“Had you a distinct literary ambition at that time?”
“Well, I had always had a sort of literary bent or inclination. I
read all the literature of the day, besides the standard authors, and
finally began to devote my odd moments to a book of my own,—a tale
based on the days of the crusades. When completed it covered about
three hundred and fifty pages, and bore the rather high-sounding title,
‘The Man-at-Arms.’ I read a good portion of it before a literary
society to which I belonged; the members applauded it, and I was
frequently urged to have it published. The Mexican War soon followed,
however, and I took the manuscript with me when I enlisted; but before
the close of my service it was lost, and my production, therefore,
never reached the public eye.”
“But did not the approval which the book received from the few persons
who read it encourage you to continue writing?”
“Fully fifty years have elapsed since then, and it is, therefore,
rather difficult, at this late day, to recall just how such things
affected me. I suppose I was encouraged thereby, for, in due course of
time, another book which turned out to be ‘The Fair God,’—my first book
to reach the public,—began to shape itself in my mind. The composition
of this work was not, as the theatrical people would say, a continuous
performance, for there were many and singular interruptions, and it
would be safe to say that months, and, in one case, years, intervened
between certain chapters. A few years after the war, I finished the
composition, strung the chapters into a continuous narrative, leveled
up the uneven places, and started East with the manuscript. A letter
from Whitelaw Reid, then editor of the New York ‘Tribune,’ introduced
me to the head of one of the leading publishing houses in Boston.
There I was kindly received, and, delivered my manuscript, which was
referred to a professional reader, to determine its literary, and also,
I presume, its commercial value.
“It would be neither a new nor an interesting story to acquaint the
public with the degree of anxious suspense that pervaded my mind when
I withdrew to await the reader’s judgment. Every other writer has, I
assume, at one time or another, undergone much the same experience.
It was not long until I learned from the publisher that the reader
reported in favor of my production. Publication soon followed, and for
the first time, in a literary sense, I found myself before the public,
and my book before the critics.”
“How long after this did ‘Ben Hur’ appear, and what led you to write
it?”