IT was time surely for me to review myself. I wanted to know just what
I was doing in New York, what I was up to--if I could find out. I had
time now to ask myself a lot of questions and I enjoyed doing so.
Mornings to walk about, afternoons to go to the parks, sit with people
or go to see paintings, evenings of my own. No advertisements to write,
for a time anyway. “Crescent Soap Lightens the Day’s Work. Tangletoes
Catches the Flies,” etc. For a man living as I lived a few hundred
dollars would go far. For the American there are always plenty of
books to be had without cost and one may see what the more successful
painters are doing by simply walking in at the door of a museum or a
gallery. The work of the more unsuccessful ones worth seeing Alfred
Stieglitz will show you or tell you about. Cigarettes do not cost very
much and there are happy hours to be spent sitting by the window of
a room in a side street hearing what people have to say as they walk
past. All the women of my street spent the time at the same thing.
There was a fat old woman across the way who never left the window from
morning till night. I wondered if she was planning to write a novel and
was thinking about the characters, dreaming of them, making up scenes
and situations in which they were to play a part.
If my life in the past had been split into two parts it need be that
no longer. I have taken a resolution. In the future I would write no
more advertisements. If I became broke I would become a beggar and sit
with a beggar bowl in Fifth Avenue. Even the police are sentimental
enough not to kick an author out. I would not sit swearing at the book
publishers, the magazine editors or the public, that I was not rich.
I had not tried to accommodate myself to them--why should they bother
about me? I sat dreaming of what might be the takings of an author
with a beggar bowl in his lap sitting in front of the Public Library
on Fifth Avenue. The press of people would prevent the literarily
inclined ladies from stopping to discuss books or to tell the author
that his philosophy of life was all wrong. Also they could not accuse
him of personal immorality. A beggar could not be immoral. He was at
once above and below immorality. And the takings! There would be much
good silver and I loved silver. If I should become blind my fortune
would be made at last. A blind author sitting begging before the Public
Library in the city of New York! Who dare say there was not glorious
opportunity left in our country?
Had I less courage than my father? Perhaps I had. He also might have
thought of so noble a plan but in my place he might also have put it
into execution at once. Ladies often came to the Public Library to meet
their lovers. Quarrels started there. One would learn much of life by
sitting as I have suggested. No man or woman would hesitate to speak
boldly before a beggar. The stones would be cold but perhaps one could
have a cushion.