“Oh, yes. I got back health enough to be of use in the printing office
at home, and was quietly at work there, when, to my astonishment, I
was asked to come and take a place upon a Republican newspaper at the
capital. I was given charge of the news department. This included the
literary notices and the book reviews, and I am afraid that I at once
gave my prime attention to these.”
“When did you begin to contribute to the literature of the day?”
“If you mean, when did I begin to attempt to contribute, I should
need to fix an early date, for I early had experience with rejected
manuscripts. One of my pieces, which fell so far short of my visions
of the immense subjects I should handle as to treat of the lowly and
familiar theme of spring, was the first thing I ever had in print. My
father offered it to the editor of the paper I worked on in Columbus,
where we were then living, and I first knew what he had done when, with
mingled shame and pride, I saw it in the journal. In the tumult of my
emotions, I promised myself that if ever I got through that experience
safely, I would never suffer anything else of mine to be published; but
it was not long before I offered the editor a poem, myself.”
“When did you publish your first story?”
“My next venture was a story in the Ik Marvel manner, which it was my
misfortune to carry into print. I did not really write it, but composed
it, rather, in type, at the case. It was not altogether imitated from
Ik Marvel, for I drew upon the easier art of Dickens, at times, and
helped myself out in places with bald parodies of’Bleak House.’ It
was all very well at the beginning, but I had not reckoned with the
future sufficiently to start with any clear ending in my mind; and,
as I went on, I began to find myself more and more in doubt about it.
My material gave out; my incidents failed me; the characters wavered,
and threatened to perish in my hands. To crown my misery, there grew
up an impatience with the story among its readers; and this found its
way to me one day, when I overheard an old farmer, who came in for his
paper, say that he ‘did not think that story amounted to much.’ I did
not think so, either, but it was deadly to have it put into words; and
how I escaped the mortal effect of the stroke I do not know. Somehow, I
managed to bring the wretched thing to a close, and to live it slowly
down.”