I have carried the letter, word for word, in my heart for more than
half a century. A patent of nobility would not have brought me keener
and more exquisite pleasure.
Not that I deceived myself, for one mad hour, with the fancy that I
could ever gain the right to stand for one beatific moment on a level
with the immortals whom I worshipped. In the first flush of my petty
triumph, I felt my limitations. The appreciation of these has grown
upon me with each succeeding year. “Fred” Cozzens, the “Sparrowgrass”
of humorous literature, said to me once when I expressed something of
this conviction:
“Yet you occupy an important niche.”
I replied in all sincerity: “I know my place. But the niche is small,
and it is not high up. All that I can hope is to fill it worthily, such
as it is.”
The history of one bulky packet of letters takes me back to the orderly
progress of my story, and to the most singular and romantic episode of
that first year of confessedly literary life.
_Alone_ had been out in the world about three months, when I received
a letter from a stranger, postmarked “Baltimore,” and bearing the
letter-head of a daily paper published in that city. The signature was
“James Redpath.” The writer related briefly that, chancing to go into
Morris’s book-store while on a visit to Richmond, he had had from the
publisher a copy of my book, and read it. He went on to say:
“It is full of faults, as you will discover for yourself
in time. Personally, I may remark, that I detest both your
politics and your theology. All the same, you will make
your mark upon the age. In the full persuasion of this, I
write to pledge myself to do all in my power to forward your
literary interests. I am not on the staff of the Baltimore
paper, although now visiting the editor-in-chief. But I have
influence in more than one quarter, and you will hear from
me again.”
I laid the queer epistle before my father, and we agreed that my
outspoken critic was slightly demented. I was already used to odd
communications from odd people, some from anonymous admirers, some from
reviewers, professional and amateur, who sought to “do me good,” after
the disinterested style of the guild.
I was therefore unprepared for the strenuous manner in which Mr. James
Redpath proceeded to keep his pledge. Not a week passed in which he
did not send me a clipping from some paper, containing a direct or
incidental notice of my book, or work, or personality. Now he was in
New Orleans, writing fiery Southern editorials, and insinuating into
the body of the same, adroit mention of the rising Southern author.
Now he slipped into a Cincinnati paper a poem taken from _Alone_,
with a line or two, calling attention to the novel and the author;
then a fierce attack upon the “detested politics and theology” flamed
among book-notices in a Buffalo journal, tempered by regrets that
“real talent should be grossly perverted by sectional prejudice and
superstition.” Anon, a clever review in a Boston paper pleased my
friends in the classic city so much that they sent a marked copy to me,
not dreaming that I had already had the critique, with the now familiar
“J. R.” scrawled in the margin. The climax of the melodrama was gained
during the struggle over “bleeding Kansas” in 1855. A hurried note from
the near neighborhood of Leavenworth informed me that a pro-slavery
force, double the size of the abolitionist militia gathered to resist
it, was advancing upon the position held by the latter. My dauntless
knight wrote:
“Farewell, dear and noble lady! If I am not killed in the
fight, you will hear from me again and again. Should I be
translated to another sphere, I shall still (if possible)
rap back notices of your work through the Fox sisters or
other mediums.”
Hearing nothing more of or from him for two months, I was really
unhappy in the apprehension that his worst fears had been realized.
I had grown to like him, and my gratitude for his disinterested
championship was warm and deep. My father expressed his conviction that
the eccentric was the Wandering Jew, and predicted his safe deliverance
from the pro-slavery hordes, and reappearance in somebody’s editorial
columns. His prophecy was fulfilled in a long report in a Philadelphia
sheet of a meeting with the “new star of the South,” in the vestibule
of the church attended by the aforesaid. Nothing that escaped my lips
was set down, but my dress and appearance, my conversational powers and
deportment were painted in glowing colors, the veracious portraiture
concluding with the intelligence that I would shortly be married to the
son of a former Governor of Virginia—“a man, who, despite his youth,
has already distinguished himself in the political arena, and we are
glad to say, in the Democratic ranks.”