me they fired out at the same time, but
+afterward paid no attention to me.  The whole crew of them perched on
+the Norwegian and belabored him with broomsticks and balesticks until
+they roused the sleeping Berserk in him.  As I was coming to his
+relief, I saw the human heap heave and rock.  From under it arose the
+enraged giant, tossed his tormentors aside as if they were so much
+chaff, battered down the door of the house in which they took refuge,
+and threw them all, Mrs. Pfeiffer included, through the window.  They
+were not hurt, and within two hours they were drinking more beer
+together and swearing at one another endearingly.  I concluded that I
+had better go on, though Mr. Pfeiffer regretted that he never paid his
+hands in the middle of the month.  It appeared afterward that he
+objected likewise to paying them at the end of the month, or at the
+beginning of the next.  He owes me two days' wages yet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At sunset on the second day after my desertion of Pfeiffer I walked
+across a footbridge into a city with many spires, in one of which a
+chime of bells rang out a familiar tune.  The city was New Brunswick.
+I turned down a side street where two stone churches stood side by
+side.  A gate in the picket fence had been left open, and I went in
+looking for a place to sleep.  Back in the churchyard I found what I
+sought in the brownstone slab covering the tomb of, I know now, an old
+pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church, who died full of wisdom and grace.
+I am afraid that I was not over-burdened with either, or I might have
+gone to bed with a full stomach, too, instead of chewing the last of
+the windfall apples that had been my diet on my two days' trip; but if
+he slept as peacefully under the slab as I slept on it, he was doing
+well.  I had for once a dry bed, and brownstone keeps warm long after
+the sun has set.  The night dews and the snakes, and the dogs that kept
+sniffing and growling half the night in the near distance, had made me
+tired of sleeping in the fields.  The dead were much better company.
+They minded their own business, and let a fellow alone.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+[He found no employment in New Brunswick and after six weeks in a
+neighboring brickyard he returned to New York, to be again disappointed
+in an effort to enlist.]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The city was full of idle men.  My last hope, a promise of employment
+in a human-hair factory, failed, and, homeless and penniless, I joined
+the great army of tramps, wandering about the streets in the daytime
+with the one aim of somehow stilling the hunger that gnawed at my
+vitals, and fighting at night with vagrant curs or outcasts as
+miserable as myself for the protection of some sheltering ash-bin or
+doorway.  I was too proud in all my misery to beg.  I do not believe I
+ever did.  But I remember well a basement window at the downtown
+Delmonico's, the silent appearance of my ravenous face at which, at a
+certain hour in the evening, always evoked a generous supply of
+meat-bones and rolls from a white-capped cook who spoke French.  That
+was the saving clause.  I accepted his rolls as installment of the debt
+his country owed me, or ought to owe me, for my unavailing efforts in
+its behalf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was under such auspices that I made the acquaintance of Mulberry
+Bend, the Five Points, and the rest of the slums, with which there was
+in the years to come to be a reckoning.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was until last winter a doorway in Chatham Square, that of the
+old Barnum clothing store, which I could never pass without recalling
+those nights of hopeless misery with the policeman's periodic "Get up
+there!  Move on!" reinforced by a prod of his club or the toe of his
+boot.  I slept there, or tried to, when crowded out of the tenements in
+the Bend by their utter nastiness.  Cold and wet weather had set in,
+and a linen duster was all that covered my back.  There was a woollen
+blanket in my trunk which I had from home&mdash;the one, my mother had told
+me, in which I was wrapped when I was born; but the trunk was in the
+"hotel" as security for money I owed for board, and I asked for it in
+vain.  I was now too shabby to get work, even if there had been any to
+get.  I had letters still to friends of my family in New York who might
+have helped me, but hunger and want had not conquered my pride.  I
+would come to them, if at all, as their equal, and, lest I fall into
+temptation, I destroyed the letters.  So, having burned my bridges
+behind me, I was finally and utterly alone in the city, with the winter
+approaching and every shivering night in the streets reminding me that
+a time was rapidly coming when such a life as I led could no longer be
+endured.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Not in a thousand years would I be likely to forget the night when it
+came.  It had rained all day, a cold October storm, and night found me,
+with the chill downpour unabated, down by the North River, soaked
+through and through, with no chance for a supper, forlorn and
+discouraged.  I sat on the bulwark, listening to the falling rain and
+the swish of the dark tide, and thinking of home.  How far it seemed,
+and how impassable the gulf now between the "castle" with its refined
+ways, between her in her dainty girlhood and me sitting there, numbed
+with the cold that was slowly stealing away my senses with my courage.
+There was warmth and cheer where she was.  Here&mdash;&mdash;  An overpowering
+sense of desolation came upon me.  I hitched a little nearer the edge.
+What if&mdash;&mdash;?  Would they miss me or long at home if no word came from
+me?  Perhaps they might never hear.  What was the use of keeping it up
+any longer with, God help us, everything against and nothing to back a
+lonely lad?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And even then the help came.  A wet and shivering body was pressed
+against mine, and I felt rather than heard a piteous whine in my ear.
+It was my companion in misery, a little outcast black-and-tan,
+afflicted with fits, that had shared the shelter of a friendly doorway
+with me one cold night and had clung to me ever since with a loyal
+affection that was the one bright spot in my hard life.  As my hand
+stole mechanically down to caress it, it crept upon my knees and licked
+my face, as if it meant to tell me that there was one who understood;
+that I was not alone.  And the love of the faithful little beast thawed
+the icicles in my heart.  I picked it up in my arms and fled from the
+tempter; fled to where there were lights and men moving, if they cared
+less for me than I for them&mdash;anywhere so that I saw and heard the river
+no more.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+[After a while he fell in with some Danish friends and there was a
+period of more prosperous times, including some experiences on the
+lecture platform.  Then came further adventures and finally]:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+I made up my mind to go into the newspaper business.  It seemed to me
+that a reporter's was the highest and noblest of all callings; no one
+could sift wrong from right as he, and punish the wrong.  In that I was
+right.  I have not changed my opinion on that point one whit, and I am
+sure I never shall.  The power of fact is the mightiest lever of this
+or of any day.  The reporter has his hand upon it, and it is his
+grievous fault if he does not use it well.  I thought I would make a
+good reporter.  My father had edited our local newspaper, and such
+little help as I had been of to him had given me a taste for the
+business.  Being of that mind, I went to the <I>Courier</I> office one
+morning and asked for the editor.  He was not in.  Apparently nobody
+was.  I wandered through room after room, all empty, till at last I
+came to one in which sat a man with a paste-pot and a pair of long
+shears.  This must be the editor; he had the implements of his trade.
+I told him my errand while he clipped away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is it you want?" he asked, when I had ceased speaking and waited
+for an answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Work," I said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Work!" said he, waving me haughtily away with the shears; "we don't
+work here.  This is a newspaper office."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I went, abashed.  I tried the <I>Express</I> next.  This time I had the
+editor pointed out to me.  He was just coming through the business
+office.  At the door I stopped him and preferred my request.  He looked
+me over, a lad fresh from the shipyard, with horny hands and a rough
+coat, and asked:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What are you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A carpenter," I said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man turned upon his heel with a loud, rasping laugh and shut the
+door in my face.  For a moment I stood there stunned.  His ascending
+steps on the stairs brought back my senses.  I ran to the door, and
+flung it open.  "You laugh!" I shouted, shaking my fist at him,
+standing halfway up the stairs; "you laugh now, but wait&mdash;&mdash;"  And then
+I got the grip of my temper and slammed the door in my turn.  All the
+same, in that hour it was settled that I was to be a reporter.  I knew
+it as I went out into the street.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With a dim idea of being sent into the farthest wilds as an operator, I
+went to a business college on Fourth Avenue and paid $20 to learn
+telegraphing.  It was the last money I had.  I attended the school in
+the afternoon.  In the morning I peddled flat-irons, earning money for
+my board, and so made out.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+[But there came again a season of hard times for him and the
+Newfoundland dog some one had given him, and he had some unhappy
+experiences as a book agent].
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+It was not only breakfast we lacked.  The day before we had had only a
+crust together.  Two days without food is not good preparation for a
+day's canvassing.  We did the best we could.  Bob stood by and wagged
+his tail persuasively while I did the talking; but luck was dead
+against us, and "Hard Times" stuck to us for all we tried.  Evening
+came and found us down by the Cooper Institute, with never a cent.
+Faint with hunger, I sat down on the steps under the illuminated clock,
+while Bob stretched himself at my feet.  He had beguiled the cook in
+one of the last houses we called at, and his stomach was filled.  From
+the corner I had looked on enviously.  For me there was no supper, as
+there had been no dinner and no breakfast.  To-morrow there was another
+day of starvation.  How long was this to last?  Was it any use to keep
+up a struggle so hopeless?  From this very spot I had gone, hungry and
+wrathful, three years before when the dining Frenchmen for whom I
+wanted to fight thrust me forth from their company.  Three wasted
+years!  Then I had one cent in my pocket, I remembered.  To-day I had
+not even so much.  I was bankrupt in hope and purpose.  Nothing had
+gone right; nothing would ever go right; and worse, I did not care.  I
+drummed moodily upon my book.  Wasted!  Yes, that was right.  My life
+was wasted, utterly wasted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A voice hailed me by name, and Bob sat up, looking attentively at me
+for his cue as to the treatment of the owner of it.  I recognized in
+him the principal of the telegraph school where I had gone until my
+money gave out.  He seemed suddenly struck by something.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, what are you doing here?" he asked.  I told him Bob and I were
+just resting after a day of canvassing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Books!" he snorted.  "I guess they won't make you rich.  Now, how
+would you like to be a reporter, if you have got nothing better to do?
+The manager of a news agency downtown asked me to-day to find him a
+bright young fellow whom he could break in.  It isn't much&mdash;$10 a week
+to start with.  But it is better than peddling books, I know."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He poked over the book in my hand and read the title.  "Hard Times," he
+said, with a little laugh.  "I guess so.  What do you say?  I think you
+will do.  Better come along and let me give you a note to him now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As in a dream, I walked across the street with him to his office and
+got the letter which was to make me, half-starved and homeless, rich as
+Croesus, it seemed to me.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the sun rose, I washed my face and hands in a dog's drinking
+trough, pulled my clothes into such shape as I could, and went with Bob
+to his new home.  That parting over, I walked down to 23 Park Row and
+delivered my letter to the desk editor in the New York News
+Association, up on the top floor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He looked me over a little doubtfully, but evidently impressed with the
+early hours I kept, told me that I might try.  He waved me to a desk,
+bidding me wait until he had made out his morning book of assignments;
+and with such scant ceremony was I finally introduced to Newspaper Row,
+that had been to me like an enchanted land.  After twenty-seven years
+of hard work in it, during which I have been behind the scenes of most
+of the plays that go to make up the sum of the life of the metropolis,
+it exercises the old spell over me yet.  If my sympathies need
+quickening, my point of view adjusting, I have only to go down to Park
+Row at eventide, when the crowds are hurrying homeward and the City
+Hall clock is lighted, particularly when the snow lies on the grass in
+the park, and stand watching them a while, to find all things coming
+right.  It is Bob who stands by and watches with me then, as on that
+night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The assignment that fell to my lot when the book was made out, the
+first against which my name was written in a New York editor's book,
+was a lunch of some sort at the Astor House.  I have forgotten what was
+the special occasion.  I remember the bearskin hats of the Old Guard in
+it, but little else.  In a kind of haze I beheld half the savory viands
+of earth spread under the eyes and nostrils of a man who had not tasted
+food for the third day.  I did not ask for any.  I had reached that
+stage of starvation that is like the still centre of a cyclone, when no
+hunger is left.  But it may be that a touch of it all crept into my
+report; for when the editor had read it, he said briefly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will do.  Take that desk, and report at ten every morning, sharp."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That night, when I was dismissed from the office, I went up the Bowery
+to No. 185, where a Danish family kept a boarding-house up under the
+roof.  I had work and wages now, and could pay.  On the stairs I fell
+in a swoon and lay there till some one stumbled over me in the dark and
+carried me in.  My strength had at last given out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So began my life as a newspaper man.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap09"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+WILLIAM H. RIDEING
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+(1853-____)
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+REJECTED MANUSCRIPTS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Nowadays, it seems, every one reads, also writes.  There are few
+streets where the callous postman does not occasionally render some
+doorstep desolate by the delivery of a rejected manuscript.  Fellow
+feeling makes us wondrous kind, and the first steps in the career of a
+successful man of letters are always interesting.  You remember how
+Franklin slyly dropped his first contribution through the slit in his
+brother's printing-house door; and how the young Charles Dickens crept
+softly to the letter-box up a dark court, off a dark alley, near Fleet
+Street.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the case of Mr. Rideing, all must admire and be thankful for the
+indomitable spirit which disappointments were unable to discourage.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+From "Many Celebrities and a Few Others," by William H. Rideing.
+Doubleday, Page &amp; Co., 1913.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I do not know to a certainty just how or when the new ambition found
+its cranny and sprouted, and I wonder that it did not perish at once,
+like others of its kind which never blossoming were torn from the bed
+that nourished them and borne afar like balls of thistledown.  How and
+why it survived the rest, which seemed more feasible, I am not able to
+answer fully or satisfactorily to myself, and other people have yet to
+show any curiosity about it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+How at this period I watched for the postman!  Envelopes of portentous
+bulk were put into my hands so often that I became inured to
+disappointment, unsurprised and unhurt, like a patient father who has
+more faith in the abilities of his children than the stupid and
+purblind world which will not employ them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+These rejected essays and tales were my children, and the embarrassing
+number of them did not curb my philoprogenitiveness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dawn broke unheeded and without reproach to the novice as he sat by
+candle-light at his table giving shape and utterance to dreams which
+did not foretell penalties, nor allow any intimation to reach him of
+the disillusionings sure to come, sharp-edged and poignant, with the
+awakening day.  The rocky coast of realities, with its shoals and
+whirlpools, which encircles the sphere of dreams, is never visible till
+the sun is high.  You are not awake till you strike it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Up and dressed, careless of breakfast, he hears the postman's knock.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There is Something for the boy, which at a glance instantly dispels the
+clouds of his drowsiness and makes his heart jump: an envelope not
+bulky, an envelope whose contents tremble in his hand and grow dim in
+his eyes, and have to be read and read again before they can be
+believed.  One of his stories has at last found a place and will be
+printed next month!  Life may bestow on us its highest honours, and
+wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, the guerdon of a glorious lot, but
+it can never transcend or repeat the thrill and ecstasy of the
+triumphant apotheosis of such a moment as that.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a fairy story, and though nobody could have suspected it, the
+fairy queen was Miss Goodall, much diminished in stature, of course,
+with all her indubitable excellencies, her nobility of character, and
+her beauty of person sublimated to an essence that only a Lilliputian
+vessel could hold.  Her instincts were domestic, and her domain was the
+hearthstone, and there she and her attendants, miniatures of the
+charming damsels in Miss McGinty's peachy and strawberry-legged <I>corps
+de ballet</I>, rewarded virtue and trampled meanness under their dainty,
+twinkling feet.  Moreover, the story was to be paid for, a condition of
+the greater glory, an irrefragable proof of merit.  Only as evidence of
+worth was money thought of, and though much needed, it alone was
+lightly regarded.  The amount turned out to be very small.  The editor
+handed it out of his trousers pocket&mdash;not the golden guinea looked for,
+but a few shillings.  He must have detected a little disappointment in
+the drooping corners of the boy's mouth, for without any remark from
+him he said&mdash;he was a dingy and inscrutable person&mdash;"That is all we
+ever pay&mdash;four shillings per <I>colyume</I>," pronouncing the second
+syllable of that word like the second syllable of "volume."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What did the amount matter to the boy?  A paper moist and warm from the
+press was in his hands, and as he walked home through sleet and snow
+and wind&mdash;the weather of the old sea-port was in one of its
+tantrums&mdash;he stopped time and again to look at his name, his very own
+name, shining there in letters as lustrous as the stars of heaven.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When that little story of mine appeared in all the glory of print, Fame
+stood at my door, a daughter of the stars in such array that it blinded
+one to look at her.  She has never come near me since, and I have
+changed my opinion of her: a beguiling minx, with little taste or
+judgment, and more than her share of feminine lightness and caprice; an
+unconscionable flirt, that is all she is.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I came to New York, and peeped into the doors of the <I>Tribune</I>, the
+<I>World</I>, the <I>Times</I>, and the <I>Sun</I> with all the reverence that a
+Moslem may feel when he beholds Mecca.  ...
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was in the August of a bounteous year of fruit.  The smell of
+peaches and grapes piled in barrows and barrels scented the air, as it
+scents the memory still.  The odour of a peach brings back to me all
+the magic-lantern impressions of a stranger&mdash;memories of dazzling,
+dancing, tropical light, bustle, babble, and gayety; they made me feel
+that I had never been alive before, and the people of the old seaport,
+active as I had thought them, became in a bewildered retrospect as slow
+and quiet as snails.  But far sweeter to me than the fragrance of
+peaches were the humid whiffs I breathed from the noisy press rooms in
+the Park Row basements, the smell of the printers' ink as it was
+received by the warm, moist rolls of paper in the whirring, clattering
+presses.  There was history in the making, destiny at her loom.
+Nothing ever expels it: if once a taste for it is acquired, it ties
+itself up with ineffaceable memories and longings, and even in
+retirement and changed scenes restores the eagerness and aspirations of
+the long-passed hour when it first came over us with a sort of
+intoxication.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I had no introduction and no experience and was prudent enough to
+foresee the rebuff that would surely follow a climb up the dusky but
+alluring editorial stairs and an application for employment in so
+exalted a profession by a boy of seventeen.  I decided that I could use
+more persuasion and gain a point in hiding my youth, which was a menace
+to me, by writing letters, and so I plunged through the post on Horace
+Greeley, on L. J. Jennings, the brilliant, forgotten Englishman who
+then edited the <I>Times</I>, on Mr. Dana, and on the rest.  The astonishing
+thing of that time, as I look back on it, was my invulnerability to
+disappointments; I expected them and was prepared for them, and when
+they came they were as spurs and not as arrows nor as any deadly
+weapon.  They hardly caused a sigh except a sigh of relief from the
+chafing uncertainties of waiting, and instead of depressing they
+compelled advances in fresh directions which soon became exhilarating,
+advances upon which one started with stronger determination and fuller,
+not lessened, confidence.  O heart of Youth!  How unfluttered thy beat!
+How invincible thou art in thine own conceit!  What gift of heaven or
+earth can compare with thy supernal faith!  "No matter how small the
+cage the bird will sing if it has a voice."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Had my letters been thrown into the wastepaper basket, after an
+impatient glance by the recipients, I should not have been surprised or
+more than a little nettled; but I received answers not encouraging from
+both Horace Greeley and Mr. Dana.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Greeley was brief and final, but Mr. Dana, writing in his own hand
+(how friendly it was of him!), qualified an impulse to encourage with a
+tag for self-protection.  "Your letter does you credit," he wrote.
+Those five words put me on the threshold of my goal.  "Your letter does
+you credit, and I shall be glad to hear from you again&mdash;&mdash;"  A door
+opened, and a flood of light and warmth from behind it enveloped me as
+in a gown of eiderdown.  "I shall be glad to hear from you again three
+or four years from now!"  The door slammed in my face, the gown slipped
+off, and left me with a chill.  But I did not accuse Mr. Dana of
+deliberately hurting me or think that he surmised how a polite evasion
+of that sort may without forethought be more cruel than the coldest and
+most abrupt negative.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I went farther afield, despatching my letters to Chicago, Philadelphia,
+Boston, and Springfield.  In Philadelphia there was a little paper
+called the <I>Day</I>, and this is what its editor wrote to me:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There are several vacancies in the editorial department, but there is
+one vacancy still worse on the ground floor, and the cashier is its
+much-harried victim.  You might come here, but you would starve to
+death, and saddle your friends with the expenses of a funeral."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A man with humour enough for that ought to have prospered, and I
+rejoiced to learn soon afterward that he (I think his name was Cobb)
+had been saved from his straits by an appointment to the United States
+Mint!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His jocularity did not shake my faith in the seriousness of journalism.
+I had not done laughing when I opened another letter written in a fine,
+crabbed hand like the scratching of a diamond on a window-pane, and as
+I slowly deciphered its contents I could hardly believe what I read.
+It was from Samuel Bowles the elder, editor of the Springfield
+<I>Republican</I>, then as now one of the sanest, most respected, and
+influential papers in the country.  He wanted a young man to relieve
+him of some of his drudgery, and I might come on at once to serve as
+his private secretary.  He did not doubt that I could be useful to him,
+and he was no less sure that he could be useful to me.  Moreover, my
+idea of salary, he said&mdash;it was modest, but forty dollars a
+month&mdash;"just fitted his."  He was one of the great men of his time when
+papers were strong or weak, potent in authority or negligible, in
+proportion to the personality of the individual controlling them.  He
+himself was the <I>Republican</I>, as Mr. Greeley was the <I>Tribune</I>, Mr.
+Bennett the <I>Herald</I>, Mr. Dana the <I>Sun</I>, Mr. Watterson the
+<I>Courier-Journal</I>, and Mr. Murat Halstead the Cincinnati <I>Commercial</I>,
+though, of course, like them, he tacitly hid himself behind the sacred
+and inviolable screen of anonymity, and none of them exercised greater
+power over the affairs of the nation than he, out of the centre, did
+from that charming New England town to which he invited me.  The
+opportunity was worth a premium, such as is paid by apprentices in
+England for training in ships and in merchants' and lawyers' offices;
+the salary seemed like the gratuity of a too liberal and chivalric
+employer, for no fees could procure from any vocational institution so
+many advantages as were to be freely had in association with him.  He
+instructed and inspired, and if he perceived ability and readiness in
+his pupil (this was my experience of him), he was as eager to encourage
+and improve him as any father could be with a son, looking not for the
+most he could take out of him in return for pay, but for the most he
+could put into him for his own benefit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Journalism to him was not the medium of haste, passion, prejudice, and
+faction.  He fully recognized all its responsibilities, and the need of
+meeting them and respecting them by other than casual, haphazard, and
+slipshod methods.  He was an economist of words, with an abhorrence of
+redundance and irrelevance; not only an economist of words, but also an
+economist of syllables, choosing always the fewer, and losing nothing
+of force or precision by that choice.  He had what was not less than a
+passion for brevity.  "What," he was asked, "makes a journalist?" and
+he replied: "A nose for news."  But with him the news had to be sifted,
+verified, and reduced to an essence, not inflated, distorted and
+garnished with all the verbal spoils of the reporter's last scamper
+through the dictionary.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+How sedate and prosperous Springfield looked to me when I arrived there
+on an early spring day!  How clean, orderly, leisurely, and respectable
+after the untidiness and explosive anarchy of New York!  I made for the
+river, as I always do wherever a river is, and watched it flowing down
+in the silver-gray light and catching bits of the rain-washed blue sky.
+The trees had lost the brittleness and sharpness of winter's drawing
+and their outlines were softening into greenish velvet.  In the
+coverts, arbutus crept out with a hawthorn-like fragrance from patches
+of lingering snow.  The main street leading into the town from the
+Massasoit House and the station also had an air of repose and dignity
+as if those who had business in it were not preoccupied by the frenzy
+for bargains, but had time and the inclination for loitering,
+politeness, and sociability.  That was in 1870, and I fear that
+Springfield must have lost some of its old-world simplicity and
+leisureliness since then.  I regret that I have never been in it since,
+though I have passed through it hundreds of times.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The office of the Republican was in keeping with its environment, an
+edifice of stone or brick not more than three or four stories high,
+neat, uncrowded, and quiet; very different from the newspaper offices
+of Park Row, with their hustle, litter, dust, and noise.  I met no one
+on my way upstairs to the editorial rooms, and quaked at the oppressive
+solemnity and detachment of it.  I wondered if people were observing me
+from the street and thought how much impressed they would be if they
+divined the importance of the person they were looking at, possibly
+another Tom Tower.  The vanity of youth is in the same measure as its
+valour; withdraw one, and the other droops.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now," said Mr. Bowles sharply, after a brusque greeting, "we'll see
+what you can do."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I was dubious of him in that first encounter.  He was crisp and quick
+in manner, clear-skinned, very spruce, and clear-eyed; his eyes
+appraised you in a glance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Take that and see how short you can make it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He handed me a column from one of the "exchanges," as the copies of
+other papers are called.  I spent half an hour at it, striking out
+repetitions and superfluous adjectives and knitting long sentences into
+brief ones.  Condensation is a fine thing, as Charles Reade once said,
+and to know how to condense judiciously, to get all the juice, without
+any of the rind or pulp, is as important to the journalist as a
+knowledge of anatomy to the figure painter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I went over it a second time before I handed it back to him as the best
+I could do.  I had plucked the fatted column to a lean quarter of that
+length, yet I trembled and sweated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Bah!" he cried, scoring it with a pencil, which sped as dexterously as
+a surgeon's knife.  "Read it now.  Have I omitted anything essential?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had not; only the verbiage had gone.  All that was worthy of
+preservation remained in what the printer calls a "stickful."  That was
+my first lesson in journalism.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap10"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+HELEN ADAMS KELLER
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+(1880-____)
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+HOW SHE LEARNED TO SPEAK
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+When nineteen months old Helen Keller was stricken with an illness
+which robbed her of both sight and hearing.  The infant that is blind
+and deaf is of course dumb also, for being unable to see or hear the
+speech of others, the child cannot learn to imitate it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Despite her enormous handicaps, Miss Keller to-day is a college
+graduate, a public speaker, and the author of several charming books.
+It need scarcely be explained that this miracle was not wrought by
+self-help alone.  But if she had not striven with all her might to
+respond to the efforts of her devoted teacher, Miss Keller would not
+to-day be mistress of the unusual talent for literary expression which
+makes her contributions sure of a welcome in the columns of the leading
+magazines.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+From "The Story of My Life," by Helen Keller.  Published by Doubleday,
+Page &amp; Co.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my
+teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me.  I am filled with wonder
+when I consider the immeasurable contrast between the two lives which
+it connects.  It was the third of March; 1887, three months before I
+was seven years old.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the afternoon of that eventful day I stood on the porch, dumb,
+expectant.  I guessed vaguely from my mother's signs and from the
+hurrying to and fro in the house that something unusual was about to
+happen, so I went to the door and waited on the steps.  The afternoon
+sun penetrated the mass of honeysuckle that covered the porch, and fell
+on my upturned face.  My fingers lingered almost unconsciously on the
+familiar leaves and blossoms which had just come forth to greet the
+sweet southern spring.  I did not know what the future held of marvel
+or surprise for me.  Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me
+continually for weeks, and a deep languor had succeeded this passionate
+struggle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a
+tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and
+anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and
+sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to
+happen?  I was like that ship before my education began, only I was
+without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near
+the harbour was.  "Light! give me light!" was the wordless cry of my
+soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I felt approaching footsteps.  I stretched out my hand as I supposed to
+my mother.  Some one took it, and I was caught up and held close in the
+arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me, and, more than all
+things else, to love me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The morning after my teacher came she led me into her room and gave me
+a doll.  The little blind children at the Perkins Institution had sent
+it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it; but I did not know this until
+afterward.  When I had played with it a little while, Miss Sullivan
+slowly spelled into my hand the word "d-o-l-l."  I was at once
+interested in this finger play and tried to imitate it.  When I finally
+succeeded in making the letters correctly I was flushed with childish
+pleasure and pride.  Running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand
+and made the letters for doll.  I did not know that I was spelling a
+word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in
+monkey-like imitation.  In the days that followed I learned to spell in
+this uncomprehending way a great many words, among them <I>pin</I>, <I>hat</I>,
+<I>cup</I>, and a few verbs like <I>sit</I>, <I>stand</I>, and <I>walk</I>.  But my teacher
+had been with me several weeks before I understood that everything has
+a name.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One day, while I was playing with my new doll, Miss Sullivan put my big
+rag doll into my lap also, spelled "d-o-l-l" and tried to make me
+understand that "d-o-l-l" applied to both.  Earlier in the day we had
+had a tussle over the words "m-u-g" and "w-a-t-e-r."  Miss Sullivan had
+tried to impress it upon me that "m-u-g" is mug and that "w-a-t-e-r" is
+<I>water</I>, but I persisted in confounding the two.  In despair she had
+dropped the subject for the time, only to renew it at the first
+opportunity.  I became impatient at her repeated attempts and, seizing
+the new doll, I dashed it upon the floor.  I was keenly delighted when
+I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my feet.  Neither sorrow nor
+regret followed my passionate outburst.  I had not loved the doll.  In
+the still, dark world in which I lived there was no strong sentiment or
+tenderness.  I felt my teacher sweep the fragments to one side of the
+hearth, and I had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of my
+discomfort was removed.  She brought me my hat, and I knew I was going
+out into the warm sunshine.  This thought, if a wordless sensation may
+be called a thought, made me hop and skip with pleasure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance
+of the honeysuckle with which it was covered.  Some one was drawing
+water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout.  As the cool
+stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water,
+first slowly, then rapidly.  I stood still, my whole attention fixed
+upon the motions of her fingers.  Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness
+as of something forgotten&mdash;a thrill of returning thought; and somehow
+the mystery of language was revealed to me.  I knew then that
+"w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my
+hand.  That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set
+it free!  There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that
+could in time be swept away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I left the well-house eager to learn.  Everything had a name, and each
+name gave birth to a new thought.  As we returned to the house every
+object which I touched seemed to quiver with life.  That was because I
+saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me.  On
+entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken.  I felt my way to
+the hearth and picked up the pieces.  I tried vainly to put them
+together.  Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had
+done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I learned a great many new words that day.  I do not remember what they
+all were; but I do know that <I>mother</I>, <I>father</I>, <I>sister</I>, <I>teacher</I>
+were among them&mdash;words that were to make the world blossom for me,
+"like Aaron's rod, with flowers."  It would have been difficult to find
+a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib at the close of that
+eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought me, and for the
+first time longed for a new day to come.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I had now the key to all language, and I was eager to learn to use it.
+Children who hear acquire language without any particular effort; the
+words that fall from others' lips they catch on the wing, as it were,
+delightedly, while the little deaf child must trap them by a slow and
+often painful process.  But whatever the process, the result is
+wonderful.  Gradually from naming an object we advance step by step
+until we have traversed the vast distance between our first stammered
+syllable and the sweep of thought in a line of Shakespeare.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At first, when my teacher told me about a new thing I asked very few
+questions.  My ideas were vague, and my vocabulary was inadequate; but
+as my knowledge of things grew, and I learned more and more words, my
+field of inquiry broadened, and I would return again and again to the
+same subject, eager for further information.  Sometimes a new word
+revived an image that some earlier experience had engraved on my brain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I remember the morning that I first asked the meaning of the word,
+"love."  This was before I knew many words.  I had found a few early
+violets in the garden and brought them to my teacher.  She tried to
+kiss me; but at that time I did not like to have any one kiss me except
+my mother.  Miss Sullivan put her arm gently round me and spelled into
+my hand, "I love Helen."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is love?" I asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She drew me closer to her and said, "It is here," pointing to my heart,
+whose beats I was conscious of for the first time.  Her words puzzled
+me very much because I did not then understand anything unless I
+touched it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I smelt the violets in her hand and asked, half in words, half in
+signs, a question which meant, "Is love the sweetness of flowers?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," said my teacher.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again I thought.  The warm sun was shining on us.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is this not love?" I asked, pointing in the direction from which the
+heat came, "Is this not love?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It seemed to me that there could be nothing more beautiful than the
+sun, whose warmth makes all things grow.  But Miss Sullivan shook her
+head, and I was greatly puzzled and disappointed.  I thought it strange
+that my teacher could not show me love.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A day or two afterward I was stringing beads of different sizes in
+symmetrical groups&mdash;two large beads, three small ones, and so on.  I
+had made many mistakes, and Miss Sullivan had pointed them out again
+and again with gentle patience.  Finally I noticed a very obvious error
+in the sequence and for an instant I concentrated my attention on the
+lesson and tried to think how I should have arranged the beads.  Miss
+Sullivan touched my forehead and spelled with decided emphasis, "Think."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a flash I knew that the word was the name of the process that was
+going on in my head.  This was my first conscious perception of an
+abstract idea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a long time I was still&mdash;I was not thinking of the beads in my lap,
+but trying to find a meaning for "love" in the light of this new idea.
+The sun had been under a cloud all day, and there had been brief
+showers; but suddenly the sun broke forth in all its southern splendour.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again I asked my teacher, "Is this not love?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Love is something like the clouds that were in the sky before the sun
+came out," she replied.  Then in simpler words than these, which at
+that time I could not have understood, she explained: "You cannot touch
+the clouds, you know; but you feel the rain and know how glad the
+flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it after a hot day.  You
+cannot touch love either; but you feel the sweetness that it pours into
+everything.  Without love you would not be happy or want to play."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The beautiful truth burst upon my mind&mdash;I felt that there were
+invisible lines stretched between my spirit and the spirits of others.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From the beginning of my education Miss Sullivan made it a practice to
+speak to me as she would speak to any hearing child; the only
+difference was that she spelled the sentences into my hand instead of
+speaking them.  If I did not know the words and idioms necessary to
+express my thoughts she supplied them, even suggesting conversation
+when I was unable to keep up my end of the dialogue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This process was continued for several years; for the deaf child does
+not learn in a month, or even in two or three years, the numberless
+idioms and expressions used in the simplest daily intercourse.  The
+little hearing child learns these from constant repetition and
+imitation.  The conversation he hears in his home stimulates his mind
+and suggests topics and calls forth the spontaneous expression of his
+own thoughts.  This natural exchange of ideas is denied to the deaf
+child.  My teacher, realizing this, determined to supply the kinds of
+stimulus I lacked.  This she did by repeating to me as far as possible,
+verbatim, what she heard, and by showing me how I could take part in
+the conversation.  But it was a long time before I ventured to take the
+initiative, and still longer before I could find something appropriate
+to say at the right time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next important step in my education was learning to read.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As soon as I could spell a few words my teacher gave me slips of
+cardboard on which were printed words in raised letters.  I quickly
+learned that each printed word stood for an object, an act, or a
+quality.  I had a frame in which I could arrange the words in little
+sentences; but before I ever put sentences in the frame I used to make
+them in objects.  I found the slips of paper which represented, for
+example, "doll," "is," "on," "bed" and placed each name on its object;
+then I put my doll on the bed with the words <I>is</I>, <I>on</I>, <I>bed</I> arranged
+beside the doll, thus making a sentence of the words, and at the same
+time carrying out the idea of the sentence with the things themselves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One day, Miss Sullivan tells me, I pinned the word <I>girl</I> on my
+pinafore and stood in the wardrobe.  On the shelf I arranged the words,
+<I>is</I>, <I>in</I>, <I>wardrobe</I>.  Nothing delighted me so much as this game.  My
+teacher and I played it for hours at a time.  Often everything in the
+room was arranged in object sentences.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From the printed slip it was but a step to the printed book.  I took my
+"Reader for Beginners" and hunted for the words I knew; when I found
+them my joy was like that of a game of hide-and-seek.  Thus I began to
+read.  Of the time when I began to read connected stories I shall speak
+later.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a long time I had no regular lessons.  Even when I studied most
+earnestly it seemed more like play than work.  Everything Miss Sullivan
+taught me she illustrated by a beautiful story or a poem.  Whenever
+anything delighted or interested me she talked it over with me just as
+if she were a little girl herself.  What many children think of with
+dread, as a painful plodding through grammar, hard sums and harder
+definitions, is to-day one of my most precious memories.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I cannot explain the peculiar sympathy Miss Sullivan had with my
+pleasures and desires.  Perhaps it was the result of long association
+with the blind.  Added to this she had a wonderful faculty for
+description.  She went quickly over uninteresting details, and never
+nagged me with questions to see if I remembered the
+day-before-yesterday's lesson.  She introduced dry technicalities of
+science little by little, making every subject so real that I could not
+help remembering what she taught.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We read and studied out of doors, preferring the sunlit woods to the
+house.  All my early lessons have in them the breath of the woods&mdash;the
+fine, resinous odour of pine needles, blended with the perfume of wild
+grapes.  Seated in the gracious shade of a wild tulip tree, I learned
+to think that everything has a lesson and a suggestion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Our favourite walk was to Keller's Landing, an old tumble-down
+lumber-wharf on the Tennessee River, used during the Civil War to land
+soldiers.  There we spent many happy hours and played at learning
+geography.  I built dams of pebbles, made islands and lakes, and dug
+river-beds, all for fun, and never dreamed that I was learning a
+lesson.  I listened with increasing wonder to Miss Sullivan's
+descriptions of the great round world with its burning mountains,
+buried cities, moving rivers of ice, and many other things as strange.
+She made raised maps in clay, so that I could feel the mountain ridges
+and valleys, and follow with my fingers the devious course of rivers.
+I liked this, too; but the division of the earth into zones and poles
+confused and teased my mind.  The illustrative strings and the orange
+stick representing the poles seemed so real that even to this day the
+mere mention of temperate zone suggests a series of twine circles; and
+I believe that if any one should set about it he could convince me that
+white bears actually climb the North Pole.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Arithmetic seems to have been the only study I did not like.  From the
+first I was not interested in the science of numbers.  Miss Sullivan
+tried to teach me to count by stringing beads in groups, and by
+arranging kindergarten straws I learned to add and subtract.  I never
+had patience to arrange more than five or six groups at a time.  When I
+had accomplished this my conscience was at rest for the day, and I went
+out quickly to find my playmates.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In this same leisurely manner I studied zoology and botany.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Once a gentleman, whose name I have forgotten, sent me a collection of
+fossils&mdash;tiny mollusk shells beautifully marked, and bits of sandstone
+with the print of birds' claws, and a lovely fern in bas-relief.  These
+were the keys which unlocked the treasures of the antediluvian world
+for me.  With trembling fingers I listened to Miss Sullivan's
+descriptions of the terrible beasts, with uncouth, unpronounceable
+names, which once went tramping through the primeval forests, tearing
+down the branches of gigantic trees for food, and died in the dismal
+swamps of an unknown age.  For a long time these strange creatures
+haunted my dreams, and this gloomy period formed a sombre background to
+the joyous Now, filled with sunshine and roses and echoing with the
+gentle beat of my pony's hoof.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another time a beautiful shell was given me, and with a child's
+surprise and delight I learned how a tiny mollusk had built the
+lustrous coil for his dwelling place, and how on still nights, when
+there is no breeze stirring the waves, the Nautilus sails on the blue
+waters of the Indian Ocean in his "ship of pearl."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was in the spring of 1890 that I learned to speak.  The impulse to
+utter audible sounds had always been strong within me.  I used to make
+noises, keeping one hand on my throat while the other hand felt the
+movements of my lips.  I was pleased with anything that made a noise
+and liked to feel the cat purr and the dog bark.  I also liked to keep
+my hand on a singer's throat, or on a piano when it was being played.
+Before I lost my sight and hearing, I was fast learning to talk, but
+after my illness it was found that I had ceased to speak because I
+could not hear.  I used to sit in my mother's lap all day long and keep
+my hands on her face because it amused me to feel the motions of her
+lips; and I moved my lips, too, although I had forgotten what talking
+was.  My friends say that I laughed and cried naturally, and for a
+while I made many sounds and word-elements, not because they were a
+means of communication, but because the need of exercising my vocal
+organs was imperative.  There was, however, one word the meaning of
+which I still remembered, water.  I pronounced it "wa-wa."  Even this
+became less and less intelligible until the time when Miss Sullivan
+began to teach me.  I stopped using it only after I had learned to
+spell the word on my fingers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I had known for a long time that the people about me used a method of
+communication different from mine; and even before I knew that a deaf
+child could be taught to speak, I was conscious of dissatisfaction with
+the means of communication I already possessed.  One who is entirely
+dependent upon the manual alphabet has always a sense of restraint, of
+narrowness.  This feeling began to agitate me with a vexing,
+forward-reaching sense of a lack that should be filled.  My thoughts
+would often rise and beat up like birds against the wind; and I
+persisted in using my lips and voice.  Friends tried to discourage this
+tendency, fearing lest it would lead to disappointment.  But I
+persisted, and an accident soon occurred which resulted in the breaking
+down of this great barrier&mdash;I heard the story of Ragnhild Kaata.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In 1890 Mrs. Lamson, who had been one of Laura Bridgman's teachers, and
+who had just returned from a visit to Norway and Sweden, came to see
+me, and told me of Ragnhild Kaata, a deaf and blind girl in Norway who
+had actually been taught to speak.  Mrs. Lamson had scarcely finished
+telling me about this girl's success before I was on fire with
+eagerness.  I resolved that I, too, would learn to speak.  I would not
+rest satisfied until my teacher took me, for advice and assistance, to
+Miss Sarah Fuller, principal of the Horace Mann School.  This lovely,
+sweet-natured lady offered to teach me herself, and we began the
+twenty-sixth of March, 1890.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Fuller's method was this: she passed my hand lightly over her
+face, and let me feel the position of her tongue and lips when she made
+a sound.  I was eager to imitate every motion, and in an hour had
+learned six elements of speech: M, P, A, S, T, I.  Miss Fuller gave me
+eleven lessons in all.  I shall never forget the surprise and delight I
+felt when I uttered my first connected sentence, "It is warm."  True,
+they were broken and stammering syllables; but they were human speech.
+My soul, conscious of new strength, came out of bondage, and was
+reaching through those broken symbols of speech to all knowledge and
+all faith.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No deaf child who has earnestly tried to speak the words which he has
+never heard&mdash;to come out of the prison of silence, where no tone of
+love, on song of bird, no strain of music ever pierces the
+stillness&mdash;can forget the thrill of surprise, the joy of discovery
+which came over him when he uttered his first word.  Only such a one
+can appreciate the eagerness with which I talked to my toys, to stones,
+trees, birds and dumb animals, or the delight I felt when at my call
+Mildred ran to me or my dogs obeyed my commands.  It is an unspeakable
+boon to me to be able to speak in winged words that need no
+interpretation.  As I talked, happy thoughts fluttered up out of my
+words that might perhaps have struggled in vain to escape my fingers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But it must not be supposed that I could really talk in this short
+time.  I had learned only the elements of speech.  Miss Fuller and Miss
+Sullivan could understand me, but most people would not have understood
+one word in a hundred.  Nor is it true that, after I had learned these
+elements, I did the rest of the work myself.  But for Miss Sullivan's
+genius, untiring perseverance and devotion, I could not have progressed
+as far as I have toward natural speech.  In the first place, I laboured
+night and day before I could be understood even by my most intimate
+friends; in the second place, I needed Miss Sullivan's assistance
+constantly in my efforts to articulate each sound clearly and to
+combine all sounds in a thousand ways.  Even now she calls my attention
+every day to mispronounced words.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All teachers of the deaf know what this means, and only they can at all
+appreciate the peculiar difficulties with which I had to contend.  In
+reading my teacher's lips I was wholly dependent on my fingers: I had
+to use the sense of touch in catching the vibrations of the throat, the
+movements of the mouth, and the expression of the face; and often this
+sense was at fault.  In such cases I was forced to repeat the words or
+sentences, sometimes for hours, until I felt the proper ring in my own
+voice.  My work was practice, practice, practice.  Discouragement and
+weariness cast me down frequently; but the next moment the thought that
+I should soon be at home and show my loved ones what I had
+accomplished, spurred me on, and I eagerly looked forward to their
+pleasure in my achievement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My little sister will understand me now," was a thought stronger than
+all obstacles.  I used to repeat ecstatically, "I am not dumb now."  I
+could not be despondent while I anticipated the delight of talking to
+my mother and reading her responses from her lips.  It astonished me to
+find how much easier it is to talk than to spell with the fingers, and
+I discarded the manual alphabet as a medium of communication on my
+part; but Miss Sullivan and a few friends still use it in speaking to
+me, for it is more convenient and more rapid than lip-reading.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Just here, perhaps, I had better explain our use of the manual
+alphabet, which seems to puzzle people who do not know us.  One who
+reads or talks to me spells with his hand, using the single-hand manual
+alphabet generally employed by the deaf.  I place my hand on the hand
+of the speaker so lightly as not to impede its movements.  The position
+of the hand is as easy to feel as it is to see.  I do not feel each
+letter any more than you see each letter separately when you read.
+Constant practice makes the fingers very flexible, and some of my
+friends spell rapidly&mdash;about as fast as an expert writes on a
+typewriter.  The mere spelling is, of course, no more a conscious act
+than it is in writing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When I had made speech my own, I could not wait to go home.  At last
+the happiest of happy moments arrived.  I had made my homeward journey,
+talking constantly to Miss Sullivan, not for the sake of talking, but
+determined to improve to the last minute.  Almost before I knew it, the
+train stopped at the Tuscumbia station, and there on the platform stood
+the whole family.  My eyes fill with tears now as I think how my mother
+pressed me close to her, speechless and trembling with delight, taking
+in every syllable that I spoke, while little Mildred seized my free
+hand and kissed it and danced, and my father expressed his pride and
+affection in a big silence.  It was as if Isaiah's prophecy had been
+fulfilled in me.  "The mountains and the hills shall break forth before
+you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their
+hands!"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+<hr class="full" noshade>
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES OF ACHIEVEMENT, VOLUME IV (OF 6)***</p>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6), by
+Various, Edited by Asa Don Dickinson
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6)
+       Authors and Journalists
+
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Asa Don Dickinson
+
+Release Date: June 15, 2006  [eBook #18598]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES OF ACHIEVEMENT, VOLUME IV
+(OF 6)***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustration.
+      See 18598-h.htm or 18598-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/5/9/18598/18598-h/18598-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/5/9/18598/18598-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+STORIES OF ACHIEVEMENT, VOLUME IV
+
+Authors and Journalists
+
+Edited by
+
+ASA DON DICKINSON
+
+Authors and Journalists
+
+ JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
+ ROBERT BURNS
+ CHARLOTTE BRONTE
+ CHARLES DICKENS
+ HORACE GREELEY
+ LOUISA M. ALCOTT
+ HENRY GEORGE
+ WILLIAM H. RIDEING
+ JACOB A. RIIS
+ HELEN KELLER
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: Robert Burns]
+
+
+
+
+
+Garden City ---- New York
+Doubleday, Page & Company
+1925
+Copyright, 1916, by
+Doubleday, Page & Company
+All Rights Reserved
+
+
+
+
+ACKNOWLEDGMENT
+
+In the preparation of this volume the publishers have received from
+several houses and authors generous permissions to reprint copyright
+material.  For this they wish to express their cordial gratitude.  In
+particular, acknowledgments are due to the Houghton Mifflin Company for
+permission to reprint the sketch of Horace Greeley; to Little, Brown &
+Co. for permission to reprint passages from "The Life, Letters, and
+Journals of Louisa May Alcott"; to Mr. Henry George, Jr., for the
+extract from his life of his father; to William H. Rideing for
+permission to reprint extracts from his book "Many Celebrities and a
+Few Others"; to the Macmillan Company for permission to use passages
+from "The Making of an American," by Jacob A. Riis; to Miss Helen
+Keller for permission to reprint from "The Story of My Life."
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+AUTHORS AND JOURNALISTS
+
+JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
+  The Man to Whom Expression was Travail
+
+ROBERT BURNS
+  The Ploughman-poet
+
+HORACE GREELEY
+  How the Farm-boy Became an Editor
+
+CHARLES DICKENS
+  The Factory Boy
+
+CHARLOTTE BRONTE
+  The Country Parson's Daughter
+
+LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
+  The Journal of a Brave and Talented Girl
+
+HENRY GEORGE
+  The Troubles of a Job Printer
+
+JACOB RIIS
+  "The Making of an American"
+
+WILLIAM H. RIDEING
+  Rejected Manuscripts
+
+HELEN ADAMS KELLER
+  How She Learned to Speak
+
+
+
+
+JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
+
+(1712-1778)
+
+THE MAN TO WHOM EXPRESSION WAS TRAVAIL
+
+From the "Confessions of Rousseau."
+
+It is strange to hear that those critics who spoke of Rousseau's
+"incomparable gift of expression," of his "easy, natural style," were
+ludicrously incorrect in their allusions.  From his "Confessions" we
+learn that he had no gift of clear, fluent expression; that he was by
+nature so incoherent that he could not creditably carry on an ordinary
+conversation; and that the ideas which stirred Europe, although
+spontaneously conceived, were brought forth and set before the world
+only after their progenitor had suffered the real pangs of labor.
+
+But after all it is the same old story over again.  Great things are
+rarely said or done easily.
+
+Two things very opposite unite in me, and in a manner which I cannot
+myself conceive.  My disposition is extremely ardent, my passions
+lively and impetuous, yet my ideas are produced slowly, with great
+embarrassment and after much afterthought.  It might be said my heart
+and understanding do not belong to the same individual.  A sentiment
+takes possession of my soul with the rapidity of lightning, but instead
+of illuminating, it dazzles and confounds me; I feel all, but see
+nothing; I am warm but stupid; to think I must be cool.  What is
+astonishing, my conception is clear and penetrating, if not hurried: I
+can make excellent impromptus at leisure, but on the instant could
+never say or do anything worth notice.  I could hold a tolerable
+conversation by the post, as they say the Spaniards play at chess, and
+when I read that anecdote of a duke of Savoy, who turned himself round,
+while on a journey, to cry out "_a votre gorge, marchand de Paris_!" I
+said, "Here is a trait of my character!"
+
+This slowness of thought, joined to vivacity of feeling, I am not only
+sensible of in conversation, but even alone.  When I write, my ideas
+are arranged with the utmost difficulty.  They glance on my imagination
+and ferment till they discompose, heat, and bring on a palpitation;
+during this state of agitation I see nothing properly, cannot write a
+single word, and must wait till all is over.  Insensibly the agitation
+subsides, the chaos acquires form, and each circumstance takes its
+proper place.  Have you never seen an opera in Italy where during the
+change of scene everything is in confusion, the decorations are
+intermingled, and any one would suppose that all would be overthrown;
+yet by little and little, everything is arranged, nothing appears
+wanting, and we feel surprised to see the tumult succeeded by the most
+delightful spectacle.  This is a resemblance of what passes in my brain
+when I attempt to write; had I always waited till that confusion was
+past, and then pointed, in their natural beauties, the objects that had
+presented themselves, few authors would have surpassed me.
+
+Thence arises the extreme difficulty I find in writing; my manuscripts,
+blotted, scratched, and scarcely legible, attest the trouble they cost
+me; nor is there one of them but I have been obliged to transcribe four
+or five times before it went to press.  Never could I do anything when
+placed at a table, pen in hand; it must be walking among the rocks, or
+in the woods; it is at night in my bed, during my wakeful hours, that I
+compose; it may be judged how slowly, particularly for a man who has
+not the advantage of verbal memory, and never in his life could retain
+by heart six verses.  Some of my periods I have turned and returned in
+my head five or six nights before they were fit to be put to paper:
+thus it is that I succeed better in works that require laborious
+attention than those that appear more trivial, such as letters, in
+which I could never succeed, and being obliged to write one is to me a
+serious punishment; nor can I express my thoughts on the most trivial
+subjects without it costing me hours of fatigue.  If I write
+immediately what strikes me, my letter is a long, confused, unconnected
+string of expressions, which, when read, can hardly be understood.
+
+It is not only painful to me to give language to my ideas but even to
+receive them.  I have studied mankind, and think myself a tolerable
+observer, yet I know nothing from what I see, but all from what I
+remember, nor have I understanding except in my recollections.  From
+all that is said, from all that passes in my presence, I feel nothing,
+conceive nothing, the exterior sign being all that strikes me;
+afterward it returns to my remembrance; I recollect the place, the
+time, the manner, the look, and gesture, not a circumstance escapes me;
+it is then, from what has been done or said, that I imagine what has
+been thought, and I have rarely found myself mistaken.
+
+So little master of my understanding when alone, let any one judge what
+I must be in conversation, where to speak with any degree of ease you
+must think of a thousand things at the same time: the bare idea that I
+should forget something material would be sufficient to intimidate me.
+Nor can I comprehend how people can have the confidence to converse in
+large companies, where each word must pass in review before so many,
+and where it would be requisite to know their several characters and
+histories to avoid saying what might give offence.  In this particular,
+those who frequent the world would have a great advantage, as they know
+better where to be silent, and can speak with greater confidence; yet
+even they sometimes let fall absurdities; in what predicament then must
+he be who drops as it were from the clouds?  It is almost impossible he
+should speak ten minutes with impunity.
+
+In a tete-a-tete there is a still worse inconvenience; that is, the
+necessity of talking perpetually, at least, the necessity of answering
+when spoken to, and keeping up the conversation when the other is
+silent.  This insupportable constraint is alone sufficient to disgust
+me with variety, for I cannot form an idea of a greater torment than
+being obliged to speak continually without time for recollection.  I
+know not whether it proceeds from my mortal hatred of all constraint;
+but if I am obliged to speak, I infallibly talk nonsense.  What is
+still worse, instead of learning how to be silent when I have
+absolutely nothing to say, it is generally at such times that I have a
+violent inclination; and, endeavoring to pay my debt of conversation as
+speedily as possible, I hastily gabble a number of words without ideas,
+happy when they only chance to mean nothing; thus endeavoring to
+conquer or hide my incapacity, I rarely fail to show it.
+
+I think I have said enough to show that, though not a fool, I have
+frequently passed for one, even among people capable of judging; this
+was the more vexatious, as my physiognomy and eyes promised otherwise,
+and expectation being frustrated, my stupidity appeared the more
+shocking.  This detail, which a particular occasion gave birth to, will
+not be useless in the sequel, being a key to many of my actions which
+might otherwise appear unaccountable; and have been attributed to a
+savage humor I do not possess.  I love society as much as any man, was
+I not certain to exhibit myself in it, not only disadvantageously, but
+totally different from what I really am.  The plan I have adopted of
+writing and retirement is what exactly suits me.  Had I been present,
+my worth would never have been known, no one would ever have suspected
+it; thus it was with Madam Dupin, a woman of sense, in whose house I
+lived for several years; indeed, she has often since owned it to me:
+though on the whole this rule may be subject to some exceptions. . . .
+
+The heat of the summer was this year (1749) excessive.  Vincennes is
+two leagues from Paris.  The state of my finances not permitting me to
+pay for hackney coaches, at two o'clock in the afternoon, I went on
+foot, when alone, and walked as fast as possible, that I might arrive
+the sooner.  The trees by the side of the road, always lopped,
+according to the custom of the country, afforded but little shade, and
+exhausted by fatigue, I frequently threw myself on the ground, being
+unable to proceed any farther.  I thought a book in my hand might make
+me moderate my pace.  One day I took the _Mercure de France_, and as I
+walked and read, I came to the following question proposed by the
+academy of Dijon, for the premium of the ensuing year: Has the progress
+of sciences and arts contributed to corrupt or purify morals?
+
+The moment I had read this, I seemed to behold another world, and
+became a different man.  Although I have a lively remembrance of the
+impression it made upon me, the detail has escaped my mind, since I
+communicated it to M. de Malesherbes in one of my four letters to him.
+This is one of the singularities of my memory which merits to be
+remarked.  It serves me in proportion to my dependence upon it; the
+moment I have committed to paper that with which it was charged, it
+forsakes me, and I have no sooner written a thing than I had forgotten
+it entirely.  This singularity is the same with respect to music.
+Before I learned the use of notes I knew a great number of songs; the
+moment I had made a sufficient progress to sing an air of art set to
+music, I could not recollect any one of them; and, at present, I much
+doubt whether I should be able entirely to go through one of those of
+which I was the most fond.  All I distinctly recollect upon this
+occasion is, that on my arrival at Vincennes, I was in an agitation
+which approached a delirium.  Diderot perceived it; I told him the
+cause, and read to him the prosopopoeia of Fabricius, written with a
+pencil under a tree.  He encouraged me to pursue my ideas, and to
+become a competitor for the premium.  I did so, and from that moment I
+was ruined.
+
+All the rest of my misfortunes during my life were the inevitable
+effect of this moment of error.
+
+My sentiments became elevated with the most inconceivable rapidity to
+the level of my ideas.  All my little passions were stifled by the
+enthusiasm of truth, liberty, and virtue; and, what is most
+astonishing, this effervescence continued in my mind upward of five
+years, to as great a degree, perhaps, as it has ever done in that of
+any other man.  I composed the discourse in a very singular manner, and
+in that style which I have always followed in my other works, I
+dedicated to it the hours of the night in which sleep deserted me; I
+meditated in my bed with my eyes closed, and in my mind turned over and
+over again my periods with incredible labor and care; the moment they
+were finished to my satisfaction, I deposited in my memory, until I had
+an opportunity of committing them to paper; but the time of rising and
+putting on my clothes made me lose everything, and when I took up my
+pen I recollected but little of what I had composed.  I made Madam le
+Vasseur my secretary; I had lodged her with her daughter and husband
+nearer to myself; and she, to save me the expense of a servant, came
+every morning to make my fire, and to do such other little things as
+were necessary.  As soon as she arrived I dictated to her while in bed
+what I had composed in the night, and this method, which for a long
+time I observed, preserved me many things I should otherwise have
+forgotten.
+
+As soon as the discourse was finished, I showed it to Diderot.  He was
+satisfied with the production, and pointed out some corrections he
+thought necessary to be made.  However, this composition, full of force
+and fire, absolutely wants logic and order; of all the works I ever
+wrote, this is the weakest in reasoning, and the most devoid of number
+and harmony.  With whatever talent a man may be born, the art of
+writing is not easily learned.
+
+I sent off this piece without mentioning it to anybody, except, I
+think, to Grimm.
+
+The year following (1750), not thinking more of my discourse, I learned
+it had gained the premium at Dijon.  This news awakened all the ideas
+which had dictated it to me, gave them new animation, and completed the
+fermentation of my heart of that first leaves of heroism and virtue
+which my father, my country, and Plutarch had inspired in my infancy.
+Nothing now appeared great in my eyes but to be free and virtuous,
+superior to fortune and opinion, and independent of all exterior
+circumstances; although a false shame, and the fear of disapprobation
+at first prevented me from conducting myself according to these
+principles, and from suddenly quarrelling with the maxims of the age in
+which I lived, I from that moment took a decided resolution to do
+it. . . .
+
+
+
+
+ROBERT BURNS
+
+(1759-1796)
+
+THE PLOUGHMAN-POET
+
+A note of pride in his humble origin rings throughout the following
+pages.  The ploughman poet was wiser in thought than in deed, and his
+life was not a happy one.  But, whatever his faults, he did his best
+with the one golden talent that Fate bestowed upon him.  Each book that
+he encountered was made to stand and deliver the message that it
+carried for him.  Sweethearting and good-fellowship were his bane, yet
+he won much good from his practice of the art of correspondence with
+sweethearts and boon companions.  And although Socrates was perhaps
+scarcely a name to him, he studied always to follow the Athenian's
+favourite maxim, _Know thyself_; realizing, with his elder brother of
+Warwickshire, that "the chiefest study of mankind is man."
+
+
+From an autobiographical sketch sent to Dr. Moore.
+
+[_To Dr. Moore_]
+
+MAUCHLINE, August 2, 1787.
+
+For some months past I have been rambling over the country, but I am
+now confined with some lingering complaints, originating, as I take it,
+in the stomach.  To divert my spirits a little in this miserable fog of
+ennui, I have taken a whim to give you a history of myself.  My name
+has made some little noise in this country; you have done me the honour
+to interest yourself very warmly in my behalf; and I think a faithful
+account of what character of a man I am, and how I came by that
+character, may perhaps amuse you in an idle moment.  I will give you an
+honest narrative, though I know it will be often at my own expense; for
+I assure you, sir, I have, like Solomon, whose character, excepting in
+the trifling affair of wisdom, I sometimes think I resemble--I have, I
+say, like him turned my eyes to behold madness and folly, and like him,
+too, frequently shaken hands with their intoxicating friendship.  After
+you have perused these pages, should you think them trifling and
+impertinent, I only beg leave to tell you that the poor author wrote
+them under some twitching qualms of conscience, arising from a
+suspicion that he was doing what he ought not to do; a predicament he
+has more than once been in before.
+
+I have not the most distant pretensions to assume that character which
+the pye-coated guardians of escutcheons call a gentleman.  When at
+Edinburgh last winter I got acquainted in the _Herald's_ office; and,
+looking through that granary of honors, I there found almost every name
+in the kingdom; but for me,
+
+      My ancient but ignoble blood
+  Has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood.
+
+Gules, purpure, argent, etc., quite disowned me.
+
+My father was of the north of Scotland, the son of a farmer, and was
+thrown by early misfortunes on the world at large; where, after many
+years' wanderings and sojournings, he picked up a pretty large quantity
+of observation and experience, to which I am indebted for most of my
+little pretensions to wisdom.  I have met with few who understood men,
+their manners and their ways, equal to him; but stubborn, ungainly
+integrity, and headlong, ungovernable irascibility, are disqualifying
+circumstances; consequently, I was born a very poor man's son.  For the
+first six or seven years of my life my father was gardener to a worthy
+gentleman of small estate in the neighbourhood of Ayr.  Had he
+continued in that station, I must have marched off to be one of the
+little underlings about a farmhouse; but it was his dearest wish and
+prayer to have it in his power to keep his children under his own eye
+till they could discern between good and evil; so with the assistance
+of his generous master, my father ventured on a small farm on his
+estate.
+
+At those years, I was by no means a favourite with anybody.  I was a
+good deal noted for a retentive memory, a stubborn, sturdy something in
+my disposition, and an enthusiastic, idiotic piety.  I say idiotic
+piety because I was then but a child.  Though it cost the schoolmaster
+some thrashings, I made an excellent English scholar; and by the time I
+was ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs,
+and particles.  In my infant and boyish days, too, I owe much to an old
+woman who resided in the family, remarkable for her ignorance,
+credulity, and superstition.  She had, I suppose, the largest
+collection in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts,
+fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles,
+dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers,
+dragons, and other trumpery.  This cultivated the latent seeds of
+poetry; but had so strong an effect on my imagination that to this hour
+in my nocturnal rambles I sometimes keep a sharp lookout in suspicious
+places; and though nobody can be more sceptical than I am in such
+matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these
+idle terrors.
+
+The earliest composition that I recollect taking pleasure in was "The
+Vision of Mirza," and a hymn of Addison's beginning, "How are thy
+servants blest, O Lord!"  I particularly remember one half-stanza which
+was music to my boyish ear--
+
+  For though on dreadful whirls we hung
+  High on the broken wave--
+
+I met with these pieces in Mason's English Collection, one of my
+schoolbooks.  The first two books I ever read in private, and which
+gave me more pleasure than any two books I ever read since, were "The
+Life of Hannibal" and "The History of Sir William Wallace."  Hannibal
+gave my young ideas such a turn that I used to strut in raptures up and
+down after the recruiting drum and bagpipe and wish myself tall enough
+to be a soldier; while the story of Wallace poured a Scottish prejudice
+into my veins, which will boil along there till the floodgates of life
+shut in eternal rest.
+
+Polemical divinity about this time was putting the country half mad,
+and I, ambitious of shining in conversation parties on Sundays, between
+sermons, at funerals, etc., used a few years afterward to puzzle
+Calvinism with so much heat and indiscretion that I raised a hue and
+cry of heresy against me, which has not ceased to this hour.
+
+My vicinity to Ayr was of some advantage to me.  My social disposition,
+when not checked by some modifications of spirited pride, was like our
+catechism definition of infinitude, without bounds or limits.  I formed
+several connections with other younkers, who possessed superior
+advantages; the youngling actors who were busy in the rehearsal of
+parts, in which they were shortly to appear on the stage of life,
+where, alas! I was destined to drudge behind the scenes.  It is not
+commonly at this green age that our young gentry have a just sense of
+the immense distance between them and their ragged playfellows.  It
+takes a few dashes into the world to give the young, great man that
+proper, decent, unnoticing disregard for the poor, insignificant,
+stupid devils, the mechanics and peasantry around him, who were,
+perhaps, born in the same village.  My young superiors never insulted
+the clouterly appearance of my plough-boy carcase, the two extremes of
+which were often exposed to all the inclemencies of all the seasons.
+They would give me stray volumes of books; among them, even then, I
+could pick up some observations, and one, whose heart, I am sure, not
+even the "Munny Begum" scenes have tainted, helped me to a little
+French.  Parting with these my young friends and benefactors, as they
+occasionally went off for the East or West Indies, was often to me a
+sore affliction; but I was soon called to more serious evils.  My
+father's generous master died, the farm proved a ruinous bargain; and
+to clench the misfortune, we fell into the hands of a factor, who sat
+for the picture I have drawn of one in my tale of "Twa Dogs."  My
+father was advanced in life when he married; I was the eldest of seven
+children, and he, worn out by early hardships, was unfit for labour.
+My father's spirit was soon irritated, but not easily broken.  There
+was a freedom in his lease in two years more, and to weather these two
+years, we retrenched our expenses.  We lived very poorly; I was a
+dexterous ploughman for my age; and the next eldest to me was a brother
+(Gilbert), who could drive the plough very well, and help me to thrash
+the corn.  A novel-writer might, perhaps, have viewed these scenes with
+some satisfaction, but so did not I; my indignation yet boils at the
+recollection of the scoundrel factor's insolent, threatening letters,
+which used to set us all in tears.
+
+This kind of life--the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with the unceasing
+moil of a galley slave, brought me to my sixteenth year; a little
+before which period I first committed the sin of rhyme.  You know our
+country custom of coupling a man and woman together as partners in the
+labours of harvest.  In my fifteenth autumn my partner was a bewitching
+creature, a year younger than myself.  My scarcity of English denies me
+the power of doing her justice in that language, but you know the
+Scottish idiom: she was a "bonnie, sweet, sonsie (engaging) lass."  In
+short, she, altogether unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that
+delicious passion, which, in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse
+prudence, and bookworm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human
+joys, our dearest blessing here below!  How she caught the contagion I
+cannot tell; you medical people talk much of infection from breathing
+the same air, the touch, etc., but I never expressly said I loved her.
+Indeed I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with
+her when returning in the evening from our labours; why the tones of
+her voice made my heartstrings thrill like an Aeolian harp; and
+particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ratan, when I looked and
+fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and
+thistles.  Among her other love-inspiring qualities, she sung sweetly;
+and it was her favourite reel to which I attempted giving an embodied
+vehicle in rhyme.  I was not so presumptuous as to imagine that I could
+make verses like printed ones, composed by men who had Greek and Latin;
+but my girl sung a song which was said to be composed by a small
+country laird's son, on one of his father's maids with whom he was in
+love; and I saw no reason why I might not rhyme as well as he; for,
+excepting that he could smear sheep, and cast peats, his father living
+in the moorlands, he had no more scholar-craft than myself.
+
+Thus with me began love and poetry, which at times have been my only,
+and till within the last twelve months have been my highest, enjoyment.
+My father struggled on till he reached the freedom in his lease, when
+he entered on a larger farm, about ten miles farther in the country.
+The nature of the bargain he made was such as to throw a little ready
+money into his hands at the commencement of his lease, otherwise the
+affair would have been impracticable.  For four years we lived
+comfortably here, but a difference commencing between him and his
+landlord as to terms, after three years' tossing and whirling in the
+vortex of litigation, my father was just saved from the horrors of a
+jail by a consumption which, after two years' promises, kindly stepped
+in, and carried him away, to where the wicked cease from troubling, and
+where the weary are at rest!
+
+It is during the time that we lived on this farm that my little story
+is most eventful.  I was, at the beginning of this period, perhaps the
+most ungainly, awkward boy in the parish--no hermit was less acquainted
+with the ways of the world.  What I knew of ancient story was gathered
+from Salmon's and Guthrie's Geographical Grammars; and the ideas I had
+formed of modern manners, of literature, and criticism, I got from the
+_Spectator_.  These, with Pope's Works, some Plays of Shakespeare,
+Tull, and Dickson on Agriculture, The "Pantheon," Locke's "Essay on the
+Human Understanding," Stackhouse's "History of the Bible," Justice's
+"British  Gardener's  Directory," Boyle's "Lectures," Allan Ramsay's
+Works, Taylor's "Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin," "A Select
+Collection of English Songs," and Hervey's "Meditations," had formed
+the whole of my reading.  The collection of songs was my companion, day
+and night.  I pored over them driving my cart, or walking to labour,
+song by song, verse by verse; carefully noting the true, tender, or
+sublime, from affectation and fustian.  I am convinced I owe to this
+practice much of my critic-craft, such as it is.
+
+In my seventeenth year, to give my manners a brush, I went to a country
+dancing-school.  My father had an unaccountable antipathy against these
+meetings, and my going was, what to this moment I repent, in opposition
+to his wishes.  My father, as I said before, was subject to strong
+passions; from that instance of disobedience in me he took a sort of
+dislike to me, which, I believe, was one cause of the dissipation which
+marked my succeeding years.  I say dissipation, comparatively with the
+strictness, and sobriety, and regularity of Presbyterian country life;
+for though the will-o'-wisp meteors of thoughtless whim were almost the
+sole lights of my path, yet early ingrained piety and virtue kept me
+for several years afterward within the line of innocence.  The great
+misfortune of my life was to want an aim.  I had felt early some
+stirrings of ambition, but they were the blind gropings of Homer's
+Cyclops round the walls of his cave.  I saw my father's situation
+entailed on me perpetual labour.  The only two openings by which I
+could enter the temple of fortune were the gate of niggardly economy or
+the path of little chicaning bargain-making.  The first is so
+contracted an aperture I never could squeeze myself into it; the last I
+always hated--there was contamination in the very entrance!  Thus
+abandoned of aim or view in life, with a strong appetite for
+sociability, as well from native hilarity as from a pride of
+observation and remark; a constitutional melancholy or hypochondriasm
+that made me fly solitude; add to these incentives to social life my
+reputation for bookish knowledge, a certain wild, logical talent, and a
+strength of thought, something like the rudiments of good sense; and it
+will not seem surprising that I was generally a welcome guest where I
+visited, or any great wonder that always, where two or three met
+together, there was I among them.  But far beyond all other impulses of
+my heart was a leaning toward the adorable half of humankind.  My heart
+was completely tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or
+other; and, as in every other warfare in this world, my fortune was
+various; sometimes I was received with favour, and sometimes I was
+mortified with a repulse.  At the plough, scythe, or reap-hook I feared
+no competitor, and thus I set absolute want at defiance; and as I never
+cared further for my labours than while I was in actual exercise, I
+spent the evenings in the way after my own heart.
+
+Another circumstance in my life which made some alteration in my mind
+and manners was that I spent my nineteenth summer on a smuggling coast,
+a good distance from home, at a noted school, to learn mensuration,
+surveying, dialling, etc., in which I made a pretty good progress.  But
+I made a greater progress in the knowledge of mankind.  The contraband
+trade was at that time very successful, and it sometimes happened to me
+to fall with those who carried it on.  Scenes of swaggering riot and
+roaring dissipation were, till this time, new to me; but I was no enemy
+to social life.
+
+My reading meantime was enlarged with the very important addition of
+Thomson's and Shenstone's Works.  I had seen human nature in a new
+phase; and I engaged several of my schoolfellows to keep up a literary
+correspondence with me.  This improved me in composition.  I had met
+with a collection of letters by the wits of Queen Anne's reign, and
+pored over them most devoutly.  I kept copies of any of my own letters
+that pleased me, and a comparison between them and the composition of
+most of my correspondents flattered my vanity.  I carried this whim so
+far that, though I had not three farthings' worth of business in the
+world, yet almost every post brought me as many letters as if I had
+been a broad plodding son of the day-book and ledger.
+
+My life flowed on much in the same course till my twenty-third year.
+The addition of two more authors to my library gave me great pleasure:
+Sterne and Mackenzie--"Tristram Shandy" and the "Man of Feeling"--were
+my bosom favourites.  Poesy was still a darling walk for my mind, but
+it was only indulged in according to the humour of the hour.  I had
+usually half a dozen or more pieces on hand; I took up one or other, as
+it suited the momentary tone of the mind, and dismissed the work as it
+bordered on fatigue.  My passions, when once lighted up, raged like so
+many devils, till they got vent in rhyme; and then the conning over my
+verses, like a spell, soothed all into quiet!  None of the rhymes of
+those days are in print, except "Winter, a Dirge," the eldest of my
+printed pieces; "The Death of Poor Maillie," "John Barleycorn," and
+Songs First, Second, and Third.  Song Second was the ebullition of that
+passion which ended the forementioned school business.
+
+My twenty-third year was to me an important era.  Partly through whim,
+and partly that I wished to set about doing something in life, I joined
+a flax-dresser in a neighbouring town (Irvine), to learn the trade.
+This was an unlucky affair.  As we were giving a welcome carousal to
+the new year, the shop took fire and burned to ashes, and I was left,
+like a true poet, not worth a sixpence.
+
+I was obliged to give up this scheme, the clouds of misfortune were
+gathering thick round my father's head; and, what was worst of all, he
+was visibly far gone in a consumption; and to crown my distresses, a
+beautiful girl, whom I adored, and who had pledged her soul to meet me
+in the field of matrimony, jilted me, with peculiar circumstances of
+mortification.  The finishing evil that brought up the rear of this
+infernal file was my constitutional melancholy being increased to such
+a degree that for three months I was in a state of mind scarcely to be
+envied by the hopeless wretches who have got their mittimus--depart
+from me, ye cursed!
+
+From this adventure I learned something of a town life; but the
+principal thing which gave my mind a turn was a friendship I formed
+with a young fellow, a very noble character, but a hapless son of
+misfortune.  He was the son of a simple mechanic; but a great man in
+the neighbourhood taking him under his patronage, gave him a genteel
+education, with a view of bettering his situation in life.  The patron
+dying just as he was ready to launch out into the world, the poor
+fellow in despair went to sea; where, after a variety of good and ill
+fortune, a little before I was acquainted with him he had been set on
+shore by an American privateer, on the wild coast of Connaught,
+stripped of everything.  I cannot quit this poor fellow's story without
+adding that he is at this time master of a large West Indiaman
+belonging to the Thames.
+
+His mind was fraught with independence, magnanimity, and every manly
+virtue.  I loved and admired him to a degree of enthusiasm, and of
+course strove to imitate him.  In some measure I succeeded; I had pride
+before, but he taught it to flow in proper channels.  His knowledge of
+the world was vastly superior to mine, and I was all attention to
+learn. . . .  My reading only increased while in this town by two stray
+volumes of "Pamela," and one of "Ferdinand Count Fathom," which gave me
+some idea of novels.  Rhyme, except some religious pieces that are in
+print, I had given up; but meeting with Fergusson's Scottish Poems, I
+strung anew my wildly sounding lyre with emulating vigour.  When my
+father died his all went among the hell-hounds that growl in the kennel
+of justice; but we made a shift to collect a little money in the family
+amongst us, with which to keep us together; my brother and I took a
+neighbouring farm.  My brother wanted my hare-brained imagination, as
+well as my social and amorous madness; but in good sense, and every
+sober qualification, he was far my superior.
+
+I entered on this farm with a full resolution, "come, go to, I will be
+wise!"  I read farming books, I calculated crops; I attended markets;
+and, in short, in spite of the devil, and the world, and the flesh, I
+believe I should have been a wise man; but the first year, from
+unfortunately buying bad seed, the second from a late harvest, we lost
+half our crops.  This overset all my wisdom, and I returned, "like the
+dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the
+mire."
+
+I now began to be known in the neighbourhood as a maker of rhymes.  The
+first of my poetic offspring that saw the light was a burlesque
+lamentation on a quarrel between two reverend Calvinists, both of them
+figuring in my "Holy Fair."  I had a notion myself that the piece had
+some merit; but, to prevent the worst, I gave a copy of it to a friend,
+who was very fond of such things, and told him that I could not guess
+who was the author of it, but that I thought it pretty clever.  With a
+certain description of the clergy, as well as laity, it met with a roar
+of applause.  "Holy Willie's Prayer" next made its appearance, and
+alarmed the kirk-session so much, that they held several meetings to
+look over their spiritual artillery, if haply any of it might be
+pointed against profane rhymers.  Unluckily for me, my wanderings led
+me on another side, within point-blank shot of their heaviest metal.
+This is the unfortunate story that gave rise to my printed poem, "The
+Lament."  This was a most melancholy affair, which I cannot yet bear to
+reflect on, and had very nearly given me one or two of the principal
+qualifications for a place among those who have lost the chart, and
+mistaken the reckoning of rationality.  I gave up my part of the farm
+to my brother; in truth, it was only nominally mine; and made what
+little preparation was in my power for Jamaica.
+
+But before leaving my native country forever, I resolved to publish my
+poems.  I weighed my productions as impartially as was in my power; I
+thought they had merit; and it was a delicious idea that I should be
+called a clever fellow, even though it should never reach my ears--a
+poor Negro driver--or perhaps a victim to that inhospitable clime, and
+gone to the world of spirits!  I can truly say that, poor and unknown
+as I then was, I had pretty nearly as high an idea of myself and of my
+works as I have at this moment, when the public has decided in their
+favour.  It ever was my opinion that the mistakes and blunders, both in
+a rational and religious point of view, of which we see thousands daily
+guilty, are owing to their ignorance of themselves.  To know myself had
+been all along my constant study.  I weighed myself alone; I balanced
+myself with others.  I watched every means of information, to see how
+much ground I occupied as a man and as a poet; I studied assiduously
+Nature's design in my formation--where the lights and shades in my
+character were intended.  I was pretty confident my poems would meet
+with some applause; but at the worst, the roar of the Atlantic would
+deafen the voice of censure, and the novelty of West Indian scenes make
+me forget neglect.  I threw off six hundred copies, of which I had got
+subscriptions for about three hundred and fifty.  My vanity was highly
+gratified by the reception I met with from the public; and besides I
+pocketed, all expenses deducted, nearly twenty pounds.  This sum came
+very seasonably, as I was thinking of indenting myself for want of
+money to procure my passage.  As soon as I was master of nine guineas,
+the price of wafting me to the torrid zone, I took a steerage passage
+in the first ship that was to sail from the Clyde, for
+
+  Hungry ruin had me in the wind.
+
+
+I had been for some days skulking from covert to covert, under all the
+terrors of a jail; as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the
+merciless pack of the law at my heels.  I had taken the last farewell
+of my few friends; my chest was on the road to Greenock; I had composed
+the last song I should ever measure in Caledonia--"The Gloomy Night Is
+Gathering Fast," when a letter from Dr. Blacklock to a friend of mine
+overthrew all my schemes by opening new prospects to my poetic
+ambition.  The doctor belonged to a set of critics for whose applause I
+had not dared to hope.  His opinion, that I would meet with
+encouragement in Edinburgh for a second edition, fired me so much, that
+away I posted for that city, without a single acquaintance, or a single
+letter of introduction.  The baneful star that had so long shed its
+blasting influence in my zenith for once made a revolution to the
+nadir; and a kind Providence placed me under the patronage of one of
+the noblest of men, the Earl of Glencairn.  _Oublie moi, grand Dieu, si
+jamais je l'oublie_  [Forget me, Great God, if I ever forget him!].
+
+I need relate no further.  At Edinburgh I was in a new world; I mingled
+among many classes of men, but all of them new to me, and I was all
+attention to "catch" the characters and "the manners living as they
+rise."  Whether I have profited, time will show.
+
+
+POETS ARE BORN--THEN MADE
+
+[_To Dr. Moore_]
+
+ELLISLAND, 4th January, 1789.
+
+. . . The character and employment of a poet were formerly my pleasure,
+but are now my pride.  I know that a very great deal of my late _eclat_
+was owing to the singularity of my situation and the honest prejudice
+of Scotsmen; but still, as I said in the preface to my first edition, I
+do look upon myself as having some pretensions from nature to the
+poetic character.  I have not a doubt but the knack, the aptitude, to
+learn the muses' trade, is a gift bestowed by Him "who forms the secret
+bias of the soul"; but I as firmly believe that _excellence_ in the
+profession is the fruit of industry, labour, attention, and pains.  At
+least I am resolved to try my doctrine by the test of experience.
+Another appearance from the press I put off to a very distant day, a
+day that may never arrive--but poesy I am determined to prosecute with
+all my vigour.  Nature has given very few, if any, of the profession,
+the talents of shining in every species of composition.  I shall try
+(for until trial it is impossible to know) whether she has qualified me
+to shine in any one.
+
+
+THE KINDLY CRITIC IS THE POET'S BEST FRIEND
+
+[_To Mr. Moore_]
+
+The worst of it is, by the time one has finished a piece, it has been
+so often viewed and reviewed before the mental eye that one loses, in a
+good measure, the power of critical discrimination.  Here the best
+criterion I know is a friend--not only of abilities to judge, but with
+good nature enough like a prudent teacher with a young learner to
+praise a little more than is exactly just, lest the thin-skinned animal
+fall into that most deplorable of all diseases--heart-breaking
+despondency of himself.  Dare I, sir, already immensely indebted to
+your goodness, ask the additional obligation of your being that friend
+to me? . . .
+
+
+
+
+HORACE GREELEY
+
+(1811-1872)
+
+HOW THE FARM-BOY BECAME AN EDITOR
+
+Horace Greeley, the farmer's son, lived most of his life in the
+metropolis, yet he always looked like a farmer, and most people would
+be willing to admit that he retained the farmer's traditional goodness
+of heart, if not quite all of his traditional simplicity.  His judgment
+was keen and shrewd, and for many years the cracker-box philosophers of
+the village store impatiently awaited the sorting of the mail chiefly
+that they might learn what "Old Horace" had to say about some new
+picture in the kaleidoscope of politics.
+
+
+From "Captains of Industry," by James Parton.  Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
+1884.
+
+I have seldom been more interested than in hearing Horace Greeley tell
+the story of his coming to New York, in 1831, and gradually working his
+way into business there.
+
+He was living at the age of twenty years with his parents in a small
+log-cabin in a new clearing of Western Pennsylvania, about twenty miles
+from Erie.  His father, a Yankee by birth, had recently moved to that
+region and was trying to raise sheep there, as he had been accustomed
+to do in Vermont.  The wolves were too numerous there.
+
+It was part of the business of Horace and his brother to watch the
+flock of sheep, and sometimes they camped out all night, sleeping with
+their feet to the fire, Indian fashion.  He told me that occasionally a
+pack of wolves would come so near that he could see their eyeballs
+glare in the darkness and hear them pant.  Even as he lay in the loft
+of his father's cabin he could hear them howling in the fields.  In
+spite of all their care, the wolves killed in one season a hundred of
+his father's sheep, and then he gave up the attempt.
+
+The family were so poor that it was a matter of doubt sometimes whether
+they could get food enough to live through the long winter, and so
+Horace, who had learned the printer's trade in Vermont, started out on
+foot in search of work in a village printing office.  He walked from
+village to village, and from town to town, until at last he went to
+Erie, the largest place in the vicinity.
+
+There he was taken for a runaway apprentice, and certainly his
+appearance justified suspicion.  Tall and gawky as he was in person,
+with tow-coloured hair, and a scanty suit of shabbiest homespun, his
+appearance excited astonishment or ridicule wherever he went.  He had
+never worn a good suit of clothes in his life.  He had a singularly
+fair, white complexion, a piping, whining voice, and these
+peculiarities gave the effect of his being wanting in intellect.  It
+was not until people conversed with him that they discovered his worth
+and intelligence.  He had been an ardent reader from his childhood up,
+and had taken of late years the most intense interest in politics and
+held very positive opinions, which he defended in conversation with
+great earnestness and ability.
+
+A second application at Erie procured him employment for a few months
+in the office of the Erie _Gazette_, and he won his way, not only to
+the respect, but to the affection of his companions and his employer.
+That employer was Judge J. M. Sterrett, and from him I heard many
+curious particulars of Horace Greeley's residence in Erie.  As he was
+only working in the office as a substitute, the return of the absentee
+deprived him of his place, and he was obliged to seek work elsewhere.
+His employer said to him one day:
+
+"Now, Horace, you have a good deal of money coming to you; don't go
+about the town any longer in that outlandish rig.  Let me give you an
+order on the store.  Dress up a little, Horace."
+
+The young man looked down on his clothes as though he had never seen
+them before, and then said, by way of apology:
+
+"You see, Mr. Sterrett, my father is on a new place, and I want to help
+him all I can."
+
+In fact, upon the settlement of his account at the end of his seven
+months' labour, he had drawn for his personal expenses six dollars
+only.  Of the rest of his wages he retained fifteen dollars for
+himself, and gave all the rest, amounting to about a hundred and twenty
+dollars, to his father, who, I am afraid, did not make the very best
+use of all of it.
+
+With the great sum of fifteen dollars in his pocket, Horace now
+resolved upon a bold movement.  After spending a few days at home, he
+tied up his spare clothes in a bundle, not very large, and took the
+shortest road through the woods that led to the Erie Canal.  He was
+going to New York, and he was going cheap!
+
+A walk of sixty miles or so, much of it through the primeval forest,
+brought him to Buffalo, where he took passage on the Erie Canal, and
+after various detentions he reached Albany on a Thursday morning just
+in time to see the regular steamboat of the day move out into the
+stream.  At ten o'clock on the same morning he embarked on board of a
+towboat, which required nearly twenty-four hours to descend the river,
+and thus afforded him ample time to enjoy the beauty of its shores.
+
+On the 18th of August, 1831, about sunrise, he set foot in the city of
+New York, then containing about two hundred thousand inhabitants. . . .
+He had managed his affairs with such strict economy that his journey of
+six hundred miles had cost him little more than five dollars, and he
+had ten left with which to begin life in the metropolis.  This sum of
+money and the knowledge of the printer's trade made up his capital.
+There was not a person in all New York, as far as he knew, who had ever
+seen him before.
+
+His appearance, too, was much against him, for although he had a really
+fine face, a noble forehead, and the most benign expression I ever saw
+upon a human countenance, yet his clothes and bearing quite spoiled
+him.  His round jacket made him look like a tall boy who had grown too
+fast for his strength; he stooped a little and walked in a
+loose-jointed manner.  He was very bashful, and totally destitute of
+the power of pushing his way, or arguing with a man who said, "No" to
+him.  He had brought no letters of recommendation, and had no kind of
+evidence to show that he had even learned his trade.
+
+The first business was, of course, to find an extremely cheap
+boarding-house, as he had made up his mind only to try New York as an
+experiment, and, if he did not succeed in finding work, to start
+homeward while he still had a portion of his money.  After walking a
+while he went into what looked to him like a low-priced tavern, at the
+corner of Wall and Broad streets.
+
+"How much do you charge for board?" he asked the barkeeper, who was
+wiping his decanters, and putting his bar in trim for the business of
+the day.
+
+The barkeeper gave the stranger a look-over and said to him:
+
+"I guess we're too high for you."
+
+"Well, how much do you charge?"
+
+"Six dollars."
+
+"Yes, that's more than I can afford."
+
+He walked on until he descried on the North River, near Washington
+Market, a boarding-house so very mean and squalid that he was tempted
+to go in and inquire the price of board there.  The price was two
+dollars and a half a week.
+
+"Ah!" said Horace, "that sounds more like it."
+
+In ten minutes more he was taking his breakfast at the landlord's
+table.  Mr. Greeley gratefully remembered this landlord, who was a
+friendly Irishman by the name of McGorlick.  Breakfast done, the
+newcomer sallied forth in quest of work, and began by expending nearly
+half of his capital in improving his wardrobe.  It was a wise action.
+He that goes courting should dress in his best, particularly if he
+courts so capricious a jade as Fortune.
+
+Then he began the weary round of the printing offices, seeking for work
+and finding none, all day long.  He would enter an office and ask in
+his whining note:
+
+"Do you want a hand?"
+
+"No," was the inevitable reply, upon receiving which he left without a
+word.  Mr. Greeley chuckled as he told the reception given him at the
+office of the _Journal of Commerce_, a newspaper he was destined to
+contend with for many a year in the columns of the _Tribune_.
+
+"Do you want a hand?" he said to David Hale, one of the owners of the
+paper.
+
+Mr. Hale looked at him from head to foot, and then said:
+
+"My opinion is, young man, that you're a runaway apprentice, and you'd
+better go home to your master."
+
+The applicant tried to explain, but the busy proprietor merely replied:
+
+"Be off about your business, and don't bother us."
+
+The young man laughed good-humouredly and resumed his walk.  He went to
+bed Saturday night thoroughly tired and a little discouraged.  On
+Sunday he walked three miles to attend a church, and remembered to the
+end of his days the delight he had, for the first time in his life, in
+hearing a sermon that he entirely agreed with.  In the meantime he had
+gained the good will of his landlord and the boarders, and to that
+circumstance he owed his first chance in the city.  His landlord
+mentioned his fruitless search for work to an acquaintance who happened
+to call that Sunday afternoon.  That acquaintance, who was a shoemaker,
+had accidently heard that printers were wanted at No. 85 Chatham Street.
+
+At half-past five on Monday morning Horace Greeley stood before the
+designated house, and discovered the sign, "West's Printing Office,"
+over the second story, the ground floor being occupied as a bookstore.
+Not a soul was stirring up stairs or down.  The doors were locked, and
+Horace sat down on the steps to wait.  Thousands of workmen passed by;
+but it was nearly seven before the first of Mr. West's printers
+arrived, and he, too, finding the door locked, sat down by the side of
+the stranger, and entered into conversation with him.
+
+"I saw," said the printer to me many years after, "that he was an
+honest, good young man, and being a Vermonter myself, I determined to
+help him if I could."
+
+Thus, a second time in New York already, _the native quality of the
+man_ gained him, at the critical moment, the advantage that decided his
+destiny.  His new friend did help him, and it was very much through his
+urgent recommendation that the foreman of the printing office gave him
+a chance.  The foreman did not in the least believe that the
+green-looking young fellow before him could set in type one page of the
+polyglot Testament for which help was needed.
+
+"Fix up a case for him," said he, "and we'll see if he _can_ do
+anything."
+
+Horace worked all day with silent intensity, and when he showed to the
+foreman at night a printer's proof of his day's work, it was found to
+be the best day's work that had yet been done on that most difficult
+job.  It was greater in quantity and much more correct.  The battle was
+won.  He worked on the Testament for several months, making long hours
+and earning only moderate wages, saving all his surplus money, and
+sending the greater part of it to his father, who was still in debt for
+his farm and not sure of being able to keep it.
+
+Ten years passed.  Horace Greeley from journeyman printer made his way
+slowly to partnership in a small printing office.  He founded the _New
+Yorker_, a weekly paper, the best periodical of its class in the United
+States.  It brought him great credit and no profit.
+
+In 1840, when General Harrison was nominated for the Presidency against
+Martin Van Buren, his feelings as a politician were deeply stirred, and
+he started a little campaign paper called _The Log-Cabin_, which was
+incomparably the most spirited thing of the kind ever published in the
+United States.  It had a circulation of unprecedented extent, beginning
+with forty-eight thousand, and rising week after week until it reached
+ninety thousand.  The price, however, was so low that its great sale
+proved rather an embarrassment than a benefit to the proprietors, and
+when the campaign ended the firm of Horace Greeley & Co. was rather
+more in debt than it was when the first number of _The Log-Cabin_ was
+published.
+
+The little paper had given the editor two things which go far toward
+making a success in business: great reputation and some confidence in
+himself.  The first penny paper had been started.  The New York
+_Herald_ was making a great stir.  The _Sun_ was already a profitable
+sheet.  And now the idea occurred to Horace Greeley to start a daily
+paper which should have the merits of cheapness and abundant news,
+without some of the qualities possessed by the others.  He wished to
+found a cheap daily paper that should be good and salutary as well as
+interesting.  The last number of _The Log-Cabin_ announced the
+forthcoming _Tribune_, price one cent.
+
+The editor was probably not solvent when he conceived the scheme, and
+he borrowed a thousand dollars of his old friend, James Coggeshall,
+with which to buy the indispensable material.  He began with six
+hundred subscribers, printed five thousand of the first number, and
+found it difficult to give them all away.  The _Tribune_ appeared on
+the day set apart in New York for the funeral procession in
+commemoration of President Harrison, who died a month after his
+inauguration.
+
+It was a chilly, dismal day in April, and all the town was absorbed in
+the imposing pageant.  The receipts during the first week were
+ninety-two dollars; the expenses five hundred and twenty-five.  But the
+little paper soon caught public attention, and the circulation
+increased for three weeks at the rate of about three hundred a day.  It
+began its fourth week with six thousand; its seventh week with eleven
+thousand.  The first number contained four columns of advertisements;
+the twelfth, nine columns; the hundredth, thirteen columns.
+
+In a word, the success of the paper was immediate and very great.  It
+grew a little faster than the machinery for producing it could be
+provided.  Its success was due chiefly to the fact that the original
+idea of the editor was actually carried out.  He aimed to produce a
+paper which should morally benefit the public.  It was not always
+right, but it always meant to be.
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES DICKENS
+
+(1812-1870)
+
+THE FACTORY BOY
+
+This factory boy felt in his heart that he was qualified for a better
+position in life, and great was his humiliation at the wretched
+meanness of his surroundings.  But his demeanor must have been
+admirable, for he succeeded not only in retaining the respect of his
+associates, but also in winning their regard.  In his case, as in that
+of so many others, it was darkest just before the dawn of a better day.
+
+They are his own words which follow:
+
+
+An autobiographical fragment from Forster's "Life."
+
+In an evil hour for me, as I often bitterly thought . . . James Lamert,
+who had lived with us in Bayham Street, seeing how I was employed from
+day to day, and knowing what our domestic circumstances then were,
+proposed that I should go into the blacking warehouse, to be as useful
+as I could, at a salary, I think, of six shillings a week.  I am not
+clear whether it was six or seven.  I am inclined to believe, from my
+uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first, and seven
+afterward.  At any rate, the offer was accepted very willingly by my
+father and mother, and on a Monday morning I went down to the blacking
+warehouse to begin my business life.
+
+It is wonderful to me how I could have been so easily cast away at such
+an age.  It is wonderful to me that, even after my descent into the
+poor little drudge I had been since we came to London, no one had
+compassion enough on me--a child of singular abilities, quick, eager,
+delicate, and soon hurt, bodily or mentally--to suggest that something
+might have been spared, as certainly it might have been, to place me at
+any common school.  Our friends, I take it, were tired out.  No one
+made any sign.  My father and mother were quite satisfied.  They could
+hardly have been more so if I had been twenty years of age,
+distinguished at a grammar school, and going to Cambridge.
+
+Our relative had kindly arranged to teach me something in the
+dinner-hour, from twelve to one, I think it was, every day.  But an
+arrangement so incompatible with counting-house business soon died
+away, from no fault of his or mine; and for the same reason, my small
+work-table, and my grosses of pots, my papers, string, scissors,
+paste-pot, and labels, by little and little, vanished out of the recess
+in the counting-house, and kept company with the other small
+work-tables, grosses of pots, papers, string, scissors, and paste-pots,
+downstairs.  It was not long before Bob Fagin and I, and another boy
+whose name was Paul Green, but who was currently believed to have been
+christened Poll (a belief which I transferred, long afterward again, to
+Mr. Sweedlepipe, in "Martin Chuzzlewit"), worked generally side by
+side.  Bob Fagin was an orphan, and lived with his brother-in-law, a
+waterman.  Poll Green's father had the additional distinction of being
+a fireman, and was employed at Drury Lane Theatre, where another
+relation of Poll's, I think his little sister, did imps in the
+pantomimes.
+
+No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this
+companionship; compared these every-day associates with those of my
+happier childhood; and felt my early hopes of growing up to be a
+learned and distinguished man crushed in my breast.  The deep
+remembrance of the sense I had of being utterly neglected and hopeless;
+of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young
+heart to believe that, day by day, what I had learned, and thought, and
+delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, was passing
+away from me, never to be brought back any more, cannot be written.  My
+whole nature was so penetrated with the grief and humiliation of such
+considerations that even now, famous and caressed and happy, I often
+forget in my dreams that I have a dear wife and children; even that I
+am a man; and wander desolately back to that time of my life.
+
+I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the
+scantiness of my resources and the difficulties of my life.  I know
+that if a shilling or so were given me by any one, I spent it in a
+dinner or a tea.  I know that I worked, from morning to night, with
+common men and boys, a shabby child.  I know that I tried, but
+ineffectually, not to anticipate my money, and to make it last the week
+through; by putting it away in a drawer I had in the counting-house,
+wrapped into six little parcels, each parcel containing the same
+amount, and labelled with a different day.  I know that I have lounged
+about the streets, insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed.  I know
+that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care
+that was taken of me, a little robber or a little vagabond.
+
+
+A LITTLE GENTLEMAN
+
+But I held some station at the blacking warehouse, too.  Besides that
+my relative at the counting-house did what a man so occupied, and
+dealing with a thing so anomalous, could, to treat me as one upon a
+different footing from the rest, I never said, to man or boy, how it
+was that I came to be there, or gave the least indication of being
+sorry that I was there.  That I suffered in secret, and that I suffered
+exquisitely, no one ever knew but I.  How much I suffered, it is, as I
+have said already, utterly beyond my power to tell.  No man's
+imagination can overstep the reality.  But I kept my own counsel, and I
+did my work.  I knew from the first that if I could not do my work as
+well as any of the rest I could not hold myself above slight and
+contempt.  I soon became at least as expeditious and as skilful with my
+hands as either of the other boys.  Though perfectly familiar with
+them, my conduct and manners were different enough from theirs to place
+a space between us.  They and the men always spoke of me as "the young
+gentleman."  A certain man (a soldier once) named Thomas, who was the
+foreman, and another man Harry, who was the carman, and wore a red
+jacket, used to call me "Charles" sometimes in speaking to me; but I
+think it was mostly when we were very confidential, and when I had made
+some efforts to entertain them over our work with the results of some
+of the old readings, which were fast perishing out of my mind.  Poll
+Green uprose once, and rebelled against the "young gentleman" usage;
+but Bob Fagin settled him speedily.
+
+My rescue from this kind of existence I considered quite hopeless, and
+abandoned as such, altogether; though I am solemnly convinced that I
+never, for one hour, was reconciled to it, or was otherwise than
+miserably unhappy.  I felt keenly, however, the being so cut off from
+my parents, my brothers, and sisters; and, when my day's work was done,
+going home to such a miserable blank.  And _that_, I thought, might be
+corrected.  One Sunday night I remonstrated with my father on this head
+so pathetically and with so many tears that his kind nature gave way.
+He began to think that it was not quite right.  I do believe he had
+never thought so before, or thought about it.  It was the first
+remonstrance I had ever made about my lot, and perhaps it opened up a
+little more than I intended.  A back-attic was found for me at the
+house of an insolvent court agent, who lived in Lant Street in the
+Borough, where Bob Sawyer lodged many years afterward.  A bed and
+bedding were sent over for me, and made up on the floor.  The little
+window had a pleasant prospect of a timber-yard; and when I took
+possession of my new abode, I thought it was a paradise.
+
+
+A FRIEND IN NEED
+
+Bob Fagin was very good to me on the occasion of a bad attack of my old
+disorder, cramps.  I suffered such excruciating pain that time that
+they made a temporary bed of straw in my old recess in the
+counting-house, and I rolled about on the floor, and Bob filled empty
+blacking-bottles with hot water, and applied relays of them to my side,
+half the day.  I got better, and quite easy toward evening; but Bob
+(who was much bigger and older than I) did not like the idea of my
+going home alone, and took me under his protection.  I was too proud to
+let him know about the prison; and after making several efforts to get
+rid of him, to all of which Bob Fagin, in his goodness, was deaf, shook
+hands with him on the steps of a house near Southwark Bridge on the
+Surrey side, making believe that I lived there.  As a finishing piece
+of reality in case of his looking back, I knocked at the door, I
+recollect, and asked, when the woman opened it, if that was Mr. Robert
+Fagin's house.
+
+My usual way home was over Blackfriars Bridge, and down that turning in
+the Blackfriars Road which has Rowland Hill's chapel on one side, and
+the likeness of a golden dog licking a golden pot over a shop door on
+the other.  There are a good many little low-browed old shops in that
+street, of a wretched kind; and some are unchanged now.  I looked into
+one a few weeks ago, where I used to buy bootlaces on Saturday nights,
+and saw the corner where I once sat down on a stool to have a pair of
+ready-made half-boots fitted on.  I have been seduced more than once,
+in that street on a Saturday night, by a show-van at a corner; and have
+gone in, with a very motley assemblage, to see the Fat Pig, the Wild
+Indian, and the Little Lady.  There were two or three hat manufactories
+there then (I think they are there still); and among the things which,
+encountered anywhere, or under any circumstances, will instantly recall
+that time, is the smell of hat-making.
+
+I was such a little fellow, with my poor white hat, little jacket, and
+corduroy trousers, that frequently, when I went into the bar of a
+strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter to wash down the
+saveloy and the loaf I had eaten in the street, they didn't like to
+give it me.  I remember, one evening (I had been somewhere for my
+father, and was going back to the Borough over Westminster Bridge),
+that I went into a public-house in Parliament Street, which is still
+there, though altered, at the corner of the short street leading into
+Cannon Row, and said to the landlord behind the bar, "What is your very
+best--the VERY _best_--ale a glass?"  For the occasion was a festive
+one, for some reasons: I forget why.  It may have been my birthday, or
+somebody else's.  "Twopence," says he.  "Then," says I, "just draw me a
+glass of that, if you please, with a good head to it."  The landlord
+looked at me, in return, over the bar, from head to foot, with a
+strange smile on his face; and instead of drawing the beer, looked
+round the screen and said something to his wife, who came out from
+behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me.
+Here we stand, all three, before me now, in my study in Devonshire
+Terrace.  The landlord in his shirt-sleeves, leaning against the bar
+window-frame; his wife looking over the little half-door; and I, in
+some confusion, looking up at them from outside the partition.  They
+asked me a good many questions, as what my name was, how old I was,
+where I lived, how I was employed, etc., etc.  To all of which, that I
+might commit nobody, I invented appropriate answers.  They served me
+with the ale, though I suspect it was not the strongest on the
+premises; and the landlord's wife, opening the little half-door and
+bending down, gave me a kiss that was half-admiring and
+half-compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am sure.
+
+
+DELIVERANCE AT LAST
+
+At last, one day, my father and the relative so often mentioned
+quarrelled; quarrelled by letter, for I took the letter from my father
+to him which caused the explosion, but quarrelled very fiercely.  It
+was about me.  It may have had some backward reference, in part, for
+anything I know, to my employment at the window.  All I am certain of
+is that, soon after I had given him the letter, my cousin (he was a
+sort of cousin by marriage) told me he was very much insulted about me;
+and that it was impossible to keep me after that.  I cried very much,
+partly because it was so sudden, and partly because in his anger he was
+violent about my father, though gentle to me.  Thomas, the old soldier,
+comforted me, and said he was sure it was for the best.  With a relief
+so strange that it was like oppression, I went home.
+
+My mother set herself to accommodate the quarrel, and did so next day.
+She brought home a request for me to return next morning, and a high
+character of me, which I am very sure I deserved.  My father said I
+should go back no more, and should go to school.  I do not write
+resentfully or angrily, for I know how all these things have worked
+together to make me what I am, but I never afterward forgot, I never
+shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being
+sent back.
+
+From that hour until this at which I write no word of that part of my
+childhood, which I have now gladly brought to a close, has passed my
+lips to any human being.  I have no idea how long it lasted; whether
+for a year, or much more, or less.  From that hour until this, my
+father and my mother have been stricken dumb upon it.  I have never
+heard the least allusion to it, however far off and remote, from either
+of them.  I have never, until I now impart it to this paper, in any
+burst of confidence with any one, my own wife not excepted, raised the
+curtain I then dropped, thank God.
+
+
+Dickens sent the following sketch of his early career to Wilkie
+Collins.  It will be noted that he omits all reference to his
+experiences in the blacking factory.  The _naive_ touches of
+self-appreciation are delightful to the true lover of "The Inimitable."
+
+
+TAVISTOCK HOUSE, June 6, 1856.
+
+I have never seen anything about myself in print which has much
+correctness in it--any biographical account of myself I mean.  I do not
+supply such particulars when I am asked for them by editors and
+compilers, simply because I am asked for them every day.  If you want
+to prime Forgues, you may tell him, without fear of anything wrong,
+that I was born at Portsmouth on the 7th of February, 1812; that my
+father was in the Navy Pay Office; that I was taken by him to Chatham
+when I was very young, and lived and was educated there till I was
+twelve or thirteen, I suppose; that I was then put to a school near
+London, where (as at other places) I distinguished myself like a brick;
+that I was put in the office of a solicitor, a friend of my father's,
+and didn't much like it; and after a couple of years (as well as I can
+remember) applied myself with a celestial or diabolical energy to the
+study of such things as would qualify me to be a first-rate
+parliamentary reporter--at that time a calling pursued by many clever
+men who were young at the Bar; that I made my debut in the gallery (at
+about eighteen, I suppose), engaged on a voluminous publication no
+longer in existence, called the _Mirror of Parliament_; that when the
+_Morning Chronicle_ was purchased by Sir John Easthope and acquired a
+large circulation, I was engaged there, and that I remained there until
+I had begun to publish "Pickwick," when I found myself in a condition
+to relinquish that part of my labours; that I left the reputation
+behind me of being the best and most rapid reporter ever known, and
+that I could do anything in that way under any sort of circumstances,
+and often did.  (I daresay I am at this present writing the best
+shorthand writer in the world.)
+
+That I began, without any interest or introduction of any kind, to
+write fugitive pieces for the old _Monthly Magazine_, when I was in the
+gallery for the _Mirror of Parliament_; that my faculty for descriptive
+writing was seized upon the moment I joined the _Morning Chronicle_,
+and that I was liberally paid there and handsomely acknowledged, and
+wrote the greater part of the short descriptive "Sketches by Boz" in
+that paper; that I had been a writer when I was a mere baby, and always
+an actor from the same age; that I married the daughter of a writer to
+the signet in Edinburgh, who was the great friend and assistant of
+Scott, and who first made Lockhart known to him.
+
+And that here I am.
+
+Finally, if you want any dates of publication of books, tell Wills and
+he'll get them for you.
+
+This is the first time I ever set down even these particulars, and,
+glancing them over, I feel like a wild beast in a caravan describing
+himself in the keeper's absence.
+
+Ever faithfully.
+
+
+The following letter, criticising the work of an inexperienced author,
+is valuable in itself, and reveals clearly the essential kindliness of
+the man.
+
+
+OFFICE OF HOUSEHOLD WORDS,
+  Monday, June 1, 1857.
+
+MY DEAR STONE:
+
+I know that what I am going to say will not be agreeable; but I rely on
+the authoress's good sense; and say it knowing it to be the truth.
+
+These "Notes" are destroyed by too much smartness.  It gives the
+appearance of perpetual effort, stabs to the heart the nature that is
+in them, and wearies by the manner and not by the matter.  It is the
+commonest fault in the world (as I have constant occasion to observe
+here) but it is a very great one.  Just as you couldn't bear to have an
+epergne or a candlestick on your table, supported by a light figure
+always on tip-toe and evidently in an impossible attitude for the
+sustainment of its weight, so all readers would be more or less
+oppressed and worried by this presentation of everything in one smart
+point of view, when they know it must have other, and weightier, and
+more solid properties.  Airiness and good spirits are always
+delightful, and are inseparable from notes of a cheerful trip; but they
+should sympathize with many things as well as see them in a lively way.
+It is but a word or a touch that expresses this humanity, but without
+that little embellishment of good nature there is no such thing as
+humour.  In this little MS. everything is too much patronized and
+condescended to, whereas the slightest touch of feeling for the rustic
+who is of the earth earthy, or of sisterhood with the homely servant
+who has made her face shine in her desire to please, would make a
+difference that the writer can scarcely imagine without trying it.  The
+only relief in the twenty-one slips is the little bit about the chimes.
+It is a relief, simply because it is an indication of some kind of
+sentiment.  You don't want any sentiment laboriously made out in such a
+thing.  You don't want any maudlin show of it.  But you do want a
+pervading suggestion that it is there.  It makes all the difference
+between being playful and being cruel.  Again I must say, above all
+things--especially to young people writing: For the love of God don't
+condescend!  Don't assume the attitude of saying, "See how clever I am,
+and what fun everybody else is!"  Take any shape but that.
+
+I observe an excellent quality of observation throughout, and think the
+boy at the shop, and all about him, particularly good.  I have no doubt
+whatever that the rest of the journal will be much better if the writer
+chooses to make it so.  If she considers for a moment within herself,
+she will know that she derived pleasure from everything she saw,
+because she saw it with innumerable lights and shades upon it, and
+bound to humanity by innumerable fine links; she cannot possibly
+communicate anything of that pleasure to another by showing it from one
+little limited point only, and that point, observe, the one from which
+it is impossible to detach the exponent as the patroness of a whole
+universe of inferior souls.  This is what everybody would mean in
+objecting to these notes (supposing them to be published), that they
+are too smart and too flippant.
+
+As I understand this matter to be altogether between us three, and as I
+think your confidence and hers imposes a duty of friendship on me, I
+discharge it to the best of my ability.  Perhaps I make more of it than
+you may have meant or expected; if so, it is because I am interested
+and wish to express it.  If there had been anything in my objection not
+perfectly easy of removal, I might, after all, have hesitated to state
+it; but that is not the case.  A very little indeed would make all this
+gayety as sound and wholesome and good-natured in the reader's mind as
+it is in the writer's.
+
+Affectionately always.
+
+
+"THE INFINITE CAPACITY FOR TAKING PAINS"
+
+[_To his sixth son, Henry Fielding Dickens, born in 1849_]
+
+BALTIMORE, U. S.,
+
+TUESDAY, February 11, 1868.
+
+MY DEAR HARRY:
+
+I should have written to you before now but for constant and arduous
+occupation. . . .  I am very glad to hear of the success of your
+reading, and still more glad that you went at it in downright earnest.
+I should never have made my success in life if I had been shy of taking
+pains, or if I had not bestowed upon the least thing I have ever
+undertaken exactly the same attention and care that I have bestowed
+upon the greatest.  Do everything at your best.  It was but this last
+year that I set to and learned every word of my readings; and from ten
+years ago to last night, I have never read to an audience but I have
+watched for an opportunity of striking out something better somewhere.
+Look at such of my manuscripts as are in the library at Gad's, and
+think of the patient hours devoted year after year to single
+lines. . . .
+
+Ever, my dear Harry,
+
+Your affectionate Father.
+
+
+"FAREWELL?  MY BLESSING SEASON THIS IN THEE"
+
+[Dickens's last child, Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, was born in 1852.
+At sixteen he went to Australia, with this parting word from his
+father:]
+
+MY DEAREST PLORN:
+
+I write this note to-day because your going away is much upon my mind,
+and because I want you to have a few parting words from me to think of
+now and then at quiet times.  I need not tell you that I love you
+dearly, and am very, very sorry in my heart to part with you.  But this
+life is half made up of partings, and these pains must be borne.  It is
+my comfort and my sincere conviction that you are going to try the life
+for which you are best fitted.  I think its freedom and wildness more
+suited to you than any experiment in a study or office would ever have
+been; and without that training, you could have followed no other
+suitable occupation.
+
+What you have already wanted until now has been a set, steady, constant
+purpose.  I therefore exhort you to persevere in a thorough
+determination to do whatever you have to do as well as you can do it.
+I was not so old as you are now when I first had to win my food, and do
+this out of this determination, and I have never slackened in it since.
+
+Never take a mean advantage of any one in any transaction, and never be
+hard upon people who are in your power.  Try to do to others as you
+would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail
+sometimes.  It is much better for you that they should fail in obeying
+the greatest rule laid down by our Saviour than that you should.  I put
+a New Testament among your books for the very same reasons, and with
+the very same hopes that made me write an easy account of it for you,
+when you were a little child.  Because it is the best book that ever
+was, or will be, known in the world; and because it teaches you the
+best lessons by which any human creature, who tries to be truthful and
+faithful to duty, can possibly be guided.  As your brothers have gone
+away, one by one, I have written to each such words as I am now writing
+to you, and have entreated them all to guide themselves by this Book,
+putting aside the interpretations and inventions of man.  You will
+remember that you have never at home been harassed about religious
+observances or mere formalities.  I have always been anxious not to
+weary my children with such things before they are old enough to form
+opinions respecting them.  You will therefore understand the better
+that I now most solemnly impress upon you the truth and beauty of the
+Christian Religion, as it came from Christ Himself, and the
+impossibility of your going far wrong if you humbly but heartily
+respect it.  Only one thing more on this head.  The more we are in
+earnest as to feeling it, the less we are disposed to hold forth about
+it.  Never abandon the wholesome practice of saying your own private
+prayers, night and morning.  I have never abandoned it myself, and I
+know the comfort of it.  I hope you will always be able to say in after
+life that you had a kind father.  You cannot show your affection for
+him so well, or make him so happy, as by doing your duty.
+
+
+
+
+CHARLOTTE BRONTE
+
+(1816-1855)
+
+THE COUNTRY PARSON'S DAUGHTER
+
+Mrs. Gaskell's "Life of Charlotte Bronte" is one of the great
+biographies of literature, but like other works on the same theme, it
+is really a history of the Bronte family during the period of
+Charlotte's life.  The individuals of this family were for many years
+as closely associated with one another as they were closely hidden from
+the outside world.  The personality of each was influenced by its
+house-mates to an unusual degree.  They studied each other and they
+studied every book that came within reach.  Themselves they knew well:
+the world, through books only.  This probably accounts for the weird
+and even morbid character of much of their work.  Their vivid
+imaginations, unchecked by experience, in a commonplace world were
+allowed free play, and as a result we find some of the most original
+creations in the whole realm of literature.
+
+The life of the Bronte sisterhood should convince the literary aspirant
+that the creative imagination is sufficient unto itself and independent
+of the stimulus of contact with the busy hum of men.  If it be
+necessary, the literary genius by divination can portray life without
+seeing it.  Bricks are produced without straw.
+
+
+From "Life of Charlotte Bronte," by Mrs. E. C. Gaskell.
+
+But the children did not want society.  To small infantine gayeties
+they were unaccustomed.  They were all in all to each other.  I do not
+suppose that there ever was a family more tenderly bound to each other.
+Maria read the newspapers, and reported intelligence to her younger
+sisters which it is wonderful they could take an interest in.  But I
+suspect that they had no "children's books," and their eager minds
+"browzed undisturbed among the wholesome pasturage of English
+literature," as Charles Lamb expresses it.  The servants of the
+household appear to have been much impressed with the little Brontes'
+extraordinary cleverness.  In a letter which I had from him on this
+subject, their father writes: "The servants often said they had never
+seen such a clever little child" (as Charlotte), "and that they were
+obliged to be on their guard as to what they said and did before her.
+Yet she and the servants always lived on good terms with each
+other. . . ."
+
+I return to the father's letter.  He says:
+
+"When mere children, as soon as they could read and write, Charlotte
+and her brothers and sisters used to invent and act little plays of
+their own in which the Duke of Wellington, my daughter Charlotte's
+hero, was sure to come off conqueror; when a dispute would not
+unfrequently arise amongst them regarding the comparative merits of
+him, Bonaparte, Hannibal, and Caesar.  When the argument got warm, and
+rose to its height, as their mother was then dead, I had sometimes to
+come in as arbitrator, and settle the dispute according to the best of
+my judgment.  Generally, in the management of these concerns, I
+frequently thought that I discovered signs of rising talent, which I
+had seldom or never before seen in any of their age. . . .  A
+circumstance now occurs to my mind which I may as well mention.  When
+my children were very young, when, as far as I can remember, the oldest
+was about ten years of age, and the youngest about four, thinking they
+knew more than I had yet discovered, in order to make them speak with
+less timidity, I deemed that if they were put under a sort of cover I
+might gain my end; and happening to have a mask in the house, I told
+them all to stand and speak boldly from under cover of the mask.
+
+"I began with the youngest (Anne, afterward Acton Bell), and asked what
+a child like her most wanted; she answered, 'Age and experience.'  I
+asked the next (Emily, afterward Ellis Bell) what I had best do with
+her brother Branwell, who was sometimes a naughty boy; she answered,
+'Reason with him, and when he won't listen to reason, whip him.'  I
+asked Branwell what was the best way of knowing the difference between
+the intellects of men and women; he answered, 'By considering the
+difference between them as to their bodies.'  I then asked Charlotte
+what was the best book in the world; she answered, 'The Bible.'  And
+what was the next best; she answered, 'The Book of Nature.'  I then
+asked the next what was the best mode of education for a woman; she
+answered, 'That which would make her rule her house well.'  Lastly I
+asked the oldest what was the best mode of spending time; she answered,
+'By laying it out in preparation for a happy eternity.'
+
+"I may not have given precisely their words, but I have nearly done so,
+as they made a deep and lasting impression on my memory.  The
+substance, however, was exactly what I have stated."
+
+The strange and quaint simplicity of the mode taken by the father to
+ascertain the hidden characters of his children, and the tone and
+character of these questions and answers, show the curious education
+which was made by the circumstances surrounding the Brontes.  They knew
+no other children.  They knew no other modes of thought than what were
+suggested to them by the fragments of clerical conversation which they
+overheard in the parlour, or the subjects of village and local interest
+which they heard discussed in the kitchen.  Each had their own strong
+characteristic flavour.
+
+They took a vivid interest in the public characters, and the local and
+foreign politics discussed in the newspapers.  Long before Maria Bronte
+died, at the age of eleven, her father used to say he would converse
+with her on any of the leading topics of the day with as much freedom
+and pleasure as with any grown-up person. . . .
+
+Miss Branwell instructed the children at regular hours in all she could
+teach, making her bed-chamber into their schoolroom.  Their father was
+in the habit of relating to them any public news in which he felt an
+interest; and from the opinions of his strong and independent mind they
+would gather much food for thought; but I do not know whether he gave
+them any direct instruction.  Charlotte's deep, thoughtful spirit
+appears to have felt almost painfully the tender responsibility which
+rested upon her with reference to her remaining sisters.  She was only
+eighteen months older than Emily; but Emily and Anne were simply
+companions and playmates, while Charlotte was motherly friend and
+guardian to both; and this loving assumption of duties beyond her years
+made her feel considerably older than she really was.
+
+I have had a curious packet confided to me, containing an immense
+amount of manuscript, in an inconceivably small space; tales, dramas,
+poems, romances, written principally by Charlotte, in a hand which is
+almost impossible to decipher without the aid of a magnifying
+glass. . . .
+
+As each volume contains from sixty to a hundred pages . . . the amount
+of the whole seems very great, if we remember that it was all written
+in about fifteen months.  So much for the quantity; the quality strikes
+me as of singular merit for a girl of thirteen or fourteen.  Both as a
+specimen of her prose style at this time, and also as revealing
+something of the quiet domestic life led by these children, I take an
+extract from the introduction to "Tales of the Islanders," the title of
+one of their "Little Magazines":
+
+
+"JUNE the 31st, 1829.
+
+"The play of the 'Islanders' was formed in December, 1827, in the
+following manner: One night, about the time when cold sleet and stormy
+fogs of November are succeeded by the snowstorms and high, piercing
+night-winds of confirmed winter, we were all sitting round the warm
+blazing kitchen fire, having just concluded a quarrel with Tabby
+concerning the propriety of lighting a candle, from which she came off
+victorious, no candle having been produced.  A long pause succeeded,
+which was at last broken by Branwell saying in a lazy manner, 'I don't
+know what to do.'  This was echoed by Emily and Anne.
+
+"Tabby.  'Wha ya may go t'bed.'
+
+"Branwell.  'I'd rather do anything than that.'
+
+"Charlotte.  'Why are you so glum to-night, Tabby?  Oh! suppose we had
+each an island of our own.'
+
+"Branwell.  'If we had I would choose the Island of Man.'
+
+"Charlotte.  'And I would choose the Isle of Wight.'
+
+"Emily.  'The Isle of Arran for me.'
+
+"Anne.  'And mine should be Guernsey.'
+
+"We then chose who would be chief men in our Islands.  Branwell chose
+John Bull, Astley Cooper, and Leigh Hunt; Emily, Walter Scott, Mr.
+Lockhart, Johnny Lockhart; Anne, Michael Sadler, Lord Bentinck, Sir
+Henry Halford.  I chose the Duke of Wellington and two sons,
+Christopher North and Co., and Mr. Abernethy.  Here our conversation
+was interrupted by the, to us, dismal sound of the clock striking
+seven, and we were summoned off to bed.  The next day we added many
+others to our list of men, till we got almost all the chief men of the
+kingdom.  After this, for a long time, nothing worth noticing occurred.
+In June, 1828, we erected a school on a fictitious island, which was to
+contain 1,000 children.  The manner of the building was as follows: The
+island was fifty miles in circumference, and certainly appeared more
+like the work of enchantment than anything real," etc. . . .
+
+
+There is another scrap of paper in this all but illegible handwriting,
+written about this time, and which gives some idea of the sources of
+their opinions. . . .
+
+
+"Papa and Branwell are gone for the newspaper, the Leeds
+_Intelligencer_, a most excellent Tory newspaper, edited by Mr. Wood,
+and the proprietor, Mr. Henneman.  We take two, and see three,
+newspapers a week.  We take the Leeds _Intelligencer_, Tory, and the
+Leeds _Mercury_, Whig, edited by Mr. Baines, and his brother,
+son-in-law, and his two sons, Edward and Talbot.  We see the _John
+Bull_; it is a high Tory, very violent.  Mr. Driver lends us it, as
+likewise _Blackwood's Magazine_, the most able periodical there is.
+The editor is Mr. Christopher North, an old man seventy-four years of
+age; the 1st of April is his birthday; his company are Timothy Tickler,
+Morgan O'Doherty, Macrabin Mordecai, Mullion, Warnell, and James Hogg,
+a man of most extraordinary genius, a Scottish shepherd.  Our plays
+were established, 'Young Men,' June, 1826; 'Our Fellows,' July, 1827;
+'Islanders,' December, 1827.  These are our three great plays that are
+not kept secret.  Emily's and my best plays were established the 1st of
+December, 1827; the others March, 1828.  Best plays mean secret plays,
+they are very nice ones.  All our plays are very strange ones.  Their
+nature I need not write on paper, for I think I shall always remember
+them.  The 'Young Men's' play took its rise from some wooden soldiers
+Branwell had; 'Our Fellows' from 'Aesop's Fables'; and the 'Islanders'
+from several events which happened.  I will sketch out the origin of
+our plays more explicitly if I can.  First, 'Young Men.'  Papa brought
+Branwell some wooden soldiers at Leeds; when papa came home it was
+night, and we were in bed, so next morning Branwell came to our door
+with a box of soldiers.  Emily and I jumped out of bed, and I snatched
+up one and exclaimed, 'This is the Duke of Wellington!  This shall be
+the Duke!'  When I had said this Emily likewise took one up and said it
+should be hers; when Anne came down, she said one should be hers.  Mine
+was the prettiest of the whole, and the tallest, and the most perfect
+in every part.  Emily's was a grave-looking fellow, and we called him
+'Gravey.'  Anne's was a queer little thing, much like herself, and we
+called him 'Waiting-boy.'  Branwell chose his, and called him
+'Buonaparte.'"
+
+
+The foregoing extract shows something of the kind of reading in which
+the little Brontes were interested; but their desire for knowledge must
+have been excited in many directions, for I find a "list of painters
+whose works I wish to see," drawn up by Charlotte Bronte when she was
+scarcely thirteen: "Guido Reni, Julio Romano Titian, Raphael, Michael
+Angelo, Coreggio, Annibal Carracci, Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Bartolomeo,
+Carlo Cignani, Vandyke, Rubens, Bartolomeo Ramerghi."
+
+Here is this little girl, in a remote Yorkshire parsonage, who has
+probably never seen anything worthy the name of a painting in her life
+studying the names and characteristics of the great old Italian and
+Flemish masters, whose works she longs to see some time, in the dim
+future that lies before her!  There is a paper remaining which contains
+minute studies of, and criticisms upon, the engravings in "Friendship's
+Offering for 1829," showing how she had early formed those habits of
+close observation and patient analysis of cause and effect, which
+served so well in after-life as handmaids to her genius.
+
+The way in which Mr. Bronte made his children sympathize with him in
+his great interest in politics must have done much to lift them above
+the chances of their minds being limited or tainted by petty local
+gossip.  I take the only other remaining personal fragment out of
+"Tales of the Islanders"; it is a sort of apology, contained in the
+introduction to the second volume, for their not having been continued
+before; the writers have been for a long time too busy and lately too
+much absorbed in politics:
+
+
+"Parliament was opened, and the great Catholic question was brought
+forward, and the Duke's measures were disclosed, and all was slander,
+violence, party spirit, and confusion.  Oh, those six months, from the
+time of the King's speech to the end!  Nobody could write, think, or
+speak on any subject but the Catholic question, and the Duke of
+Wellington, and Mr. Peel.  I remember the day when the _Intelligence
+Extraordinary_ came with Mr. Peel's speech in it, containing the terms
+on which the Catholics were to be let in!  With what eagerness papa
+tore off the cover, and how we all gathered round him, and with what
+breathless anxiety we listened, as one by one they were disclosed, and
+explained, and argued upon so ably and so well; and then when it was
+all out, how aunt said that she thought it was excellent, and that the
+Catholics could do no harm with such good security.  I remember also
+the doubts as to whether it would pass the House of Lords, and the
+prophecies that it would not; and when the paper came which was to
+decide the question, the anxiety was almost dreadful with which we
+listened to the whole affair; the opening of the doors, the hush; the
+royal dukes in their robes, and the great duke in green sash and
+waistcoat; the rising of all the peeresses when he rose; the reading of
+his speech--papa saying that his words were like precious gold; and
+lastly, the majority of one to four (sic) in favour of the Bill.  But
+this is a digression."
+
+
+This must have been written when she was between thirteen and fourteen.
+
+She was an indefatigable student; constantly reading and learning; with
+a strong conviction of the necessity and value of education very
+unusual in a girl of fifteen.  She never lost a moment of time, and
+seemed almost to grudge the necessary leisure for relaxation and
+play-hours, which might be partly accounted for by the awkwardness in
+all games occasioned by her shortness of sight.  Yet, in spite of these
+unsociable habits, she was a great favourite with her school-fellows.
+She was always ready to try and do what they wished, though not sorry
+when they called her awkward, and left her out of their sports.  Then,
+at night, she was an invaluable story-teller, frightening them almost
+out of their wits as they lay in bed.  On one occasion the effect was
+such that she was led to scream out loud, and Miss Wooler, coming
+upstairs, found that one of the listeners had been seized with violent
+palpitations, in consequence of the excitement produced by Charlotte's
+story.
+
+Her indefatigable craving for knowledge tempted Miss Wooler on into
+setting her longer and longer tasks of reading for examination; and
+toward the end of the two years that she remained as a pupil at Roe
+Head, she received her first bad mark for an imperfect lesson.  She had
+had a great quantity of Blair's "Lectures on Belles-Lettres" to read;
+and she could not answer some of the questions upon it; Charlotte
+Bronte had a bad mark.  Miss Wooler was sorry, and regretted that she
+had over-tasked so willing a pupil.  Charlotte cried bitterly.  But her
+school-fellows were more than sorry--they were indignant.  They
+declared that the infliction of ever so slight a punishment on
+Charlotte Bronte was unjust--for who had tried to do her duty like
+her?--and testified their feeling in a variety of ways, until Miss
+Wooler, who was in reality only too willing to pass over her good
+pupil's first fault, withdrew the bad mark. . . .
+
+After her return home she employed herself in teaching her sisters over
+whom she had had superior advantages.  She writes thus, July 21, 1832,
+of her course of life at the parsonage:
+
+
+"An account of one day is an account of all.  In the morning, from nine
+o'clock till half-past twelve, I instruct my sisters, and draw; then we
+walk till dinner-time.  After dinner I sew till tea-time, and after tea
+I either write, read, or do a little fancywork, or draw, as I please.
+Thus, in one delightful though somewhat monotonous course, my life is
+passed.  I have been out only twice to tea since I came home.  We are
+expecting company this afternoon, and on Tuesday next we shall have all
+the female teachers of the Sunday-school to tea."
+
+
+It was about this time that Mr. Bronte provided his children with a
+teacher in drawing, who turned out to be a man of considerable talent
+but very little principle.  Although they never attained to anything
+like proficiency, they took great interest in acquiring this art;
+evidently from an instinctive desire to express their powerful
+imaginations in visible forms.  Charlotte told me that at this period
+of her life drawing and walking out with her sisters formed the two
+great pleasures and relaxations of her day. . . .
+
+Quiet days, occupied in teaching and feminine occupations in the house,
+did not present much to write about; and Charlotte was naturally driven
+to criticise books.
+
+Of these there were many in different plights, and according to their
+plight, kept in different places.  The well bound were ranged in the
+sanctuary of Mr. Bronte's study; but the purchase of books was a
+necessary luxury to him, and as it was often a choice between binding
+an old one, or buying a new one, the familiar volume, which had been
+hungrily read by all the members of the family, was sometimes in such a
+condition that the bedroom shelf was considered its fitting place.  Up
+and down the house were to be found many standard works of a solid
+kind.  Sir Walter Scott's writings, Wadsworth's and Southey's poems
+were among the lighter literature; while, as having a character of
+their own--earnest, wild, and occasionally fanatical, may be named some
+of the books which came from the Branwell side of the family--from the
+Cornish followers of the saintly John Wesley--and which are touched on
+in the account of the works to which Caroline Helstone had access in
+"Shirley":  "Some venerable Lady's Magazines, that had once performed a
+voyage with their owner, and undergone a storm"--(possibly part of the
+relics of Mrs. Bronte's possessions, contained in the ship wrecked on
+the coast of Cornwall)--"and whose pages were stained with salt water;
+some mad Methodist Magazines full of miracles and apparitions, and
+preternatural warnings, ominous dreams, and frenzied fanaticism; and
+the equally mad Letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe from the Dead to the
+Living."
+
+Mr. Bronte encouraged a taste for reading in his girls; and though Miss
+Branwell kept it in due bounds by the variety of household occupations,
+in which she expected them not merely to take a part, but to become
+proficients, thereby occupying regularly a good portion of every day,
+they were allowed to get books from the circulating library at
+Keighley; and many a happy walk up those long four miles must they have
+had burdened with some new book into which they peeped as they hurried
+home.  Not that the books were what would generally be called new; in
+the beginning of 1833 the two friends [Charlotte and "E.," a school
+friend] seem almost simultaneously to have fallen upon "Kenilworth,"
+and Charlotte writes as follows about it:
+
+
+"I am glad you like 'Kenilworth'; it is certainly more resembling a
+romance than a novel; in my opinion, one of the most interesting works
+that ever emanated from the great Sir Walter's pen.  Varney is
+certainly the personification of consummate villainy; and in the
+delineation of his dark and profoundly and artful mind, Scott exhibits
+a wonderful knowledge of human nature, as well as surprising skill in
+embodying his perceptions, so as to enable others to become
+participators in that knowledge. . . ."
+
+
+Meanwhile, "The Professor" had met with many refusals from different
+publishers; some, I have reason to believe, not over-courteously worded
+in writing to an unknown author, and none alleging any distinct reasons
+for its rejection.  Courtesy is always due; but it is, perhaps, hardly
+to be expected that, in the press of business in a great publishing
+house, they should find time to explain why they decline particular
+works.  Yet, though one course of action is not to be wondered at, the
+opposite may fall upon a grieved and disappointed mind with all the
+graciousness of dew; and I can well sympathize with the published
+account which "Currer Bell" gives, of the feelings experienced on
+reading Messrs. Smith and Elder's letter containing the rejection of
+"The Professor."
+
+
+"As a forlorn hope, we tried one publishing house more.  Ere long, in a
+much shorter space than that on which experience had taught him to
+calculate, there came a letter, which he opened in the dreary
+anticipation of finding two hard, hopeless lines, intimating that
+'Messrs. Smith and Elder were not disposed to publish the MS.,' and,
+instead, he took out the envelope a letter of two pages.  He read it,
+trembling.  It declined, indeed, to publish that tale, for business
+reasons, but it discussed its merits and demerits so courteously, so
+considerately, in a spirit so rational, with a discrimination so
+enlightened, that this very refusal cheered the author better than a
+vulgarly expressed acceptance would have done.  It was added, that a
+work in three volumes would meet with careful attention."
+
+Mr. Smith has told me a little circumstance connected with the
+reception of this manuscript which seems to me indicative of no
+ordinary character.  It came (accompanied by the note given below) in a
+brown paper parcel, to 65 Cornhill.  Besides the address to Messrs.
+Smith & Co., there were on it those of other publishers to whom the
+tale had been sent, not obliterated, but simply scored through, so that
+Messrs.  Smith at once perceived the names of some of the houses in the
+trade to which the unlucky parcel had gone, without success.
+
+
+[_To Messrs. Smith and Elder_]
+
+"JULY 15th, 1847.
+
+"Gentlemen--I beg to submit to your consideration the accompanying
+manuscript.  I should be glad to learn whether it be such as you
+approve, and would undertake to publish at as early a period as
+possible.  Address, Mr. Currer Bell, under cover to Miss Bronte,
+Haworth, Bradford, Yorkshire."
+
+
+Some time elapsed before an answer was returned. . . .
+
+
+[_To Messrs. Smith and Elder_]
+
+"AUGUST 2nd, 1847.
+
+"Gentlemen--About three weeks since I sent for your consideration a MS.
+entitled 'The Professor, a Tale by Currer Bell.'  I should be glad to
+know whether it reached your hands safely, and likewise to learn, at
+your earliest convenience, whether it be such as you can undertake to
+publish.  I am, gentlemen, yours respectfully,
+
+"CURRER BELL.
+
+"I enclose a directed cover for your reply."
+
+
+This time her note met with a prompt answer; for, four days later, she
+writes (in reply to the letter she afterward characterized in the
+Preface to the second edition of "Wuthering Heights," as containing a
+refusal so delicate, reasonable, and courteous as to be more cheering
+than some acceptances):
+
+
+"Your objection to the want of varied interest in the tale is, I am
+aware, not without grounds; yet it appears to me that it might be
+published without serious risk, if its appearance were speedily
+followed up by another work from the same pen, of a more striking and
+exciting character.  The first work might serve as an introduction, and
+accustom the public to the author's name: the success of the second
+might thereby be rendered more probable.  I have a second narrative in
+three volumes, now in progress, and nearly completed, to which I have
+endeavoured to impart a more vivid interest than belongs to 'The
+Professor.'  In about a month I hope to finish it, so that if a
+publisher were found for 'The Professor' the second narrative might
+follow as soon as was deemed advisable; and thus the interest of the
+public (if any interest was aroused) might not be suffered to cool.
+Will you be kind enough to favour me with your judgment on this
+plan?". . .
+
+Mr. Bronte, too, had his suspicions of something going on; but, never
+being spoken to, he did not speak on the subject, and consequently his
+ideas were vague and uncertain, only just prophetic enough to keep him
+from being actually stunned when, later on, he heard of the success of
+"Jane Eyre"; to the progress of which we must now return.
+
+
+[_To Messrs. Smith and Elder_]
+
+"AUGUST 24th.
+
+"I now send you per rail a MS. entitled 'Jane Eyre,' a novel in three
+volumes, by Currer Bell.  I find I cannot prepay the carriage of the
+parcel, as money for that purpose is not received at the small
+station-house where it is left.  If, when you acknowledge the receipt
+of the MS., you would have the goodness to mention the amount charged
+on delivery, I will immediately transmit it in postage stamps.  It is
+better in future to address Mr. Currer Bell, under cover to Miss
+Bronte, Haworth, Bradford, Yorkshire, as there is a risk of letters
+otherwise directed not reaching me at present.  To save trouble, I
+enclose an envelope."
+
+
+"Jane Eyre" was accepted, and printed and published by October
+16th. . . .
+
+When the manuscript of "Jane Eyre" had been received by the future
+publishers of that remarkable novel, it fell to the share of a
+gentleman connected with the firm to read it first.  He was so
+powerfully struck by the character of the tale that he reported his
+impression in very strong terms to Mr. Smith, who appears to have been
+much amused by the admiration excited.  "You seem to have been so
+enchanted that I do not know how to believe you," he laughingly said.
+But when a second reader, in the person of a clear-headed Scotchman,
+not given to enthusiasm, had taken the MS. home in the evening, and
+became so deeply interested in it as to sit up half the night to finish
+it, Mr. Smith's curiosity was sufficiently excited to prompt him to
+read it for himself; and great as were the praises which had been
+bestowed upon it, he found that they had not exceeded the truth.
+
+
+
+
+LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
+
+(1832-1888)
+
+He is a hard-hearted churl who can read with unmoistened eyes this
+journal of a brave and talented girl.
+
+With what genuine, _personal_ pleasure one remembers that a full
+measure of success and recognition was finally won by her efforts.
+
+
+From "Louisa Mary Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals."  Little,
+Brown & Co., 1889.
+
+1852.--_High Street, Boston_.--After the smallpox summer, we went to a
+house in High Street.  Mother opened an intelligence office, which grew
+out of her city missionary work and a desire to find places for good
+girls.  It was not fit work for her, but it paid; and she always did
+what came to her in the work of duty or charity, and let pride, taste,
+and comfort suffer for love's sake.
+
+Anna and I taught; Lizzie was our little housekeeper--our angel in a
+cellar kitchen; May went to school; father wrote and talked when he
+could get classes or conversations.  Our poor little home had much love
+and happiness in it, and it was a shelter for lost girls, abused wives,
+friendless children, and weak or wicked men.  Father and mother had no
+money to give, but gave them time, sympathy, help; and if blessings
+would make them rich, they would be millionaires.  This is practical
+Christianity.
+
+My first story was printed, and $5 paid for it.  It was written in
+Concord when I was sixteen.  Great rubbish!  Read it aloud to sisters,
+and when they praised it, not knowing the author, I proudly announced
+her name.
+
+Made a resolution to read fewer novels, and those only of the best.
+List of books I like:
+
+  Carlyle's French Revolution and Miscellanies.
+  Hero and Hero-Worship.
+  Goethe's poems, plays, and novels.
+  Plutarch's Lives.
+  Madame Guion.
+  Paradise Lost and Comus.
+  Schiller's Plays.
+  Madame de Stael.
+  Bettine.
+  Louis XIV.
+  Jane Eyre.
+  Hypatia.
+  Philothea.
+  Uncle Tom's Cabin.
+  Emerson's Poems. . . .
+
+1853.--In January I started a little school--E. W., W. A., two L's, two
+H's--about a dozen in our parlor.  In May, when my school closed, I
+went to L. as second girl.  I needed the change, could do the wash, and
+was glad to earn my $2 a week.  Home in October with $34 for my wages.
+After two days' rest, began school again with ten children.  Anna went
+to Syracuse to teach; father to the West to try his luck--so poor, so
+hopeful, so serene.  God be with him!  Mother had several boarders, and
+May got on well at school.  Betty was still the home bird, and had a
+little romance with C.
+
+Pleasant letters from father and Anna.  A hard year.  Summer
+distasteful and lonely; winter tiresome with school and people I didn't
+like; I miss Anna, my one bosom friend and comforter.
+
+1854.--_Pinckney Street_.--I have neglected my journal for months, so
+must write it up.  School for me month after month.  Mother busy with
+boarders and sewing.  Father doing as well as a philosopher can in a
+money-loving world.  Anna at S.
+
+I earned a good deal by sewing in the evening when my day's work was
+done.
+
+In February father came home.  Paid his way, but no more.  A dramatic
+scene when he arrived in the night.  We were waked by hearing the bell.
+Mother flew down, crying "My husband!"  We rushed after, and five white
+figures embraced the half-frozen wanderer who came in hungry, tired,
+cold, and disappointed, but smiling bravely and as serene as ever.  We
+fed and warmed and brooded over him, longing to ask if he had made any
+money; but no one did till little May said, after he had told all the
+pleasant things, "Well, did people pay you?"  Then, with a queer look,
+he opened his pocketbook and showed one dollar, saying with a smile
+that made our eyes fill, "Only that!  My overcoat was stolen, and I had
+to buy a shawl.  Many promises were not kept, and travelling is costly;
+but I have opened the way, and another year shall do better."
+
+I shall never forget how beautifully mother answered him, though the
+dear, hopeful soul had built much on his success; but with a beaming
+face she kissed him, saying, "I call that doing _very well_.  Since you
+are safely home, dear, we don't ask anything more."
+
+Anna and I choked down our tears, and took a little lesson in real
+love, which we never forgot, nor the look that the tired man and the
+tender woman gave one another.  It was half tragic and comic, for
+father was very dirty and sleepy, and mother in a big nightcap and
+funny old jacket.
+
+[I began to see the strong contrasts and the fun and follies in
+every-day life about this time--L. M. A.]
+
+Anna came home in March.  Kept our school all summer.  I got "Flower
+Fables" ready to print.
+
+Louisa also tried service with a relative in the country for a short
+time, but teaching, sewing, and writing were her principal occupations
+during this residence in Boston.
+
+These seven years, from Louisa's sixteenth to her twenty-third year,
+might be called an apprenticeship to life.  She tried various paths,
+and learned to know herself and the world about her, although she was
+not even yet certain of success in the way which finally opened before
+her and led her so successfully to the accomplishment of her
+life-purpose.  She tried teaching, without satisfaction to herself or
+perhaps to others.  The kind of education she had herself received
+fitted her admirably to understand and influence children, but not to
+carry on the routine of a school.  Sewing was her resource when nothing
+else offered, but it is almost pitiful to think of her as confined to
+such work when great powers were lying dormant in her mind.  Still
+Margaret Fuller said that a year of enforced quiet in the country
+devoted mainly to sewing was very useful to her, since she reviewed and
+examined the treasures laid up in her memory; and doubtless Louisa
+Alcott thought out many a story which afterward delighted the world
+while her fingers busily plied the needle.  Yet it was a great
+deliverance when she first found that the products of her brain would
+bring in the needed money for family support.
+
+
+[_L. in Boston to A. in Syracuse_]
+
+THURSDAY, 27th.
+
+DEAREST NAN: I was so glad to hear from you, and hear that all are well.
+
+I am grubbing away as usual, trying to get money enough to buy mother a
+nice warm shawl.  I have eleven dollars, all my own earnings--five for
+a story, and four for the pile of sewing I did for the ladies of Dr.
+Gray's society, to give him as a present.
+
+. . . I got a crimson ribbon for a bonnet for May, and I took my straw
+and fixed it nicely with some little duds I had.  Her old one has
+haunted me all winter, and I want her to look neat.  She is so graceful
+and pretty and loves beauty so much it is hard for her to be poor and
+wear other people's ugly things.  You and I have learned not to mind
+_much_; but when I think of her I long to dash out and buy the finest
+hat the limited sum often dollars can procure.  She says so sweetly in
+one of her letters: "It is hard sometimes to see other people have so
+many nice things and I so few; but I try not to be envious, but
+contented with my poor clothes, and cheerful about it."  I hope the
+little dear will like the bonnet and the frills I made her and some
+bows I fixed over from bright ribbons L. W. threw away.  I get half my
+rarities from her rag-bag, and she doesn't know her own rags when fixed
+over.  I hope I shall live to see the dear child in silk and lace, with
+plenty of pictures and "bottles of cream," Europe, and all she longs
+for.
+
+For our good little Betty, who is wearing all the old gowns we left, I
+shall soon be able to buy a new one, and send it with my blessing to
+the cheerful saint.  She writes me the funniest notes, and tries to
+keep the old folks warm and make the lonely house in the snowbanks
+cosey and bright.
+
+To father I shall send new neckties and some paper; then he will be
+happy, and can keep on with the beloved diaries though the heavens fall.
+
+Don't laugh at my plans; I'll carry them out, if I go to service to do
+it.  Seeing so much money flying about, I long to honestly get a little
+and make my dear family more comfortable.  I feel weak-minded when I
+think of all they need and the little I can do.
+
+Now about you: Keep the money you have earned by so many tears and
+sacrifices, and clothe yourself; for it makes me mad to know that my
+good little lass is going round in shabby things, and being looked down
+upon by people who are not worthy to touch her patched shoes or the hem
+of her ragged old gowns.  Make yourself tidy, and if any is left over
+send it to mother; for there are always many things needed at home,
+though they won't tell us.  I only wish I, too, by any amount of
+weeping and homesickness could earn as much.  But my mite won't come
+amiss; and if tears can add to its value, I've shed my quart--first,
+over the book not coming out; for that was a sad blow, and I waited so
+long it was dreadful when my castle in the air came tumbling about my
+ears.  Pride made me laugh in public; but I wailed in private, and no
+one knew it.  The folks at home think I rather enjoyed it, for I wrote
+a jolly letter.  But my visit was spoiled; and now I'm digging away for
+dear life, that I may not have come entirely in vain.  I didn't mean to
+groan about it; but my lass and I must tell some one our trials, and so
+it becomes easy to confide in one another.  I never let mother know how
+unhappy you were in S. till Uncle wrote.
+
+My doings are not much this week.  I sent a little tale to the Gazette,
+and Clapp asked H. W. if five dollars would be enough.  Cousin H. said
+yes, and gave it to me, with kind words and a nice parcel of paper,
+saying in his funny way, "Now, Lu, the door is open, go in and win."
+So I shall try to do it.  Then cousin L. W. said Mr. B. had got my
+play, and told her that if Mrs. B. liked it as well, it must be clever,
+and if it didn't cost too much, he would bring it out by and by.  Say
+nothing about it yet.  Dr. W. tells me Mr. F. is very sick; so the
+farce cannot be acted yet.  But the Doctor is set on its coming out,
+and we have fun about it.  H. W. takes me often to the theatre when L.
+is done with me.  I read to her all the P. M. often, as she is poorly,
+and in that way I pay my debt to them.
+
+I'm writing another story for Clapp.  I want more fives, and mean to
+have them, too.
+
+Uncle wrote that you were Dr. W.'s pet teacher, and every one loved you
+dearly.  But if you are not well, don't stay.  Come home, and be
+cuddled by your old
+
+Lu.
+
+
+_Pinckney Street, Boston_, January 1, 1855.--The principal event of the
+winter is the appearance of my book "Flower Fables."  An edition of
+sixteen hundred.  It has sold very well, and people seem to like it.  I
+feel quite proud that the little tales that I wrote for Ellen E. when I
+was sixteen should now bring money and fame.
+
+I will put in some of the notices as "varieties," mothers are always
+foolish over their first-born.
+
+Miss Wealthy Stevens paid for the book, and I received $32.
+
+[A pleasing contrast to the receipts of six months only, in 1886, being
+$8,000 for the sale of books, and no new one; but I was prouder over
+the $32 than the $8,000.--L. M. A., 1886.]
+
+_April_, 1855.--I am in the garret with my papers round me, and a pile
+of apples to eat while I write my journal, plan stories, and enjoy the
+patter of rain on the roof, in peace and quiet.
+
+[Jo in the garret.--L. M. A.]
+
+Being behindhand, as usual, I'll make note of the main events up to
+date, for I don't waste ink in poetry and pages of rubbish now.  I've
+begun to live, and have no time for sentimental musing.
+
+In October I began my school; father talked, mother looked after her
+boarders, and tried to help everybody.  Anna was in Syracuse teaching
+Mrs. S------'s children.
+
+My book came out; and people began to think that topsy-turvy Louisa
+would amount to something after all, since she could do so well as
+housemaid, teacher, seamstress, and story-teller.  Perhaps she may.
+
+In February I wrote a story for which C. paid $5 and asked for more.
+
+In March I wrote a farce for W. Warren, and Dr. W. offered it to him;
+but W. W. was too busy.
+
+Also began another tale, but found little time to work on it, with
+school, sewing, and housework.  My winter's earnings are:
+
+  School, one quarter  . . . . . $50
+  Sewing . . . . . . . . . . . .  50
+  Stories  . . . . . . . . . . .  20
+
+if I am ever paid.
+
+A busy and a pleasant winter, because, though hard at times, I do seem
+to be getting on a little; and that encourages me.
+
+Have heard Lowell and Hedge lecture, acted in plays, and thanks to our
+rag-money and good cousin H., have been to the theatre several
+times--always my great joy.
+
+Summer plans are yet unsettled.  Father wants to go to England: not a
+wise idea, I think.  We shall probably stay here, and A. and I go into
+the country as governesses.  It's a queer way to live, but dramatic,
+and I rather like it; for we never know what is to come next.  We are
+real "Micawbers," and always "ready for a spring."
+
+I have planned another Christmas book, and hope to be able to write it.
+
+1855.--Cousin L. W. asks me to pass the summer at Walpole with her.  If
+I can get no teaching, I shall go; for I long for the hills, and can
+write my fairy tales there.
+
+I delivered my burlesque lecture on "Woman, and Her Position; by
+Oronthy Bluggage," last evening at Deacon G's.  Had a merry time, and
+was asked by Mr. R. to do it at H. for money.  Read "Hamlet" at our
+club--my favorite play.  Saw Mrs. W. H. Smith about the farce; says she
+will do it at her benefit.
+
+_May_.--Father went to C. to talk with Mr. Emerson about the England
+trip.  I am to go to Walpole.  I have made my own gowns, and had money
+enough to fit up the girls.  So glad to be independent.
+
+[I wonder if $40 fitted up the whole family.  Perhaps so, as my
+wardrobe was made up of old clothes from cousins and friends.--L. M. A.]
+
+_Walpole, N. H., June, 1855_.--Pleasant journey and a kind welcome.
+Lovely place, high among the hills.  So glad to run and skip in the
+woods and up the splendid ravine.  Shall write here, I know.
+
+Helped cousin L. in her garden; and the smell of the fresh earth and
+the touch of green leaves did me good.
+
+Mr. T. came and praised my first book, so I felt much inspired to go
+and do another.  I remember him at Scituate years ago, when he was a
+young shipbuilder and I a curly-haired hoyden of five or six.
+
+Up at five, and had a lovely run in the ravine, seeing the woods wake.
+Planned a little tale which ought to be fresh and true, as it came at
+that hour and place--"King Goldenrod."  Have lively days--writing in A.
+M., driving in P. M., and fun in the eve.  My visit is doing me much
+good.
+
+_July_, 1855.--Read "Hyperion."  On the 16th the family came to live in
+Mr. W.'s house, rent free.  No better plan offered, and we were all
+tired of the city.  Here father can have a garden, mother can rest and
+be near her good niece; the children have freedom and fine air; and A.
+and I can go from here to our teaching, wherever it may be.
+
+Busy and happy times as we settle in the little house in the lane near
+by my dear ravine--plays, picnics, pleasant people, and good neighbors.
+Fanny Kemble came up, Mrs. Kirkland, and others, and Dr. Bellows is the
+gayest of the gay.  We acted the "Jacobite," "Rivals," and
+"Bonnycastles," to an audience of a hundred, and were noticed in the
+Boston papers.  H. T. was our manager, and Dr. B., D. D., our dramatic
+director.  Anna was the star, her acting being really very fine.  I did
+"Mrs. Malaprop," "Widow Pottle," and the old ladies.
+
+Finished fairy book in September.  Ann had an offer from Dr. Wilbur of
+Syracuse to teach at the great idiot asylum.  She disliked it, but
+decided to go.  Poor dear! so beauty-loving, timid, and tender.  It is
+a hard trial; but she is so self-sacrificing she tries to like it
+because it is duty.
+
+_October_.--A. to Syracuse.  May illustrated my book and tales called
+"Christmas Elves." Better than "Flower Fables."  Now I must try to sell
+it.
+
+[Innocent Louisa, to think that a Christmas book could be sold in
+October.--L. M. A.]
+
+_November_.--Decided to seek my fortune; so with my little trunk of
+home-made clothes, $20 earned by stories sent to the _Gazette_, and my
+MSS., I set forth with mother's blessing one rainy day in the dullest
+month in the year.
+
+[My birth-month; always to be a memorable one.--L. M. A.]
+
+Found it too late to do anything with the book, so put it away and
+tried for teaching, sewing, or any honest work.  Won't go home to sit
+idle while I have a head and pair of hands.
+
+_December_.--H. and L. W. very kind, and my dear cousins the Sewalls
+take me in.  I sew for Mollie and others, and write stories.  C. gave
+me books to notice.  Heard Thackeray.  Anxious times; Anna very
+homesick.  Walpole very cold and dull now the summer butterflies have
+gone.  Got $5 for a tale and $12 for sewing; sent home a Christmas box
+to cheer the dear souls in the snow-banks.
+
+_January, 1856_.--C. paid $6 for "A Sister's Trial."  Gave me more
+books to notice, and wants more tales.
+
+[Should think he would at that price.--L. M. A.]
+
+Sewed for L. W. Sewall and others.  Mr. J. M. Field took my farce to
+Mobile to bring out; Mr. Barry of the Boston Theatre has the play.
+
+Heard Curtis lecture.  Began a book for summer--"Beach Bubbles."  Mr.
+F. of the _Courier_ printed a poem of mine on "Little Nell."  Got $10
+for "Bertha," and saw great yellow placards stuck up announcing it.
+Acted at the W.'s.
+
+_March_.--Got $10 for "Genevieve."  Prices go up, as people like the
+tales and ask who wrote them.  Finished "Twelve Bubbles."  Sewed a
+great deal, and got very tired; one job for Mr. G. of a dozen pillow
+cases, one dozen sheets, six fine cambric neckties, and two dozen
+handkerchiefs, at which I had to work all one night to get them done,
+as they were a gift to him.  I got only $4.
+
+Sewing won't make my fortune; but I can plan my stories while I work,
+and then scribble 'em down on Sundays.
+
+Poem on "Little Paul"; Curtis's lecture on "Dickens" made it go well.
+Hear Emerson on "England."
+
+_May_.--Anna came on her way home, sick and worn out; the work was too
+much for her.  We had some happy days visiting about.  Could not
+dispose of B. B. in book form, but C. took them for his paper.  Mr.
+Field died, so the farce fell through there.  Altered the play for Mrs.
+Barrow to bring out next winter.
+
+_June, 1856_.--Home, to find dear Betty very ill with scarlet-fever
+caught from some poor children mother nursed when they fell sick,
+living over a cellar where pigs had been kept.  The landlord (a deacon)
+would not clean the place till mother threatened to sue him for
+allowing a nuisance.  Too late to save two of the poor babies or Lizzie
+and May from the fever.
+
+[L. never recovered, but died of it two years later.--L. M. A.]
+
+An anxious time, I nursed, did housework, and wrote a story a month
+through the summer.
+
+Dr. Bellows and Father had Sunday eve conversations.
+
+_October_.--Pleasant letters from father, who went on a tour to New
+York, Philadelphia, and Boston.
+
+Made plans to go to Boston for the winter, as there is nothing to do
+here, and there I can support myself and help the family.  C. offers
+$10 a month, and perhaps more.  L. W., M. S., and others, have plenty
+of sewing; the play may come out, and Mrs. R. will give me a sky-parlor
+for $3 a week, with fire and board.  I sew for her also.
+
+If I can get A. L. to governess I shall be all right.
+
+I was born with a boy's spirit under my bib and tucker.  I _can't wait_
+when I _can work_, so I took my little talent in my hand and forced the
+world again, braver than before and wiser for my failures.
+
+[Jo in N. Y.--L. M. A.]
+
+I don't often pray in words; but when I set out that day with all my
+worldly goods in the little old trunk, my own earnings ($25) in my
+pocket, and much hope and resolution in my soul, my heart was very
+full, and I said to the Lord, "Help us all, and keep us for one
+another," as I never said it before, while I looked back at the dear
+faces watching me, so full of love and hope and faith.
+
+[_Journal_]
+
+Boston, _November, 1856: Mrs. David Reed's_.--I find my little room up
+in the attic very cosey and a house full of boarders very amusing to
+study.  Mrs. Reed very kind.  Fly around and take C. his stories.  Go
+to see Mrs. L. about A.  Don't want me.  A blow, but I cheer up and
+hunt for sewing.  Go to hear Parker, and he does me good.  Asks me to
+come Sunday evenings to his house.  I did go there, and met Phillips,
+Garrison, Hedge, and other great men, and sit in my corner weekly,
+staring and enjoying myself.
+
+When I went Mr. Parker said, "God bless you, Louisa; come again"; and
+the grasp of his hand gave me courage to face another anxious week.
+
+_November 3d_.--Wrote all the morning.  In the P. M. went to see the
+Sumner reception as he comes home after the Brooks affair.  I saw him
+pass up Beacon Street, pale and feeble, but smiling and bowing.  I
+rushed to Hancock Street, and was in time to see him bring his proud
+old mother to the window when the crowd gave three cheers for her.  I
+cheered, too, and was very much excited.  Mr. Parker met him somewhere
+before the ceremony began, and the above P. cheered like a boy; and
+Sumner laughed and nodded as his friend pranced and shouted, bareheaded
+and beaming.
+
+My kind cousin, L. W., got tickets for a course of lectures on "Italian
+Literature," and seeing my old cloak sent me a new one, with other
+needful and pretty things such as girls love to have.  I shall never
+forget how kind she has always been to me.
+
+_November 5th_.--Went with H. W. to see Manager Barry about the
+everlasting play which is always coming out but never comes.  We went
+all over the great new theatre, and I danced a jig on the immense
+stage.  Mr. B. was very kind, and gave me a pass to come whenever I
+liked.  This was such richness I didn't care if the play was burnt on
+the spot, and went home full of joy.  In the eve I saw La Grange as
+Norma, and felt as if I knew all about that place.  Quite stage-struck,
+and imagined myself in her place, with white robes and oak-leaf crown.
+
+_November 6th_.--Sewed happily on my job of twelve sheets for H. W.,
+and put lots of good will into the work after his kindness to me.
+
+Walked to Roxbury to see cousin Dr. W. about the play and tell the fine
+news.  Rode home in the new cars, and found them very nice.
+
+In the eve went to teach at Warren Street Chapel Charity School.  I'll
+help as I am helped if I can.  Mother says no one so poor he can't do a
+little for some one poorer yet.
+
+_Sunday_.--Heard Parker on "Individuality of Character," and liked it
+much.  In the eve I went to his house.  Mrs. Howe was there, and Sumner
+and others.  I sat in my usual corner, but Mr. P. came up and said, in
+that cordial way of his, "Well, child, how goes it?"  "Pretty well,
+sir."  "That's brave"; and with his warm handshake he went on, leaving
+me both proud and happy, though I have my trials.  He is like a great
+fire where all can come and be warmed and comforted.  Bless him!
+
+Had a talk at tea about him, and fought for him when W. R. said he was
+not a Christian.  He is my _sort_; for though he may lack reverence for
+other people's God, he works bravely for his own, and turns his back on
+no one who needs help, as some of the pious do.
+
+_Monday, 14th_.--May came full of expectation and joy to visit good
+aunt B. and study drawing.  We walked about and had a good home talk,
+then my girl went off to Auntie's to begin what I hope will be a
+pleasant and profitable winter.  She needs help to develop her talent,
+and I can't give it to her.
+
+Went to see Forrest as Othello.  It is funny to see how attentive all
+the once cool gentlemen are to Miss Alcott now she has a pass to the
+new theatre.
+
+_November 29th_.--My birthday.  Felt forlorn so far from home.  Wrote
+all day.  Seem to be getting on slowly, so should be contented.  To a
+little party at the B.'s in the eve.  May looked very pretty, and
+seemed to be a favorite.  The boys teased me about being an authoress,
+and I said I'd be famous yet.  Will if I can, but something else may be
+better for me.
+
+Found a pretty pin from father and a nice letter when I got home.  Mr.
+H. brought them with letters from mother and Betty, so I went to bed
+happy.
+
+_December_.--Busy with Christmas and New Year's tales.  Heard a good
+lecture by E. P. Whipple on "Courage."  Thought I needed it, being
+rather tired of living like a spider--spinning my brains out for money.
+
+Wrote a story, "The Cross on the Church Tower," suggested by the tower
+before my window.
+
+Called on Mrs. L., and she asked me to come and teach A. for three
+hours each day.  Just what I wanted; and the children's welcome was
+very pretty and comforting to "Our Olly," as they called me.
+
+Now board is all safe, and something over for home, if stories and
+sewing fail.  I don't do much, but can send little comforts to mother
+and Betty, and keep May neat.
+
+_December 18th_.--Begin with A. L., in Beacon Street.  I taught C. when
+we lived in High Street, A. in Pinckney Street, and now Al; so I seem
+to be an institution and a success, since I can start the boy, teach
+one girl, and take care of the little invalid.  It is hard work, but I
+can do it; and am glad to sit in a large, fine room part of each day,
+after my sky-parlor, which has nothing pretty in it, and only the gray
+tower and blue sky outside as I sit at the window writing.  I love
+luxury, but freedom and independence better.
+
+[_To her father, written from Mrs. Reed's_]
+
+_Boston, November 29, 1856_.
+
+DEAREST FATHER: Your little parcel was very welcome to me as I sat
+alone in my room, with snow falling fast outside, and a few tears in
+(for birthdays are dismal times to me); and the fine letter, the pretty
+gift, and, most of all, the loving thought so kindly taken for your old
+absent daughter, made the cold, dark day as warm and bright as summer
+to me.
+
+And now, with the birthday pin upon my bosom, many thanks on my lips,
+and a whole heart full of love for its giver, I will tell you a little
+about my doings, stupid as they will seem after your own grand
+proceedings.  How I wish I could be with you, enjoying what I have
+always longed for--fine people, fine amusements, and fine books.  But
+as I can't, I am glad you are; for I love to see your name first among
+the lecturers, to hear it kindly spoken of in papers and inquired about
+by good people here--to say nothing of the delight and pride I take in
+seeing you at last filling the place you are so fitted for, and which
+you have waited for so long and patiently.  If the New Yorkers raise a
+statue to the modern Plato, it will be a wise and highly creditable
+action.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+I am very well and very happy.  Things go smoothly, and I think I shall
+come out right, and prove that though an _Alcott_ I _can_ support
+myself.  I like the independent feeling; and though not an easy life,
+it is a free one, and I enjoy it.  I can't do much with my hands; so I
+will make a battering-ram of my head and make a way through this
+rough-and-tumble world.  I have very pleasant lectures to amuse my
+evenings--Professor Gajani on "Italian Reformers," the Mercantile
+Library course, Whipple, Beecher, and others, and, best of all, a free
+pass at the Boston Theatre.  I saw Mr. Barry, and he gave it to me with
+many kind speeches, and promises to bring out the play very soon.  I
+hope he will.
+
+My farce is in the hands of Mrs. W. H. Smith, who acts at Laura Keene's
+theatre in New York.  She took it, saying she would bring it out there.
+If you see or hear anything about it, let me know.  I want something
+doing.  My mornings are spent in writing.  C. takes one a month, and I
+am to see Mr. B., who may take some of my wares.
+
+In the afternoons I walk and visit my hundred relations, who are all
+kind and friendly, and seem interested in our various successes.
+
+Sunday evenings I go to Parker's parlor, and there meet Phillips,
+Garrison, Scherb, Sanborn, and many other pleasant people.  All talk,
+and I sit in a corner listening, and wishing a certain placid,
+gray-haired gentleman was there talking, too.  Mrs. Parker calls on me,
+reads my stories, and is very good to me.  Theodore asks Louisa "how
+her worthy parents do," and is otherwise very friendly to the large,
+bashful girl who adorns his parlor steadily.
+
+Abby is preparing for a busy and, I hope, a profitable winter.  She has
+music lessons already, French and drawing in store, and, if her eyes
+hold out, will keep her word and become what none of us can be, "an
+accomplished Alcott."  Now, dear Father, I shall hope to hear from you
+occasionally, and will gladly answer all epistles from the Plato, whose
+parlor parish is becoming quite famous.  I got the _Tribune_ but not
+the letter, and shall look it up.  I have been meaning to write, but
+did not know where you were.
+
+Good-bye, and a happy birthday from your ever-loving child,
+
+LOUISA.
+
+
+[_Journal_]
+
+_January, 1857_.--Had my first new silk dress from good little L. W.;
+very fine; and I felt as if all the Hancocks and Quincys beheld me as I
+went to two parties in it on New Year's eve.
+
+A busy, happy month--taught, wrote, sewed, read aloud to the "little
+mother," and went often to the theatre; heard good lectures; and
+enjoyed my Parker evenings very much.
+
+Father came to see me on his way home; little money; had had a good
+time, and was asked to come again.  Why don't rich people who enjoy his
+talk pay for it?  Philosophers are always poor, and too modest to pass
+round their own hats.
+
+Sent by him a good bundle to the poor Forlomites among the ten-foot
+drifts in W.
+
+_February_.--Ran home as a valentine on the 14th.
+
+_March_.--Have several irons in the fire now, and try to keep 'em all
+hot.
+
+_April_.--May did a crayon head of mother with Mrs. Murdock; very good
+likeness.  All of us as proud as peacocks of our "little Raphael."
+
+Heard Mrs. Butler read; very fine.
+
+_May_.--Left the L.'s with my $33; glad to rest.  May went home with
+her picture, happy in her winter's work and success.
+
+Father had three talks at W. F. Channing's.  Good company--Emerson,
+Mrs. Howe, and the rest.
+
+Saw young Booth in Brutus, and liked him better than his father; went
+about and rested after my labors; glad to be with Father, who enjoyed
+Boston and friends.
+
+Home on the 10th, passing Sunday at the Emersons'.  I have done what I
+planned--supported myself, written eight stories, taught four months,
+earned a hundred dollars, and sent money home.
+
+
+
+
+HENRY GEORGE
+
+(1839-1897)
+
+THE TROUBLES OF A JOB PRINTER
+
+Henry George was a self-helped man, if ever there was one.  When less
+than fourteen years of age, he left school and started to earn his own
+living.  He never afterward returned to school.  In adolescence, his
+eager mind was obsessed by the glamor of the sea, so he began life as a
+sailor.  After a few years came the desperate poverty of his early
+married life in California, as here described.  His work as a printer
+led to casual employment as a journalist.  This was the first step in
+his subsequently life-long career as an independent thinker, writer,
+and speaker.
+
+An apparent failure in life, he was obliged when twenty-six years of
+age to beg money from a stranger on the street to keep his wife and
+babies from actual starvation.  But his misery may have been of
+incalculable value to the human race, for his bitter personal
+experience convinced him that the times were out of joint, and his
+brain began to seek the remedy.  The doctrine of _single tax_, already
+on trial in some parts of the world, is his chief contribution to
+economic theory.
+
+
+From "The Life of Henry George, by His Son."  Doubleday, Page &
+Company, 1900.
+
+Thus heavily weighted at the outset, the three men opened their office.
+But hard times had come.  A drought had shortened the grain crop,
+killed great numbers of cattle and lessened the gold supply, and the
+losses that the farming, ranching, and mineral regions suffered
+affected all the commercial and industrial activities of the State, so
+that there was a general depression.  Business not coming into their
+office, the three partners went out to hunt for it; and yet it was
+elusive, so that they had very little to do and soon were in
+extremities for living necessities, even for wood for the kitchen fire.
+Henry George had fitfully kept a pocket diary during 1864, and a few
+entries at this job-printing period tell of the pass of affairs.
+
+
+"_December 25_.--Determined to keep a regular journal, and to cultivate
+habits of determination, energy, and industry.  Feel that I am in a bad
+situation, and must use my utmost effort to keep afloat and go ahead.
+Will try to follow the following general rules for one week:
+
+"1st.  In every case to determine rationally what is best to be done.
+
+"2nd.  To do everything determined upon immediately, or as soon as an
+opportunity presents.
+
+"3rd.  To write down what I shall determine upon doing for the
+succeeding day.
+
+"Saw landlady and told her I was not able to pay rent.
+
+"_December 26_, 7 A. M.:
+
+"1st.  Propose to-day, in addition to work in office, to write to Boyne.
+
+"2nd.  To get wood in trade.
+
+"3rd.  To talk with Dr. Eaton, and, perhaps, Dr. Morse.
+
+"Rose at quarter to seven.  Stopped at six wood yards trying to get
+wood in exchange for printing, but failed.  Did very little in office.
+Walked and talked with Ike.  Felt very blue and thought of drawing out.
+Saw Dr. Eaton, but failed to make a trade.  In evening saw Dr. Morse.
+Have not done all, nor as well as I could wish.  Also wrote to Boyne,
+but did not mail letter.
+
+"_January 1 (Sunday)_.--Annie not very well.  Got down town about 11
+o'clock.  Went with Ike to Chinaman's to see about paper bags.
+Returned to office and worked off a lot.
+
+"_January 2_.--Got down town about 8 o'clock.  Worked some labels.  Not
+much doing.
+
+"_January 3_.--Working in office all day.  De Long called to talk about
+getting out a journal.  Did our best day's work."
+
+
+From time to time they got a little business, enough at any rate to
+encourage Trump and George to continue with the office, though Daley
+dropped out; and each day that the money was there the two partners
+took out of the business twenty-five cents apiece, which they together
+spent for food, Trump's wife being with her relatives and he taking his
+dinner with the Georges.  They lived chiefly on cornmeal and milk,
+potatoes, bread and sturgeon, for meat they could not afford and
+sturgeon was the cheapest fish they could find.[1]  Mr. George
+generally went to the office early without breakfast, saying that he
+would get it down town; but knowing that he had no money, his wife more
+than suspected that many a morning passed without his getting a
+mouthful.  Nor could he borrow money except occasionally, for the
+drought that had made general business so bad had hurt all his friends,
+and, indeed, many of them had already borrowed from him while he had
+anything to lend; and he was too proud to complain now to them.  Nor
+did his wife complain, though what deepened their anxieties was that
+they looked for the coming of a second child.  Mrs. George would not
+run up bills that she did not have money to meet.  She parted with her
+little pieces of jewellery and smaller trinkets one by one, until only
+her wedding ring had not been pawned.  And then she told the milkman
+that she could no longer afford to take milk, but he offered to
+continue to supply it for printed cards, which she accepted.  Mr.
+George's diary is blank just here, but at another time he said:[2]
+
+"I came near starving to death, and at one time I was so close to it
+that I think I should have done so but for the job of printing a few
+cards which enabled us to buy a little cornmeal.  In this darkest time
+in my life my second child was born."
+
+
+The baby came at seven o'clock in the morning of January 27, 1865.
+When it was born the wife heard the doctor say: "Don't stop to wash the
+child; he is starving.  Feed him!"  After the doctor had gone and
+mother and baby had fallen asleep, the husband left them alone in the
+house, and taking the elder child to a neighbour's, himself went to his
+business in a desperate state of mind, for his wife's condition made
+money--some money--an absolute and immediate necessity.  But nothing
+came into the office and he did not know where to borrow.  What then
+happened he told sixteen years subsequently.
+
+"I walked along the street and made up my mind to get money from the
+first man whose appearance might indicate that he had it to give.  I
+stopped a man--a stranger--and told him I wanted $5.  He asked what I
+wanted it for.  I told him that my wife was confined and that I had
+nothing to give her to eat.  He gave me the money.  If he had not, I
+think I was desperate enough to have killed him." [3]
+
+The diary notes commence again twenty days after the new baby's birth
+and show that the struggle for subsistence was still continuing, that
+Henry George abandoned the job-printing office, and that he and his
+wife and babies had moved into a smaller house where he had to pay a
+rent of only nine dollars a month--just half of his former rent.  This
+diary consists simply of two half-sheets of white note paper, folded
+twice and pinned in the middle, forming two small neat books of eight
+pages each of about the size of a visiting card.  The writing is very
+small, but clear.
+
+
+"_February 17, 1865 (Friday)_ 10:40 P.M.--Gave I. Trump this day bill
+of sale for my interest in office, with the understanding that if he
+got any money by selling, I am to get some.  I am now afloat again,
+with the world before me.  I have commenced this little book as an
+experiment--to aid me in acquiring habits of regularity, punctuality,
+and purpose.  I will enter in it each evening the principal events of
+the day, with notes, if they occur, errors committed or the reverse,
+and plans for the morrow and future.  I will make a practice of looking
+at it on rising in the morning.
+
+"I am starting out afresh, very much crippled and embarrassed, owing
+over $200.  I have been unsuccessful in everything.  I wish to profit
+by my experience and to cultivate those qualities necessary to success
+in which I have been lacking.  I have not saved as much as I ought, and
+am resolved to practice a rigid economy until I have something ahead.
+
+"1st.  To make every cent I can.
+
+"2nd.  To spend nothing unnecessarily.
+
+"3rd.  To put something by each week, if it is only a five-cent piece
+borrowed for the purpose.
+
+"4th.  Not to run in debt if it can be avoided."
+
+
+"1st.  To endeavour to make an acquaintance and friend of every one
+with whom I am brought in contact.
+
+"2nd.  To stay at home less, and be more social.
+
+"3rd.  To strive to think consecutively and decide quickly."
+
+
+"_February 18_.--Rose at 6 o'clock.  Took cards to woodman.  Went to
+post-office and got two letters, one from Wallazz and another from
+mother.  Heard that Smith was up and would probably not go down.  Tried
+to hunt him up.  Ran around after him a great deal.  Saw him; made an
+appointment, but he did not come.  Finally met him about 4.  He said
+that he had written up for a man, who had first choice; but he would do
+all he could.  I was much disappointed.  Went back to office; then
+after Knowlton, but got no money.  Then went to _Alta_ office.  Smith
+there.  Stood talking till they went to work.  Then to job office.  Ike
+had got four bits [50 cents] from Dr. Josselyn.  Went home, and he came
+out to supper.
+
+"Got up in good season.
+
+"Tried to be energetic about seeing Smith.  Have not done with that
+matter yet, but will try every means.
+
+"To-morrow will write to Cousin Sophia,[5] and perhaps to Wallazz and
+mother, and will try to make acquaintances.  Am in very desperate
+plight.  Courage!
+
+"_February 19 (Sunday)_.--Rose about 9.  Ran a small bill with Wessling
+for flour, coffee, and butter.  After breakfast took Harry around to
+Wilbur's.  Talked a while.  Went down town.  Could not get in office.
+Went into _Alta_ office several times.  Then walked around, hoping to
+strike Smith.  Ike to dinner.  Afterward walked with him, looking for
+house.  Was at _Alta_ office at 6, but no work.  Went with Ike to
+Stickney's and together went to _Californian_ office.  Came home and
+summed up assets and liabilities.  At 10 went to bed, with
+determination of getting up at 6 and going to _Bulletin_ office.
+
+"Have wasted a great deal of time in looking for Smith.  Think it would
+have been better to have hunted him at once or else trusted to luck.
+There seems to be very little show for me down there.  Don't know what
+to do.
+
+"_February 20_.--Got up too late to go to the _Bulletin office_.  Got
+$1 from woodman.  Got my pants from the tailor.  Saw Smith and had a
+long talk with him.  He seemed sorry that he had not thought of me, but
+said another man had been spoken to and was anxious to go.  Went to
+_Alta_ office several times.  Came home early and went to _Alta_ office
+at 6 and to _Call_ at 7, but got no work.  Went to Ike Trump's room,
+and then came home.
+
+"Was not prompt enough in rising.  Have been walking around a good part
+of the day without definite purpose, thereby losing time.
+
+"_February 21_.--Worked for Ike.  Did two cards for $1.  Saw about
+books, and thought some of travelling with them.  Went to _Alta_ before
+coming home.  In evening had row with Chinaman.  Foolish.
+
+"_February 22_.--Hand very sore.  Did not go down till late.  Went to
+work in _Bulletin_ at 12.  Got $3.  Saw Boyne.  Went to library in
+evening.  Thinking of economy.
+
+"_February 26_.--Went to _Bulletin_; no work.  Went with Ike Trump to
+look at house on hill; came home to breakfast.  Decided to take house
+on Perry Street with Mrs. Stone; took it.  Came home and moved.  Paid
+$5 of rent.  About 6 o'clock went down town.  Saw Ike; got 50 cents.
+Walked around and went to Typographical Union meeting.  Then saw Ike
+again.  Found Knowlton had paid him for printing plant, and demanded
+some of the money.  He gave me $5 with very bad humour.
+
+"_February 27_.--Saw Ike in afternoon and had further talk.  In evening
+went to work for Col. Strong on _Alta_.  Smith lent me $3.
+
+"_February 28_.--Worked again for Strong.  Got $5 from John McComb.
+
+"_February 29_.--Got $5 from Barstow, and paid Charlie Coddington the
+$10 I had borrowed from him on Friday last.  On Monday left at Mrs.
+Lauder's [the Russ Street landlady] $1.25 for extra rent and $1.50 for
+milkman.
+
+"_March 1_.--Rose early, went to _Bulletin_; but got no work.  Looked
+in at Valentine's and saw George Foster, who told me to go to Frank
+Eastman's [printing office].  Did so and was told to call again.  Came
+home; had breakfast.  Went to _Alta_ in evening, but no work.  Went to
+Germania Lodge and then to Stickney's.
+
+"_March 2_.--Went to Eastman's about 11 o'clock and was put to work.
+
+"_March 3_.--At work.
+
+"_March 4_.--At work.  Got $5 in evening."
+
+
+The strength of the storm had now passed.  The young printer began to
+get some work at "subbing," though it was scant and irregular.  His
+wife, who paid the second month's rent of the Perry Street house by
+sewing for her landlady, remarked to her husband how contentedly they
+should be able to live if he could be sure of making regularly twenty
+dollars a week.
+
+
+BEGINS WRITING AND TALKING
+
+Henry George's career as a writer should be dated from the commencement
+of 1865, when he was an irregular, substitute printer at Eastman's and
+on the daily newspapers, just after his severe job-office experience.
+He now deliberately set himself to self-improvement.  These few diary
+notes for the end of March and beginning of April are found in a small
+blank book that in 1878, while working on "Progress and Poverty," he
+also used as a diary.
+
+
+"_Saturday, March 25, 1865_.--As I knew we would have no letter this
+morning, I did not hurry down to the office.  After getting breakfast,
+took the wringing machine which I had been using as a sample back to
+Faulkner's; then went to Eastman's and saw to bill; loafed around until
+about 2 P. M.  Concluded that the best thing I could do would be to go
+home and write a little.  Came home and wrote for the sake of practice
+an essay on the 'Use of Time,' which occupied me until Annie prepared
+dinner.  Went to Eastman's by six, got money.  Went to Union meeting.
+
+"_Sunday, March 26_.--Did not get out until 11 o'clock.  Took Harry
+down town and then to Wilbur's.  Proposed to have Dick [the new baby]
+baptised in afternoon; got Mrs. Casey to come to the house for that
+purpose, but concluded to wait.  Went to see Dull, who took me to his
+shop and showed me the model of his wagon brake.
+
+"_Monday, March 27_.--Got down to office about one o'clock; but no
+proofs yet.  Strolled around a little.  Went home and wrote
+communication for Aleck Kenneday's new paper, _Journal of the Trades
+and Workingmen_.  Took it down to him.  In the evening called on Rev.
+Mr. Simonds.
+
+"_Tuesday, 28_.--Got down late.  No work.  In afternoon wrote article
+about laws relating to sailors.  In evening went down to Dull's shop
+while he was engaged on model.
+
+"_Wednesday, 29_.--Went to work about 10:30.  In evening corrected
+proof for _Journal of the Trades and Workingmen_.
+
+"_Thursday, 30_.--At work.
+
+"_Tuesday, April 4_.--Despatch received stating that Richmond and
+Petersburgh are both in our possession.
+
+"_Wednesday, 5_.--Took model of wagon brake to several carriage shops;
+also to _Alta_ office.  In evening signed agreement with Dull.
+
+"_Saturday, 8_.--Not working; bill for week, $23.  Paid Frank Mahon the
+$5 I have been owing for some time.  Met Harrison, who had just come
+down from up the country.  He has a good thing up there.  Talked with
+Dull and drew up advertisement.  In evening, nothing."
+
+
+Thus while he was doing haphazard type-setting, and trying to interest
+carriage builders in a new wagon brake, he was also beginning to write.
+The first and most important of these pieces of writing mentioned in
+the diary notes--on "The Use of Time"--was sent by Mr. George to his
+mother, as an indication of his intention to improve himself.
+Commencing with boyhood, Henry George, as has been seen, had the power
+of simple and clear statement, and if this essay served no other
+purpose than to show the development of that natural power, it would be
+of value.  But as a matter of fact, it has a far greater value; for
+while repeating his purpose to practise writing--"to acquire facility
+and elegance in the expression" of his thought--it gives an
+introspective glimpse into the naturally secretive mind, revealing an
+intense desire, if not for the "flesh pots of Egypt," at least for such
+creature and intellectual comforts as would enable him and those close
+to him "to bask themselves in the warm sunshine of the brief day."
+This paper is presented in full:
+
+
+_Essay, Saturday Afternoon, March 25, 1865_.
+
+"ON THE PROFITABLE EMPLOYMENT OF TIME."
+
+"Most of us have some principal object of desire at any given time of
+our lives; something which we wish more than anything else, either
+because its want is more felt, or that it includes other desirable
+things, and we are conscious that in gaining it we obtain the means of
+gratifying other of our wishes.
+
+"With most of us this power, in one shape or the other--is money, or
+that which is its equivalent or will bring it.
+
+"For this end we subject ourselves to many sacrifices; for its gain we
+are willing to confine ourselves and employ our minds and bodies in
+duties which, for their own sakes, are irksome; and if we do not throw
+the whole force of our natures into the effort to gain this, it is that
+we do not possess the requisite patience, self-command, and penetration
+where we may direct our efforts.
+
+"I am constantly longing for wealth; the wide difference between my
+wishes and the means of gratifying them at my command keeps me in
+perpetual disquiet.  It would bring me comfort and luxury which I
+cannot now obtain; it would give me more congenial employment and
+associates; it would enable me to cultivate my mind and exert to a
+fuller extent my powers; it would give me the ability to minister to
+the comfort and enjoyment of those whom I love most, and, therefore, it
+is my principal object in life to obtain wealth, or at least more of it
+than I have at present.
+
+"Whether this is right or wrong, I do not now consider; but that it is
+so I am conscious.  When I look behind at my past life I see that I
+have made little or no progress, and am disquieted; when I consider my
+present, it is difficult to see that I am moving toward it at all; and
+all my comfort in this respect is in the hope of what the future may
+bring forth.
+
+"And yet my hopes are very vague and indistinct, and my efforts in any
+direction, save the beaten track in which I have been used to earn my
+bread, are, when perceptible, jerky, irregular, and without
+intelligent, continuous direction.
+
+"When I succeed in obtaining employment, I am industrious and work
+faithfully, though it does not satisfy my wishes.  When I have nothing
+to do, I am anxious to be in some way labouring toward the end I wish,
+and yet from hour to hour I cannot tell at what to employ myself.
+
+"To secure any given result it is only necessary to rightly supply
+sufficient force.  Some men possess a greater amount of natural power
+than others and produce quicker and more striking results; yet it is
+apparent that the abilities of the majority, if properly and
+continuously applied, are sufficient to accomplish much more than they
+generally do.
+
+"The hours which I have idled away, though made miserable by the
+consciousness of accomplishing nothing, had been sufficient to make me
+master of almost any common branch of study.  If, for instance, I had
+applied myself to the practice of bookkeeping and arithmetic I might
+now have been an expert in those things; or I might have had the
+dictionary at my fingers' ends; been a practised, and perhaps an able,
+writer; a much better printer; or been able to read and write French,
+Spanish, or any other modern or ancient language to which I might have
+directed my attention; and the mastery of any of these things now would
+give me an additional, appreciable power, and means by which to work to
+my end, not to speak of that which would have been gained by exercise
+and good mental habits.
+
+"These truths are not sudden discoveries; but have been as apparent for
+years as at this present time; but always wishing for some chance to
+make a sudden leap forward, I have never been able to direct my mind
+and concentrate my attention upon those slow processes by which
+everything mental (and in most cases material) is acquired.
+
+"Constantly the mind works, and if but a tithe of its attention was
+directed to some end, how many matters might it have taken up in
+succession, increasing its own stores and power while mastering them?
+
+"To sum up for the present, though this essay has hardly taken the
+direction and shape which at the outset I intended, it is evident to me
+that I have not employed the time and means at my command faithfully
+and advantageously as I might have done, and consequently, that I have
+myself to blame for at least a part of my non-success.  And this being
+true of the past, in the future like results will flow from like
+causes.  I will, therefore, try (though, as I know from experience, it
+is much easier to form good resolutions than to faithfully carry them
+out) to employ my mind in acquiring useful information or practice,
+when I have nothing leading more directly to my end claiming my
+attention.  When practicable, or when I cannot decide upon anything
+else, I will endeavour to acquire facility and elegance in the
+expression of my thought by writing essays or other matters which I
+will preserve for future comparison.  And in this practice it will be
+well to aim at mechanical neatness and grace, as well as at proper and
+polished language."
+
+Of the two other pieces of writing spoken of in the diary notes, the
+"article about laws relating to sailors," has left no trace, but a copy
+of the one for the _Journal of the Trades and Workingmen_ has been
+preserved.
+
+
+
+[1] Unlike that fish on the Atlantic Coast, sturgeon on the Pacific
+Coast, or at any rate in California waters, is of fine quality and
+could easily be substituted on the table for halibut.
+
+[2] Meeker notes, October, 1897.
+
+[3] Henry George related this incident to Dr. James E. Kelly in a
+conversation in Dublin during the winter of 1881-82, in proof that
+environment has more to do with human actions, and especially with
+so-called criminal actions, than we generally concede; and to show how
+acute poverty may drive sound-minded, moral men to the commission of
+deeds that are supposed to belong entirely to hardened evil natures.
+Out of long philosophical and physiological talks together at that time
+the two men formed a warm friendship, and subsequently, when he came to
+the United States and established himself in New York, Dr. Kelly became
+Henry George's family physician and attended him at his deathbed.
+
+[4] She was now a widow, James George having died in the preceding
+August.
+
+
+
+
+JACOB RIIS.
+
+(1849-1914)
+
+"THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN"
+
+The intimate friend at once of "the children of the tenements" and of
+Theodore Roosevelt, Jacob A. Riis was beloved by countless New Yorkers
+for his gallant "battle with the slums," and for the message he brought
+as to "how the other half lives."
+
+From experiences that would have spelled permanent degradation to a man
+of baser metal, he won the knowledge, sympathy, and inspiration that
+made him one of the most exceptionally useful and exceptionally loved
+of American citizens.
+
+
+From "The Making of an American," by Jacob A. Riis.  The Macmillan
+Company.  Copyright, 1901-'08.
+
+The steamer _Iowa_, from Glasgow, made port after a long and stormy
+voyage, on Whitsunday, 1870.  She had come up during the night, and
+cast anchor off Castle Garden.  It was a beautiful spring morning, and
+as I looked over the rail at the miles of straight streets, the green
+heights of Brooklyn, and the stir of ferryboats and pleasure craft on
+the river, my hopes rose high that somewhere in this teeming hive there
+would be a place for me.  What kind of a place I had myself no clear
+notion of; I would let that work out as it could.  Of course I had my
+trade to fall back on, but I am afraid that is all the use I thought of
+putting it to.  The love of change belongs to youth, and I meant to
+take a hand in things as they came along.  I had a pair of strong
+hands, and stubbornness enough to do for two; also a strong belief that
+in a free country, free from the dominion of custom, of caste, as well
+as of men, things would somehow come right in the end, and a man get
+shaken into the corner where he belonged if he took a hand in the game.
+I think I was right in that.  If it took a lot of shaking to get me
+where I belonged, that was just what I needed.  Even my mother admits
+that now. . . .
+
+I made it my first business to buy a navy revolver of the largest size,
+investing in the purchase exactly one-half of my capital.  I strapped
+the weapon on the outside of my coat and strode up Broadway, conscious
+that I was following the fashion of the country.  I knew it upon the
+authority of a man who had been there before me and had returned, a
+gold digger in the early days of California; but America was America to
+us.  We knew no distinction of West and East.  By rights there ought to
+have been buffaloes and red Indians charging up and down Broadway.  I
+am sorry to say that it is easier even to-day to make lots of people
+over there believe that than that New York is paved, and lighted with
+electric lights, and quite as civilized as Copenhagen.  They will have
+it that it is in the wilds.  I saw none of the signs of this, but I
+encountered a friendly policeman, who, sizing me and my pistol up,
+tapped it gently with his club and advised me to leave it home, or I
+might get robbed of it.  This, at first blush, seemed to confirm my
+apprehensions; but he was a very nice policeman, and took time to
+explain, seeing that I was very green.  And I took his advice and put
+the revolver away, secretly relieved to get rid of it.  It was quite
+heavy to carry around.
+
+I had letters to the Danish Consul and to the president of the American
+Banknote Company, Mr. Goodall.  I think perhaps he was not then the
+president, but became so afterward.  Mr. Goodall had once been wrecked
+on the Danish coast and rescued by the captain of the lifesaving crew,
+a friend of my family.  But they were both in Europe, and in just four
+days I realized that there was no special public clamor for my services
+in New York, and decided to go West.
+
+A missionary in Castle Garden was getting up a gang of men for the
+Brady's Bend Iron Works on the Allegheny River, and I went along.  We
+started a full score, with tickets paid, but only two of us reached the
+Bend.  The rest calmly deserted in Pittsburg and went their way. . . .
+
+The [iron works] company mined its own coal.  Such as it was, it
+cropped out of the hills right and left in narrow veins, sometimes too
+shallow to work, seldom affording more space to the digger than barely
+enough to permit him to stand upright.  You did not go down through a
+shaft, but straight in through the side of a hill to the bowels of the
+mountain, following a track on which a little donkey drew the coal to
+the mouth of the mine and sent it down the incline to run up and down a
+hill a mile or more by its own gravity before it reached the place of
+unloading.  Through one of these we marched in, Adler and I, one summer
+morning, with new pickaxes on our shoulders and nasty little oil lamps
+fixed in our hats to light us through the darkness, where every second
+we stumbled over chunks of slate rock, or into pools of water that
+oozed through from above.  An old miner whose way lay past the fork in
+the tunnel where our lead began showed us how to use our picks and the
+timbers to brace the slate that roofed over the vein, and left us to
+ourselves in a chamber perhaps ten feet wide and the height of a man.
+
+We were to be paid by the ton--I forget how much, but it was very
+little--and we lost no time getting to work.  We had to dig away the
+coal at the floor without picks, lying on our knees to do it, and
+afterward drive wedges under the roof to loosen the mass.  It was hard
+work, and, entirely inexperienced as we were, we made but little
+headway.  As the day wore on, the darkness and silence grew very
+oppressive, and made us start nervously at the least thing.  The sudden
+arrival of our donkey with its cart gave me a dreadful fright.  The
+friendly beast greeted us with a joyous bray and rubbed its shaggy
+sides against us in the most companionable way.  In the flickering
+light of my lamp I caught sight of its long ears waving over me--I
+don't believe I had seen three donkeys before in my life; there were
+none where I came from--and heard that demoniac shriek, and I verily
+believe I thought the evil one had come for me in person.  I know that
+I nearly fainted.
+
+That donkey was a discerning animal.  I think it knew when it first set
+eyes on us that we were not going to overwork it; and we didn't.  When,
+toward evening, we quit work, after narrowly escaping being killed by a
+large stone that fell from the roof in consequence of our neglect to
+brace it up properly, our united efforts had resulted in barely filling
+two of the little carts, and we had earned, if I recollect aright,
+something like sixty cents each.  The fall of the roof robbed us of all
+desire to try mining again.  It knocked the lamps from our hats, and,
+in darkness that could almost be felt, we groped our way back to the
+light along the track, getting more badly frightened as we went.  The
+last stretch of way we ran, holding each other's hands as though we
+were not men and miners, but two frightened children in the dark. . . .
+
+
+[A short time later he learned of the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian
+War, and at once determined to enlist.]
+
+
+I reached New York with just one cent in my pocket, and put up at a
+boarding-house where the charge was one dollar a day.  In this no moral
+obliquity was involved.  I had simply reached the goal for which I had
+sacrificed all, and felt sure that the French people or the Danish
+Consul would do the rest quickly.  But there was evidently something
+wrong somewhere.  The Danish Consul could only register my demand to be
+returned to Denmark in the event of war.  They have my letter at the
+office yet, he tells me, and they will call me out with the reserves.
+The French were fitting out no volunteer army that I could get on the
+track of, and nobody was paying the passage of fighting men.  The end
+of it was that, after pawning my revolver and my top-boots, the only
+valuable possessions I had left, to pay for my lodging, I was thrown on
+the street, and told to come back when I had more money.  That night I
+wandered about New York with a gripsack that had only a linen duster
+and a pair of socks in it, turning over in my mind what to do next.
+Toward midnight I passed a house in Clinton Place that was lighted up
+festively.  Laughter and the hum of many voices came from within.  I
+listened.  They spoke French.  A society of Frenchmen having their
+annual dinner, the watchman in the block told me.  There at last was my
+chance.  I went up the steps and rang the bell.  A flunkey in a
+dress-suit opened, but when he saw that I was not a guest, but to all
+appearances a tramp, he tried to put me out.  I, on my part, tried to
+explain.  There was an altercation and two gentlemen of the society
+appeared.  They listened impatiently to what I had to say, then,
+without a word, thrust me into the street, and slammed the door in my
+face.
+
+It was too much.  Inwardly raging, I shook the dust of the city from my
+feet and took the most direct route out of it, straight up Third
+Avenue.  I walked till the stars in the east began to pale, and then
+climbed into a wagon that stood at the curb, to sleep.  I did not
+notice that it was a milk-wagon.  The sun had not risen yet when the
+driver came, unceremoniously dragged me out by the feet, and dumped me
+into the gutter.  On I went with my gripsack, straight ahead, until
+toward noon I reached Fordham College, famished and footsore.  I had
+eaten nothing since the previous day, and had vainly tried to make a
+bath in the Bronx River do for breakfast.  Not yet could I cheat my
+stomach that way.
+
+The college gates were open, and I strolled wearily in, without aim or
+purpose.  On a lawn some young men were engaged in athletic exercises,
+and I stopped to look and admire the beautiful shade-trees and the
+imposing building.  So at least it seems to me at this distance.  An
+old monk in a cowl, whose noble face I sometimes recall in my dreams,
+came over and asked kindly if I was not hungry.  I was in all
+conscience fearfully hungry, and I said so, though I did not mean to.
+I had never seen a real live monk before, and my Lutheran training had
+not exactly inclined me in their favor.  I ate of the food set before
+me, not without qualms of conscience, and with a secret suspicion that
+I would next be asked to abjure my faith, or at least do homage to the
+Virgin Mary, which I was firmly resolved not to do.  But when, the meal
+finished, I was sent on my way with enough to do me for supper, without
+the least allusion having been made to my soul, I felt heartily ashamed
+of myself.  I am just as good a Protestant as I ever was.  Among my own
+I am a kind of heretic even, because I cannot put up with the apostolic
+succession; but I have no quarrel with the excellent charities of the
+Roman Church, or with the noble spirit that animated them.  I learned
+that lesson at Fordham thirty years ago.
+
+Up the railroad track I went, and at night hired out to a truck-farmer,
+with the freedom of his hay-mow for my sleeping quarters.  But when I
+had hoed cucumbers three days in a scorching sun, till my back ached as
+if it were going to break, and the farmer guessed that he would call it
+square for three shillings, I went farther.  A man is not necessarily a
+philanthropist, it seems, because he tills the soil.  I did not hire
+out again.  I did odd jobs to earn my meals, and slept in the fields at
+night, still turning over in my mind how to get across the sea.  An
+incident of those wanderings comes to mind while I am writing.  They
+were carting in hay, and when night came on, somewhere about Mount
+Vernon, I gathered an armful of wisps that had fallen from the loads,
+and made a bed for myself in a wagon-shed by the roadside.  In the
+middle of the night I was awakened by a loud outcry.  A fierce light
+shone in my face.  It was the lamp of a carriage that had been driven
+into the shed.  I was lying between the horse's feet unhurt.  A
+gentleman sprang from the carriage, more frightened than I, and bent
+over me.  When he found that I had suffered no injury, he put his hand
+in his pocket and held out a silver quarter.
+
+"Go," he said, "and drink it up."
+
+"Drink it up yourself!" I shouted angrily.  "What do you take me for?"
+
+They were rather high heroics, seeing where I was, but he saw nothing
+to laugh at.  He looked earnestly at me for a moment, then held out his
+hand and shook mine heartily.  "I believe you," he said; "yet you need
+it, or you would not sleep here.  Now will you take it from me?"  And I
+took the money.
+
+The next day it rained, and the next day after that, and I footed it
+back to the city, still on my vain quest.  A quarter is not a great
+capital to subsist on in New York when one is not a beggar and has no
+friends.  Two days of it drove me out again to find at least the food
+to keep me alive; but in those two days I met the man who, long years
+after, was to be my honored chief, Charles A. Dana, the editor of the
+_Sun_.  There had been an item in the _Sun_ about a volunteer regiment
+being fitted out for France.  I went up to the office, and was admitted
+to Mr. Dana's presence.  I fancy I must have appealed to his sense of
+the ludicrous, dressed in top-boots and a linen duster much the worse
+for wear, and demanding to be sent out to fight.  He knew nothing about
+recruiting.  Was I French?  No, Danish; it had been in his paper about
+the regiment.  He smiled a little at my faith, and said editors
+sometimes did not know about everything that was in their papers.  I
+turned to go, grievously disappointed, but he called me back.
+
+"Have you," he said, looking searchingly at me; "have you had your
+breakfast?"
+
+No, God knows that I did not; neither that day nor for many days
+before.  That was one of the things I had at last learned to consider
+among the superfluities of an effete civilization.  I suppose I had no
+need of telling it to him, for it was plain to read in my face.  He put
+his hand in his pocket and pulled out a dollar.
+
+"There," he said, "go and get your breakfast; and better give up the
+war."
+
+Give up the war! and for a breakfast.  I spurned the dollar hotly.
+
+"I came here to enlist, not to beg money for breakfast," I said, and
+strode out of the office, my head in the air, but my stomach crying out
+miserably in rebellion against my pride.  I revenged myself upon it by
+leaving my top-boots with the "uncle," who was my only friend and
+relative here, and filling my stomach upon the proceeds.  I had one
+good dinner, anyhow, for when I got through there was only twenty-five
+cents left of the dollar I borrowed upon my last article of "dress."
+That I paid for a ticket to Perth Amboy, near which place I found work
+in Pfeiffer's clay-bank.
+
+Pfeiffer was a German, but his wife was Irish and so were his hands,
+all except a giant Norwegian and myself.  The third day was Sunday, and
+was devoted to drinking much beer, which Pfeiffer, with an eye to
+business, furnished on the premises.  When they were drunk, the tribe
+turned upon the Norwegian, and threw him out.  It seems that this was a
+regular weekly occurrence.  Me they fired out at the same time, but
+afterward paid no attention to me.  The whole crew of them perched on
+the Norwegian and belabored him with broomsticks and balesticks until
+they roused the sleeping Berserk in him.  As I was coming to his
+relief, I saw the human heap heave and rock.  From under it arose the
+enraged giant, tossed his tormentors aside as if they were so much
+chaff, battered down the door of the house in which they took refuge,
+and threw them all, Mrs. Pfeiffer included, through the window.  They
+were not hurt, and within two hours they were drinking more beer
+together and swearing at one another endearingly.  I concluded that I
+had better go on, though Mr. Pfeiffer regretted that he never paid his
+hands in the middle of the month.  It appeared afterward that he
+objected likewise to paying them at the end of the month, or at the
+beginning of the next.  He owes me two days' wages yet.
+
+At sunset on the second day after my desertion of Pfeiffer I walked
+across a footbridge into a city with many spires, in one of which a
+chime of bells rang out a familiar tune.  The city was New Brunswick.
+I turned down a side street where two stone churches stood side by
+side.  A gate in the picket fence had been left open, and I went in
+looking for a place to sleep.  Back in the churchyard I found what I
+sought in the brownstone slab covering the tomb of, I know now, an old
+pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church, who died full of wisdom and grace.
+I am afraid that I was not over-burdened with either, or I might have
+gone to bed with a full stomach, too, instead of chewing the last of
+the windfall apples that had been my diet on my two days' trip; but if
+he slept as peacefully under the slab as I slept on it, he was doing
+well.  I had for once a dry bed, and brownstone keeps warm long after
+the sun has set.  The night dews and the snakes, and the dogs that kept
+sniffing and growling half the night in the near distance, had made me
+tired of sleeping in the fields.  The dead were much better company.
+They minded their own business, and let a fellow alone. . . .
+
+
+[He found no employment in New Brunswick and after six weeks in a
+neighboring brickyard he returned to New York, to be again disappointed
+in an effort to enlist.]
+
+
+The city was full of idle men.  My last hope, a promise of employment
+in a human-hair factory, failed, and, homeless and penniless, I joined
+the great army of tramps, wandering about the streets in the daytime
+with the one aim of somehow stilling the hunger that gnawed at my
+vitals, and fighting at night with vagrant curs or outcasts as
+miserable as myself for the protection of some sheltering ash-bin or
+doorway.  I was too proud in all my misery to beg.  I do not believe I
+ever did.  But I remember well a basement window at the downtown
+Delmonico's, the silent appearance of my ravenous face at which, at a
+certain hour in the evening, always evoked a generous supply of
+meat-bones and rolls from a white-capped cook who spoke French.  That
+was the saving clause.  I accepted his rolls as installment of the debt
+his country owed me, or ought to owe me, for my unavailing efforts in
+its behalf.
+
+It was under such auspices that I made the acquaintance of Mulberry
+Bend, the Five Points, and the rest of the slums, with which there was
+in the years to come to be a reckoning. . . .
+
+There was until last winter a doorway in Chatham Square, that of the
+old Barnum clothing store, which I could never pass without recalling
+those nights of hopeless misery with the policeman's periodic "Get up
+there!  Move on!" reinforced by a prod of his club or the toe of his
+boot.  I slept there, or tried to, when crowded out of the tenements in
+the Bend by their utter nastiness.  Cold and wet weather had set in,
+and a linen duster was all that covered my back.  There was a woollen
+blanket in my trunk which I had from home--the one, my mother had told
+me, in which I was wrapped when I was born; but the trunk was in the
+"hotel" as security for money I owed for board, and I asked for it in
+vain.  I was now too shabby to get work, even if there had been any to
+get.  I had letters still to friends of my family in New York who might
+have helped me, but hunger and want had not conquered my pride.  I
+would come to them, if at all, as their equal, and, lest I fall into
+temptation, I destroyed the letters.  So, having burned my bridges
+behind me, I was finally and utterly alone in the city, with the winter
+approaching and every shivering night in the streets reminding me that
+a time was rapidly coming when such a life as I led could no longer be
+endured.
+
+Not in a thousand years would I be likely to forget the night when it
+came.  It had rained all day, a cold October storm, and night found me,
+with the chill downpour unabated, down by the North River, soaked
+through and through, with no chance for a supper, forlorn and
+discouraged.  I sat on the bulwark, listening to the falling rain and
+the swish of the dark tide, and thinking of home.  How far it seemed,
+and how impassable the gulf now between the "castle" with its refined
+ways, between her in her dainty girlhood and me sitting there, numbed
+with the cold that was slowly stealing away my senses with my courage.
+There was warmth and cheer where she was.  Here----  An overpowering
+sense of desolation came upon me.  I hitched a little nearer the edge.
+What if----?  Would they miss me or long at home if no word came from
+me?  Perhaps they might never hear.  What was the use of keeping it up
+any longer with, God help us, everything against and nothing to back a
+lonely lad?
+
+And even then the help came.  A wet and shivering body was pressed
+against mine, and I felt rather than heard a piteous whine in my ear.
+It was my companion in misery, a little outcast black-and-tan,
+afflicted with fits, that had shared the shelter of a friendly doorway
+with me one cold night and had clung to me ever since with a loyal
+affection that was the one bright spot in my hard life.  As my hand
+stole mechanically down to caress it, it crept upon my knees and licked
+my face, as if it meant to tell me that there was one who understood;
+that I was not alone.  And the love of the faithful little beast thawed
+the icicles in my heart.  I picked it up in my arms and fled from the
+tempter; fled to where there were lights and men moving, if they cared
+less for me than I for them--anywhere so that I saw and heard the river
+no more. . . .
+
+
+[After a while he fell in with some Danish friends and there was a
+period of more prosperous times, including some experiences on the
+lecture platform.  Then came further adventures and finally]:
+
+
+I made up my mind to go into the newspaper business.  It seemed to me
+that a reporter's was the highest and noblest of all callings; no one
+could sift wrong from right as he, and punish the wrong.  In that I was
+right.  I have not changed my opinion on that point one whit, and I am
+sure I never shall.  The power of fact is the mightiest lever of this
+or of any day.  The reporter has his hand upon it, and it is his
+grievous fault if he does not use it well.  I thought I would make a
+good reporter.  My father had edited our local newspaper, and such
+little help as I had been of to him had given me a taste for the
+business.  Being of that mind, I went to the _Courier_ office one
+morning and asked for the editor.  He was not in.  Apparently nobody
+was.  I wandered through room after room, all empty, till at last I
+came to one in which sat a man with a paste-pot and a pair of long
+shears.  This must be the editor; he had the implements of his trade.
+I told him my errand while he clipped away.
+
+"What is it you want?" he asked, when I had ceased speaking and waited
+for an answer.
+
+"Work," I said.
+
+"Work!" said he, waving me haughtily away with the shears; "we don't
+work here.  This is a newspaper office."
+
+I went, abashed.  I tried the _Express_ next.  This time I had the
+editor pointed out to me.  He was just coming through the business
+office.  At the door I stopped him and preferred my request.  He looked
+me over, a lad fresh from the shipyard, with horny hands and a rough
+coat, and asked:
+
+"What are you?"
+
+"A carpenter," I said.
+
+The man turned upon his heel with a loud, rasping laugh and shut the
+door in my face.  For a moment I stood there stunned.  His ascending
+steps on the stairs brought back my senses.  I ran to the door, and
+flung it open.  "You laugh!" I shouted, shaking my fist at him,
+standing halfway up the stairs; "you laugh now, but wait----"  And then
+I got the grip of my temper and slammed the door in my turn.  All the
+same, in that hour it was settled that I was to be a reporter.  I knew
+it as I went out into the street. . . .
+
+With a dim idea of being sent into the farthest wilds as an operator, I
+went to a business college on Fourth Avenue and paid $20 to learn
+telegraphing.  It was the last money I had.  I attended the school in
+the afternoon.  In the morning I peddled flat-irons, earning money for
+my board, and so made out. . . .
+
+
+[But there came again a season of hard times for him and the
+Newfoundland dog some one had given him, and he had some unhappy
+experiences as a book agent].
+
+
+It was not only breakfast we lacked.  The day before we had had only a
+crust together.  Two days without food is not good preparation for a
+day's canvassing.  We did the best we could.  Bob stood by and wagged
+his tail persuasively while I did the talking; but luck was dead
+against us, and "Hard Times" stuck to us for all we tried.  Evening
+came and found us down by the Cooper Institute, with never a cent.
+Faint with hunger, I sat down on the steps under the illuminated clock,
+while Bob stretched himself at my feet.  He had beguiled the cook in
+one of the last houses we called at, and his stomach was filled.  From
+the corner I had looked on enviously.  For me there was no supper, as
+there had been no dinner and no breakfast.  To-morrow there was another
+day of starvation.  How long was this to last?  Was it any use to keep
+up a struggle so hopeless?  From this very spot I had gone, hungry and
+wrathful, three years before when the dining Frenchmen for whom I
+wanted to fight thrust me forth from their company.  Three wasted
+years!  Then I had one cent in my pocket, I remembered.  To-day I had
+not even so much.  I was bankrupt in hope and purpose.  Nothing had
+gone right; nothing would ever go right; and worse, I did not care.  I
+drummed moodily upon my book.  Wasted!  Yes, that was right.  My life
+was wasted, utterly wasted.
+
+A voice hailed me by name, and Bob sat up, looking attentively at me
+for his cue as to the treatment of the owner of it.  I recognized in
+him the principal of the telegraph school where I had gone until my
+money gave out.  He seemed suddenly struck by something.
+
+"Why, what are you doing here?" he asked.  I told him Bob and I were
+just resting after a day of canvassing.
+
+"Books!" he snorted.  "I guess they won't make you rich.  Now, how
+would you like to be a reporter, if you have got nothing better to do?
+The manager of a news agency downtown asked me to-day to find him a
+bright young fellow whom he could break in.  It isn't much--$10 a week
+to start with.  But it is better than peddling books, I know."
+
+He poked over the book in my hand and read the title.  "Hard Times," he
+said, with a little laugh.  "I guess so.  What do you say?  I think you
+will do.  Better come along and let me give you a note to him now."
+
+As in a dream, I walked across the street with him to his office and
+got the letter which was to make me, half-starved and homeless, rich as
+Croesus, it seemed to me. . . .
+
+When the sun rose, I washed my face and hands in a dog's drinking
+trough, pulled my clothes into such shape as I could, and went with Bob
+to his new home.  That parting over, I walked down to 23 Park Row and
+delivered my letter to the desk editor in the New York News
+Association, up on the top floor.
+
+He looked me over a little doubtfully, but evidently impressed with the
+early hours I kept, told me that I might try.  He waved me to a desk,
+bidding me wait until he had made out his morning book of assignments;
+and with such scant ceremony was I finally introduced to Newspaper Row,
+that had been to me like an enchanted land.  After twenty-seven years
+of hard work in it, during which I have been behind the scenes of most
+of the plays that go to make up the sum of the life of the metropolis,
+it exercises the old spell over me yet.  If my sympathies need
+quickening, my point of view adjusting, I have only to go down to Park
+Row at eventide, when the crowds are hurrying homeward and the City
+Hall clock is lighted, particularly when the snow lies on the grass in
+the park, and stand watching them a while, to find all things coming
+right.  It is Bob who stands by and watches with me then, as on that
+night.
+
+The assignment that fell to my lot when the book was made out, the
+first against which my name was written in a New York editor's book,
+was a lunch of some sort at the Astor House.  I have forgotten what was
+the special occasion.  I remember the bearskin hats of the Old Guard in
+it, but little else.  In a kind of haze I beheld half the savory viands
+of earth spread under the eyes and nostrils of a man who had not tasted
+food for the third day.  I did not ask for any.  I had reached that
+stage of starvation that is like the still centre of a cyclone, when no
+hunger is left.  But it may be that a touch of it all crept into my
+report; for when the editor had read it, he said briefly:
+
+"You will do.  Take that desk, and report at ten every morning, sharp."
+
+That night, when I was dismissed from the office, I went up the Bowery
+to No. 185, where a Danish family kept a boarding-house up under the
+roof.  I had work and wages now, and could pay.  On the stairs I fell
+in a swoon and lay there till some one stumbled over me in the dark and
+carried me in.  My strength had at last given out.
+
+So began my life as a newspaper man.
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM H. RIDEING
+
+(1853-____)
+
+REJECTED MANUSCRIPTS
+
+Nowadays, it seems, every one reads, also writes.  There are few
+streets where the callous postman does not occasionally render some
+doorstep desolate by the delivery of a rejected manuscript.  Fellow
+feeling makes us wondrous kind, and the first steps in the career of a
+successful man of letters are always interesting.  You remember how
+Franklin slyly dropped his first contribution through the slit in his
+brother's printing-house door; and how the young Charles Dickens crept
+softly to the letter-box up a dark court, off a dark alley, near Fleet
+Street.
+
+In the case of Mr. Rideing, all must admire and be thankful for the
+indomitable spirit which disappointments were unable to discourage.
+
+
+From "Many Celebrities and a Few Others," by William H. Rideing.
+Doubleday, Page & Co., 1913.
+
+I do not know to a certainty just how or when the new ambition found
+its cranny and sprouted, and I wonder that it did not perish at once,
+like others of its kind which never blossoming were torn from the bed
+that nourished them and borne afar like balls of thistledown.  How and
+why it survived the rest, which seemed more feasible, I am not able to
+answer fully or satisfactorily to myself, and other people have yet to
+show any curiosity about it.
+
+How at this period I watched for the postman!  Envelopes of portentous
+bulk were put into my hands so often that I became inured to
+disappointment, unsurprised and unhurt, like a patient father who has
+more faith in the abilities of his children than the stupid and
+purblind world which will not employ them.
+
+These rejected essays and tales were my children, and the embarrassing
+number of them did not curb my philoprogenitiveness.
+
+Dawn broke unheeded and without reproach to the novice as he sat by
+candle-light at his table giving shape and utterance to dreams which
+did not foretell penalties, nor allow any intimation to reach him of
+the disillusionings sure to come, sharp-edged and poignant, with the
+awakening day.  The rocky coast of realities, with its shoals and
+whirlpools, which encircles the sphere of dreams, is never visible till
+the sun is high.  You are not awake till you strike it.
+
+Up and dressed, careless of breakfast, he hears the postman's knock.
+
+There is Something for the boy, which at a glance instantly dispels the
+clouds of his drowsiness and makes his heart jump: an envelope not
+bulky, an envelope whose contents tremble in his hand and grow dim in
+his eyes, and have to be read and read again before they can be
+believed.  One of his stories has at last found a place and will be
+printed next month!  Life may bestow on us its highest honours, and
+wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, the guerdon of a glorious lot, but
+it can never transcend or repeat the thrill and ecstasy of the
+triumphant apotheosis of such a moment as that.
+
+It was a fairy story, and though nobody could have suspected it, the
+fairy queen was Miss Goodall, much diminished in stature, of course,
+with all her indubitable excellencies, her nobility of character, and
+her beauty of person sublimated to an essence that only a Lilliputian
+vessel could hold.  Her instincts were domestic, and her domain was the
+hearthstone, and there she and her attendants, miniatures of the
+charming damsels in Miss McGinty's peachy and strawberry-legged _corps
+de ballet_, rewarded virtue and trampled meanness under their dainty,
+twinkling feet.  Moreover, the story was to be paid for, a condition of
+the greater glory, an irrefragable proof of merit.  Only as evidence of
+worth was money thought of, and though much needed, it alone was
+lightly regarded.  The amount turned out to be very small.  The editor
+handed it out of his trousers pocket--not the golden guinea looked for,
+but a few shillings.  He must have detected a little disappointment in
+the drooping corners of the boy's mouth, for without any remark from
+him he said--he was a dingy and inscrutable person--"That is all we
+ever pay--four shillings per _colyume_," pronouncing the second
+syllable of that word like the second syllable of "volume."
+
+What did the amount matter to the boy?  A paper moist and warm from the
+press was in his hands, and as he walked home through sleet and snow
+and wind--the weather of the old sea-port was in one of its
+tantrums--he stopped time and again to look at his name, his very own
+name, shining there in letters as lustrous as the stars of heaven.
+
+When that little story of mine appeared in all the glory of print, Fame
+stood at my door, a daughter of the stars in such array that it blinded
+one to look at her.  She has never come near me since, and I have
+changed my opinion of her: a beguiling minx, with little taste or
+judgment, and more than her share of feminine lightness and caprice; an
+unconscionable flirt, that is all she is.
+
+I came to New York, and peeped into the doors of the _Tribune_, the
+_World_, the _Times_, and the _Sun_ with all the reverence that a
+Moslem may feel when he beholds Mecca.  ...
+
+It was in the August of a bounteous year of fruit.  The smell of
+peaches and grapes piled in barrows and barrels scented the air, as it
+scents the memory still.  The odour of a peach brings back to me all
+the magic-lantern impressions of a stranger--memories of dazzling,
+dancing, tropical light, bustle, babble, and gayety; they made me feel
+that I had never been alive before, and the people of the old seaport,
+active as I had thought them, became in a bewildered retrospect as slow
+and quiet as snails.  But far sweeter to me than the fragrance of
+peaches were the humid whiffs I breathed from the noisy press rooms in
+the Park Row basements, the smell of the printers' ink as it was
+received by the warm, moist rolls of paper in the whirring, clattering
+presses.  There was history in the making, destiny at her loom.
+Nothing ever expels it: if once a taste for it is acquired, it ties
+itself up with ineffaceable memories and longings, and even in
+retirement and changed scenes restores the eagerness and aspirations of
+the long-passed hour when it first came over us with a sort of
+intoxication.
+
+I had no introduction and no experience and was prudent enough to
+foresee the rebuff that would surely follow a climb up the dusky but
+alluring editorial stairs and an application for employment in so
+exalted a profession by a boy of seventeen.  I decided that I could use
+more persuasion and gain a point in hiding my youth, which was a menace
+to me, by writing letters, and so I plunged through the post on Horace
+Greeley, on L. J. Jennings, the brilliant, forgotten Englishman who
+then edited the _Times_, on Mr. Dana, and on the rest.  The astonishing
+thing of that time, as I look back on it, was my invulnerability to
+disappointments; I expected them and was prepared for them, and when
+they came they were as spurs and not as arrows nor as any deadly
+weapon.  They hardly caused a sigh except a sigh of relief from the
+chafing uncertainties of waiting, and instead of depressing they
+compelled advances in fresh directions which soon became exhilarating,
+advances upon which one started with stronger determination and fuller,
+not lessened, confidence.  O heart of Youth!  How unfluttered thy beat!
+How invincible thou art in thine own conceit!  What gift of heaven or
+earth can compare with thy supernal faith!  "No matter how small the
+cage the bird will sing if it has a voice."
+
+Had my letters been thrown into the wastepaper basket, after an
+impatient glance by the recipients, I should not have been surprised or
+more than a little nettled; but I received answers not encouraging from
+both Horace Greeley and Mr. Dana.
+
+Mr. Greeley was brief and final, but Mr. Dana, writing in his own hand
+(how friendly it was of him!), qualified an impulse to encourage with a
+tag for self-protection.  "Your letter does you credit," he wrote.
+Those five words put me on the threshold of my goal.  "Your letter does
+you credit, and I shall be glad to hear from you again----"  A door
+opened, and a flood of light and warmth from behind it enveloped me as
+in a gown of eiderdown.  "I shall be glad to hear from you again three
+or four years from now!"  The door slammed in my face, the gown slipped
+off, and left me with a chill.  But I did not accuse Mr. Dana of
+deliberately hurting me or think that he surmised how a polite evasion
+of that sort may without forethought be more cruel than the coldest and
+most abrupt negative.
+
+I went farther afield, despatching my letters to Chicago, Philadelphia,
+Boston, and Springfield.  In Philadelphia there was a little paper
+called the _Day_, and this is what its editor wrote to me:
+
+"There are several vacancies in the editorial department, but there is
+one vacancy still worse on the ground floor, and the cashier is its
+much-harried victim.  You might come here, but you would starve to
+death, and saddle your friends with the expenses of a funeral."
+
+A man with humour enough for that ought to have prospered, and I
+rejoiced to learn soon afterward that he (I think his name was Cobb)
+had been saved from his straits by an appointment to the United States
+Mint!
+
+His jocularity did not shake my faith in the seriousness of journalism.
+I had not done laughing when I opened another letter written in a fine,
+crabbed hand like the scratching of a diamond on a window-pane, and as
+I slowly deciphered its contents I could hardly believe what I read.
+It was from Samuel Bowles the elder, editor of the Springfield
+_Republican_, then as now one of the sanest, most respected, and
+influential papers in the country.  He wanted a young man to relieve
+him of some of his drudgery, and I might come on at once to serve as
+his private secretary.  He did not doubt that I could be useful to him,
+and he was no less sure that he could be useful to me.  Moreover, my
+idea of salary, he said--it was modest, but forty dollars a
+month--"just fitted his."  He was one of the great men of his time when
+papers were strong or weak, potent in authority or negligible, in
+proportion to the personality of the individual controlling them.  He
+himself was the _Republican_, as Mr. Greeley was the _Tribune_, Mr.
+Bennett the _Herald_, Mr. Dana the _Sun_, Mr. Watterson the
+_Courier-Journal_, and Mr. Murat Halstead the Cincinnati _Commercial_,
+though, of course, like them, he tacitly hid himself behind the sacred
+and inviolable screen of anonymity, and none of them exercised greater
+power over the affairs of the nation than he, out of the centre, did
+from that charming New England town to which he invited me.  The
+opportunity was worth a premium, such as is paid by apprentices in
+England for training in ships and in merchants' and lawyers' offices;
+the salary seemed like the gratuity of a too liberal and chivalric
+employer, for no fees could procure from any vocational institution so
+many advantages as were to be freely had in association with him.  He
+instructed and inspired, and if he perceived ability and readiness in
+his pupil (this was my experience of him), he was as eager to encourage
+and improve him as any father could be with a son, looking not for the
+most he could take out of him in return for pay, but for the most he
+could put into him for his own benefit.
+
+Journalism to him was not the medium of haste, passion, prejudice, and
+faction.  He fully recognized all its responsibilities, and the need of
+meeting them and respecting them by other than casual, haphazard, and
+slipshod methods.  He was an economist of words, with an abhorrence of
+redundance and irrelevance; not only an economist of words, but also an
+economist of syllables, choosing always the fewer, and losing nothing
+of force or precision by that choice.  He had what was not less than a
+passion for brevity.  "What," he was asked, "makes a journalist?" and
+he replied: "A nose for news."  But with him the news had to be sifted,
+verified, and reduced to an essence, not inflated, distorted and
+garnished with all the verbal spoils of the reporter's last scamper
+through the dictionary.
+
+How sedate and prosperous Springfield looked to me when I arrived there
+on an early spring day!  How clean, orderly, leisurely, and respectable
+after the untidiness and explosive anarchy of New York!  I made for the
+river, as I always do wherever a river is, and watched it flowing down
+in the silver-gray light and catching bits of the rain-washed blue sky.
+The trees had lost the brittleness and sharpness of winter's drawing
+and their outlines were softening into greenish velvet.  In the
+coverts, arbutus crept out with a hawthorn-like fragrance from patches
+of lingering snow.  The main street leading into the town from the
+Massasoit House and the station also had an air of repose and dignity
+as if those who had business in it were not preoccupied by the frenzy
+for bargains, but had time and the inclination for loitering,
+politeness, and sociability.  That was in 1870, and I fear that
+Springfield must have lost some of its old-world simplicity and
+leisureliness since then.  I regret that I have never been in it since,
+though I have passed through it hundreds of times.
+
+The office of the Republican was in keeping with its environment, an
+edifice of stone or brick not more than three or four stories high,
+neat, uncrowded, and quiet; very different from the newspaper offices
+of Park Row, with their hustle, litter, dust, and noise.  I met no one
+on my way upstairs to the editorial rooms, and quaked at the oppressive
+solemnity and detachment of it.  I wondered if people were observing me
+from the street and thought how much impressed they would be if they
+divined the importance of the person they were looking at, possibly
+another Tom Tower.  The vanity of youth is in the same measure as its
+valour; withdraw one, and the other droops.
+
+"Now," said Mr. Bowles sharply, after a brusque greeting, "we'll see
+what you can do."
+
+I was dubious of him in that first encounter.  He was crisp and quick
+in manner, clear-skinned, very spruce, and clear-eyed; his eyes
+appraised you in a glance.
+
+"Take that and see how short you can make it."
+
+He handed me a column from one of the "exchanges," as the copies of
+other papers are called.  I spent half an hour at it, striking out
+repetitions and superfluous adjectives and knitting long sentences into
+brief ones.  Condensation is a fine thing, as Charles Reade once said,
+and to know how to condense judiciously, to get all the juice, without
+any of the rind or pulp, is as important to the journalist as a
+knowledge of anatomy to the figure painter.
+
+I went over it a second time before I handed it back to him as the best
+I could do.  I had plucked the fatted column to a lean quarter of that
+length, yet I trembled and sweated.
+
+"Bah!" he cried, scoring it with a pencil, which sped as dexterously as
+a surgeon's knife.  "Read it now.  Have I omitted anything essential?"
+
+He had not; only the verbiage had gone.  All that was worthy of
+preservation remained in what the printer calls a "stickful."  That was
+my first lesson in journalism.
+
+
+
+
+HELEN ADAMS KELLER
+
+(1880-____)
+
+HOW SHE LEARNED TO SPEAK
+
+When nineteen months old Helen Keller was stricken with an illness
+which robbed her of both sight and hearing.  The infant that is blind
+and deaf is of course dumb also, for being unable to see or hear the
+speech of others, the child cannot learn to imitate it.
+
+Despite her enormous handicaps, Miss Keller to-day is a college
+graduate, a public speaker, and the author of several charming books.
+It need scarcely be explained that this miracle was not wrought by
+self-help alone.  But if she had not striven with all her might to
+respond to the efforts of her devoted teacher, Miss Keller would not
+to-day be mistress of the unusual talent for literary expression which
+makes her contributions sure of a welcome in the columns of the leading
+magazines.
+
+
+From "The Story of My Life," by Helen Keller.  Published by Doubleday,
+Page & Co.
+
+The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my
+teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me.  I am filled with wonder
+when I consider the immeasurable contrast between the two lives which
+it connects.  It was the third of March; 1887, three months before I
+was seven years old.
+
+On the afternoon of that eventful day I stood on the porch, dumb,
+expectant.  I guessed vaguely from my mother's signs and from the
+hurrying to and fro in the house that something unusual was about to
+happen, so I went to the door and waited on the steps.  The afternoon
+sun penetrated the mass of honeysuckle that covered the porch, and fell
+on my upturned face.  My fingers lingered almost unconsciously on the
+familiar leaves and blossoms which had just come forth to greet the
+sweet southern spring.  I did not know what the future held of marvel
+or surprise for me.  Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me
+continually for weeks, and a deep languor had succeeded this passionate
+struggle.
+
+Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a
+tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and
+anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and
+sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to
+happen?  I was like that ship before my education began, only I was
+without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near
+the harbour was.  "Light! give me light!" was the wordless cry of my
+soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour.
+
+I felt approaching footsteps.  I stretched out my hand as I supposed to
+my mother.  Some one took it, and I was caught up and held close in the
+arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me, and, more than all
+things else, to love me.
+
+The morning after my teacher came she led me into her room and gave me
+a doll.  The little blind children at the Perkins Institution had sent
+it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it; but I did not know this until
+afterward.  When I had played with it a little while, Miss Sullivan
+slowly spelled into my hand the word "d-o-l-l."  I was at once
+interested in this finger play and tried to imitate it.  When I finally
+succeeded in making the letters correctly I was flushed with childish
+pleasure and pride.  Running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand
+and made the letters for doll.  I did not know that I was spelling a
+word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in
+monkey-like imitation.  In the days that followed I learned to spell in
+this uncomprehending way a great many words, among them _pin_, _hat_,
+_cup_, and a few verbs like _sit_, _stand_, and _walk_.  But my teacher
+had been with me several weeks before I understood that everything has
+a name.
+
+One day, while I was playing with my new doll, Miss Sullivan put my big
+rag doll into my lap also, spelled "d-o-l-l" and tried to make me
+understand that "d-o-l-l" applied to both.  Earlier in the day we had
+had a tussle over the words "m-u-g" and "w-a-t-e-r."  Miss Sullivan had
+tried to impress it upon me that "m-u-g" is mug and that "w-a-t-e-r" is
+_water_, but I persisted in confounding the two.  In despair she had
+dropped the subject for the time, only to renew it at the first
+opportunity.  I became impatient at her repeated attempts and, seizing
+the new doll, I dashed it upon the floor.  I was keenly delighted when
+I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my feet.  Neither sorrow nor
+regret followed my passionate outburst.  I had not loved the doll.  In
+the still, dark world in which I lived there was no strong sentiment or
+tenderness.  I felt my teacher sweep the fragments to one side of the
+hearth, and I had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of my
+discomfort was removed.  She brought me my hat, and I knew I was going
+out into the warm sunshine.  This thought, if a wordless sensation may
+be called a thought, made me hop and skip with pleasure.
+
+We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance
+of the honeysuckle with which it was covered.  Some one was drawing
+water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout.  As the cool
+stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water,
+first slowly, then rapidly.  I stood still, my whole attention fixed
+upon the motions of her fingers.  Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness
+as of something forgotten--a thrill of returning thought; and somehow
+the mystery of language was revealed to me.  I knew then that
+"w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my
+hand.  That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set
+it free!  There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that
+could in time be swept away.
+
+I left the well-house eager to learn.  Everything had a name, and each
+name gave birth to a new thought.  As we returned to the house every
+object which I touched seemed to quiver with life.  That was because I
+saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me.  On
+entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken.  I felt my way to
+the hearth and picked up the pieces.  I tried vainly to put them
+together.  Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had
+done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow.
+
+I learned a great many new words that day.  I do not remember what they
+all were; but I do know that _mother_, _father_, _sister_, _teacher_
+were among them--words that were to make the world blossom for me,
+"like Aaron's rod, with flowers."  It would have been difficult to find
+a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib at the close of that
+eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought me, and for the
+first time longed for a new day to come.
+
+I had now the key to all language, and I was eager to learn to use it.
+Children who hear acquire language without any particular effort; the
+words that fall from others' lips they catch on the wing, as it were,
+delightedly, while the little deaf child must trap them by a slow and
+often painful process.  But whatever the process, the result is
+wonderful.  Gradually from naming an object we advance step by step
+until we have traversed the vast distance between our first stammered
+syllable and the sweep of thought in a line of Shakespeare.
+
+At first, when my teacher told me about a new thing I asked very few
+questions.  My ideas were vague, and my vocabulary was inadequate; but
+as my knowledge of things grew, and I learned more and more words, my
+field of inquiry broadened, and I would return again and again to the
+same subject, eager for further information.  Sometimes a new word
+revived an image that some earlier experience had engraved on my brain.
+
+I remember the morning that I first asked the meaning of the word,
+"love."  This was before I knew many words.  I had found a few early
+violets in the garden and brought them to my teacher.  She tried to
+kiss me; but at that time I did not like to have any one kiss me except
+my mother.  Miss Sullivan put her arm gently round me and spelled into
+my hand, "I love Helen."
+
+"What is love?" I asked.
+
+She drew me closer to her and said, "It is here," pointing to my heart,
+whose beats I was conscious of for the first time.  Her words puzzled
+me very much because I did not then understand anything unless I
+touched it.
+
+I smelt the violets in her hand and asked, half in words, half in
+signs, a question which meant, "Is love the sweetness of flowers?"
+
+"No," said my teacher.
+
+Again I thought.  The warm sun was shining on us.
+
+"Is this not love?" I asked, pointing in the direction from which the
+heat came, "Is this not love?"
+
+It seemed to me that there could be nothing more beautiful than the
+sun, whose warmth makes all things grow.  But Miss Sullivan shook her
+head, and I was greatly puzzled and disappointed.  I thought it strange
+that my teacher could not show me love.
+
+A day or two afterward I was stringing beads of different sizes in
+symmetrical groups--two large beads, three small ones, and so on.  I
+had made many mistakes, and Miss Sullivan had pointed them out again
+and again with gentle patience.  Finally I noticed a very obvious error
+in the sequence and for an instant I concentrated my attention on the
+lesson and tried to think how I should have arranged the beads.  Miss
+Sullivan touched my forehead and spelled with decided emphasis, "Think."
+
+In a flash I knew that the word was the name of the process that was
+going on in my head.  This was my first conscious perception of an
+abstract idea.
+
+For a long time I was still--I was not thinking of the beads in my lap,
+but trying to find a meaning for "love" in the light of this new idea.
+The sun had been under a cloud all day, and there had been brief
+showers; but suddenly the sun broke forth in all its southern splendour.
+
+Again I asked my teacher, "Is this not love?"
+
+"Love is something like the clouds that were in the sky before the sun
+came out," she replied.  Then in simpler words than these, which at
+that time I could not have understood, she explained: "You cannot touch
+the clouds, you know; but you feel the rain and know how glad the
+flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it after a hot day.  You
+cannot touch love either; but you feel the sweetness that it pours into
+everything.  Without love you would not be happy or want to play."
+
+The beautiful truth burst upon my mind--I felt that there were
+invisible lines stretched between my spirit and the spirits of others.
+
+From the beginning of my education Miss Sullivan made it a practice to
+speak to me as she would speak to any hearing child; the only
+difference was that she spelled the sentences into my hand instead of
+speaking them.  If I did not know the words and idioms necessary to
+express my thoughts she supplied them, even suggesting conversation
+when I was unable to keep up my end of the dialogue.
+
+This process was continued for several years; for the deaf child does
+not learn in a month, or even in two or three years, the numberless
+idioms and expressions used in the simplest daily intercourse.  The
+little hearing child learns these from constant repetition and
+imitation.  The conversation he hears in his home stimulates his mind
+and suggests topics and calls forth the spontaneous expression of his
+own thoughts.  This natural exchange of ideas is denied to the deaf
+child.  My teacher, realizing this, determined to supply the kinds of
+stimulus I lacked.  This she did by repeating to me as far as possible,
+verbatim, what she heard, and by showing me how I could take part in
+the conversation.  But it was a long time before I ventured to take the
+initiative, and still longer before I could find something appropriate
+to say at the right time.
+
+The next important step in my education was learning to read.
+
+As soon as I could spell a few words my teacher gave me slips of
+cardboard on which were printed words in raised letters.  I quickly
+learned that each printed word stood for an object, an act, or a
+quality.  I had a frame in which I could arrange the words in little
+sentences; but before I ever put sentences in the frame I used to make
+them in objects.  I found the slips of paper which represented, for
+example, "doll," "is," "on," "bed" and placed each name on its object;
+then I put my doll on the bed with the words _is_, _on_, _bed_ arranged
+beside the doll, thus making a sentence of the words, and at the same
+time carrying out the idea of the sentence with the things themselves.
+
+One day, Miss Sullivan tells me, I pinned the word _girl_ on my
+pinafore and stood in the wardrobe.  On the shelf I arranged the words,
+_is_, _in_, _wardrobe_.  Nothing delighted me so much as this game.  My
+teacher and I played it for hours at a time.  Often everything in the
+room was arranged in object sentences.
+
+From the printed slip it was but a step to the printed book.  I took my
+"Reader for Beginners" and hunted for the words I knew; when I found
+them my joy was like that of a game of hide-and-seek.  Thus I began to
+read.  Of the time when I began to read connected stories I shall speak
+later.
+
+For a long time I had no regular lessons.  Even when I studied most
+earnestly it seemed more like play than work.  Everything Miss Sullivan
+taught me she illustrated by a beautiful story or a poem.  Whenever
+anything delighted or interested me she talked it over with me just as
+if she were a little girl herself.  What many children think of with
+dread, as a painful plodding through grammar, hard sums and harder
+definitions, is to-day one of my most precious memories.
+
+I cannot explain the peculiar sympathy Miss Sullivan had with
+my pleasures and desires.  Perhaps it was the result of long
+association with the blind.  Added to this she had a wonderful
+faculty for description.  She went quickly over uninteresting
+details, and never nagged me with questions to see if I remembered the
+day-before-yesterday's lesson.  She introduced dry technicalities of
+science little by little, making every subject so real that I could not
+help remembering what she taught.
+
+We read and studied out of doors, preferring the sunlit woods to the
+house.  All my early lessons have in them the breath of the woods--the
+fine, resinous odour of pine needles, blended with the perfume of wild
+grapes.  Seated in the gracious shade of a wild tulip tree, I learned
+to think that everything has a lesson and a suggestion.
+
+Our favourite walk was to Keller's Landing, an old tumble-down
+lumber-wharf on the Tennessee River, used during the Civil War to land
+soldiers.  There we spent many happy hours and played at learning
+geography.  I built dams of pebbles, made islands and lakes, and dug
+river-beds, all for fun, and never dreamed that I was learning a
+lesson.  I listened with increasing wonder to Miss Sullivan's
+descriptions of the great round world with its burning mountains,
+buried cities, moving rivers of ice, and many other things as strange.
+She made raised maps in clay, so that I could feel the mountain ridges
+and valleys, and follow with my fingers the devious course of rivers.
+I liked this, too; but the division of the earth into zones and poles
+confused and teased my mind.  The illustrative strings and the orange
+stick representing the poles seemed so real that even to this day the
+mere mention of temperate zone suggests a series of twine circles; and
+I believe that if any one should set about it he could convince me that
+white bears actually climb the North Pole.
+
+Arithmetic seems to have been the only study I did not like.  From the
+first I was not interested in the science of numbers.  Miss Sullivan
+tried to teach me to count by stringing beads in groups, and by
+arranging kindergarten straws I learned to add and subtract.  I never
+had patience to arrange more than five or six groups at a time.  When I
+had accomplished this my conscience was at rest for the day, and I went
+out quickly to find my playmates.
+
+In this same leisurely manner I studied zoology and botany.
+
+Once a gentleman, whose name I have forgotten, sent me a collection of
+fossils--tiny mollusk shells beautifully marked, and bits of sandstone
+with the print of birds' claws, and a lovely fern in bas-relief.  These
+were the keys which unlocked the treasures of the antediluvian world
+for me.  With trembling fingers I listened to Miss Sullivan's
+descriptions of the terrible beasts, with uncouth, unpronounceable
+names, which once went tramping through the primeval forests, tearing
+down the branches of gigantic trees for food, and died in the dismal
+swamps of an unknown age.  For a long time these strange creatures
+haunted my dreams, and this gloomy period formed a sombre background to
+the joyous Now, filled with sunshine and roses and echoing with the
+gentle beat of my pony's hoof.
+
+Another time a beautiful shell was given me, and with a child's
+surprise and delight I learned how a tiny mollusk had built the
+lustrous coil for his dwelling place, and how on still nights, when
+there is no breeze stirring the waves, the Nautilus sails on the blue
+waters of the Indian Ocean in his "ship of pearl."
+
+It was in the spring of 1890 that I learned to speak.  The impulse to
+utter audible sounds had always been strong within me.  I used to make
+noises, keeping one hand on my throat while the other hand felt the
+movements of my lips.  I was pleased with anything that made a noise
+and liked to feel the cat purr and the dog bark.  I also liked to keep
+my hand on a singer's throat, or on a piano when it was being played.
+Before I lost my sight and hearing, I was fast learning to talk, but
+after my illness it was found that I had ceased to speak because I
+could not hear.  I used to sit in my mother's lap all day long and keep
+my hands on her face because it amused me to feel the motions of her
+lips; and I moved my lips, too, although I had forgotten what talking
+was.  My friends say that I laughed and cried naturally, and for a
+while I made many sounds and word-elements, not because they were a
+means of communication, but because the need of exercising my vocal
+organs was imperative.  There was, however, one word the meaning of
+which I still remembered, water.  I pronounced it "wa-wa."  Even this
+became less and less intelligible until the time when Miss Sullivan
+began to teach me.  I stopped using it only after I had learned to
+spell the word on my fingers.
+
+I had known for a long time that the people about me used a method of
+communication different from mine; and even before I knew that a deaf
+child could be taught to speak, I was conscious of dissatisfaction with
+the means of communication I already possessed.  One who is entirely
+dependent upon the manual alphabet has always a sense of restraint, of
+narrowness.  This feeling began to agitate me with a vexing,
+forward-reaching sense of a lack that should be filled.  My thoughts
+would often rise and beat up like birds against the wind; and I
+persisted in using my lips and voice.  Friends tried to discourage this
+tendency, fearing lest it would lead to disappointment.  But I
+persisted, and an accident soon occurred which resulted in the breaking
+down of this great barrier--I heard the story of Ragnhild Kaata.
+
+In 1890 Mrs. Lamson, who had been one of Laura Bridgman's teachers, and
+who had just returned from a visit to Norway and Sweden, came to see
+me, and told me of Ragnhild Kaata, a deaf and blind girl in Norway who
+had actually been taught to speak.  Mrs. Lamson had scarcely finished
+telling me about this girl's success before I was on fire with
+eagerness.  I resolved that I, too, would learn to speak.  I would not
+rest satisfied until my teacher took me, for advice and assistance, to
+Miss Sarah Fuller, principal of the Horace Mann School.  This lovely,
+sweet-natured lady offered to teach me herself, and we began the
+twenty-sixth of March, 1890.
+
+Miss Fuller's method was this: she passed my hand lightly over her
+face, and let me feel the position of her tongue and lips when she made
+a sound.  I was eager to imitate every motion, and in an hour had
+learned six elements of speech: M, P, A, S, T, I.  Miss Fuller gave me
+eleven lessons in all.  I shall never forget the surprise and delight I
+felt when I uttered my first connected sentence, "It is warm."  True,
+they were broken and stammering syllables; but they were human speech.
+My soul, conscious of new strength, came out of bondage, and was
+reaching through those broken symbols of speech to all knowledge and
+all faith.
+
+No deaf child who has earnestly tried to speak the words which he has
+never heard--to come out of the prison of silence, where no tone of
+love, on song of bird, no strain of music ever pierces the
+stillness--can forget the thrill of surprise, the joy of discovery
+which came over him when he uttered his first word.  Only such a one
+can appreciate the eagerness with which I talked to my toys, to stones,
+trees, birds and dumb animals, or the delight I felt when at my call
+Mildred ran to me or my dogs obeyed my commands.  It is an unspeakable
+boon to me to be able to speak in winged words that need no
+interpretation.  As I talked, happy thoughts fluttered up out of my
+words that might perhaps have struggled in vain to escape my fingers.
+
+But it must not be supposed that I could really talk in this short
+time.  I had learned only the elements of speech.  Miss Fuller and Miss
+Sullivan could understand me, but most people would not have understood
+one word in a hundred.  Nor is it true that, after I had learned these
+elements, I did the rest of the work myself.  But for Miss Sullivan's
+genius, untiring perseverance and devotion, I could not have progressed
+as far as I have toward natural speech.  In the first place, I laboured
+night and day before I could be understood even by my most intimate
+friends; in the second place, I needed Miss Sullivan's assistance
+constantly in my efforts to articulate each sound clearly and to
+combine all sounds in a thousand ways.  Even now she calls my attention
+every day to mispronounced words.
+
+All teachers of the deaf know what this means, and only they can at all
+appreciate the peculiar difficulties with which I had to contend.  In
+reading my teacher's lips I was wholly dependent on my fingers: I had
+to use the sense of touch in catching the vibrations of the throat, the
+movements of the mouth, and the expression of the face; and often this
+sense was at fault.  In such cases I was forced to repeat the words or
+sentences, sometimes for hours, until I felt the proper ring in my own
+voice.  My work was practice, practice, practice.  Discouragement and
+weariness cast me down frequently; but the next moment the thought that
+I should soon be at home and show my loved ones what I had
+accomplished, spurred me on, and I eagerly looked forward to their
+pleasure in my achievement.
+
+"My little sister will understand me now," was a thought stronger than
+all obstacles.  I used to repeat ecstatically, "I am not dumb now."  I
+could not be despondent while I anticipated the delight of talking to
+my mother and reading her responses from her lips.  It astonished me to
+find how much easier it is to talk than to spell with the fingers, and
+I discarded the manual alphabet as a medium of communication on my
+part; but Miss Sullivan and a few friends still use it in speaking to
+me, for it is more convenient and more rapid than lip-reading.
+
+Just here, perhaps, I had better explain our use of the manual
+alphabet, which seems to puzzle people who do not know us.  One who
+reads or talks to me spells with his hand, using the single-hand manual
+alphabet generally employed by the deaf.  I place my hand on the hand
+of the speaker so lightly as not to impede its movements.  The position
+of the hand is as easy to feel as it is to see.  I do not feel each
+letter any more than you see each letter separately when you read.
+Constant practice makes the fingers very flexible, and some of my
+friends spell rapidly--about as fast as an expert writes on a
+typewriter.  The mere spelling is, of course, no more a conscious act
+than it is in writing.
+
+When I had made speech my own, I could not wait to go home.  At last
+the happiest of happy moments arrived.  I had made my homeward journey,
+talking constantly to Miss Sullivan, not for the sake of talking, but
+determined to improve to the last minute.  Almost before I knew it, the
+train stopped at the Tuscumbia station, and there on the platform stood
+the whole family.  My eyes fill with tears now as I think how my mother
+pressed me close to her, speechless and trembling with delight, taking
+in every syllable that I spoke, while little Mildred seized my free
+hand and kissed it and danced, and my father expressed his pride and
+affection in a big silence.  It was as if Isaiah's prophecy had been
+fulfilled in me.  "The mountains and the hills shall break forth before
+you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their
+hands!"
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES OF ACHIEVEMENT, VOLUME IV
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