I said: "I'll have to get you to excuse me; I think maybe I
might write to suit you after a while; as soon as I had had some
practice and learned the language I am confident I could. But, to
speak the plain truth, that sort of energy of expression has its
inconveniences, and a man is liable to interruption. You see that
yourself. Vigorous writing is calculated to elevate the public, no
doubt, but then I do not like to attract so much attention as it
calls forth. I can't write with comfort when I am interrupted so
much as I have been to-day. I like this berth well enough, but I
don't like to be left here to wait on the customers. The
experiences are novel, I grant you, and entertaining, too, after a
fashion, but they are not judiciously distributed. A gentleman
shoots at you through the window and cripples _me_; a bomb-shell
comes down the stove-pipe for your gratification and sends the
stove-door down _my_ throat; a friend drops in to swap compliments
with you, and freckles _me_ with bullet-holes till my skin won't
hold my principles; you go to dinner, and Jones comes with his
cowhide, Gillespie throws me out of the window, Thompson tears all
my clothes off, and an entire stranger takes my scalp with the easy
freedom of an old acquaintance; and in less than five minutes all
the blackguards in the country arrive in their war-paint, and
proceed to scare the rest of me to death with their tomahawks. Take
it altogether, I never had such a spirited time in all my life as I
have had to-day. No; I like you, and I like your calm, unruffled
way of explaining things to the customers, but you see I am not
used to it. The Southern heart is too impulsive; Southern
hospitality is too lavish with the stranger. The paragraphs which I
have written to-day, and into whose cold sentences your masterly
hand has infused the fervent spirit of Tennessean journalism, will
wake up another nest of hornets. All that mob of editors will
come--and they will come hungry, too, and want somebody for
breakfast. I shall have to bid you adieu. I decline to be present
at these festivities. I came South for my health; I will go back on
the same errand, and suddenly. Tennessean journalism is too
stirring for me."
After which we parted with mutual regret, and I took apartments at
the hospital.