Within an hour I had received a reply, in which Mr. Choate said that he
would see me at his home at ten o'clock the next morning.
At the appointed time, the door, whose lock I had picked with a pen,
opened before me and I was ushered into the presence of Mr. Choate. He
was graciousness itself--but pointed significantly at a heap of
unanswered letters lying before him. I took the hint and within ten
minutes briefly outlined my plans. After pronouncing my project a
"commendable one," Mr. Choate offered the suggestion that produced
results. "If you will submit your ideas in writing," he said, "I shall
be glad to read your manuscript and assist you in any way I can. To
consider fully your scheme would require several hours, and busy men
cannot very well give you so much time. What they can do is to read
your manuscript during their leisure moments."
Thus it was that Mr. Choate, by granting the interview, contributed to
an earlier realization of my purposes. One week later I began the
composition of this book. My action was unpremeditated, as my quitting
Boston for less attractive Worcester proves. That very day, finding
myself with a day and a half of leisure before me, I decided to tempt
the Muse and compel myself to prove that my pen was, in truth, "the
tongue of a ready writer." A stranger in the city, I went to a school
of stenography and there secured the services of a young man who,
though inexperienced in his art, was more skilled in catching thoughts
as they took wing than I was at that time in the art of setting them
free. Except in the writing of one or two conventional business
letters, never before had I dictated to a stenographer. After I had
startled him into an attentive mood by briefly outlining my past career
and present purpose, I worked without any definite plan or brief, or
reference to data. My narrative was therefore digressive and only
roughly chronological. But it served to get my material in front of me
for future shaping. At this task I hammered away three or four hours a
day for a period of five weeks.
It so happened that Mr. Choate arrived at the same hotel on the day I
took up my abode there, so that some of the toil he had inspired went
on in his proximity, if not in his presence. I carefully kept out of
his sight, however, lest he should think me a "crank" on the subject of
reform, bent on persecuting his leisure.
As the work progressed my facility increased. In fact, I soon called in
an additional stenographer to help in the snaring of my thoughts. This
excessive productivity caused me to pause and again diagnose my
condition. I could not fail now to recognize in myself symptoms hardly
distinguishable from those which had obtained eight months earlier when
it had been deemed expedient temporarily to restrict my freedom. But I
had grown wise in adversity. Rather than interrupt my manuscript short
of completion I decided to avail myself of a vacation that was due, and
remain outside my native State--this, so that well-meaning but perhaps
overzealous relatives might be spared unnecessary anxiety, and I myself
be spared possible unwarranted restrictions. I was by no means certain
as to the degree of mental excitement that would result from such
continuous mental application; nor did I much care, so long as I
accomplished my task. However, as I knew that "possession is nine
points of the law," I decided to maintain my advantage by remaining in
my literary fortress. And my resolve was further strengthened by
certain cherished sentiments expressed by John Stuart Mill in his essay
"On Liberty," which I had read and reread with an interest born of
experience.
At last the first draft of the greater part of my story was completed.
After a timely remittance (for, in strict accordance with the
traditions of the craft, I had exhausted my financial resources) I
started for home with a sigh of relief. For months I had been under the
burden of a conscious obligation. My memory, stored with information
which, if rightly used, could, I believed, brighten and even save
unhappy lives, was to me as a basket of eggs which it was my duty to
balance on a head whose poise was supposed to be none too certain. One
by one, during the preceding five weeks, I had gently lifted my
thoughts from their resting-place, until a large part of my burden had
been so shifted as to admit of its being imposed upon the public
conscience.
After I had lived over again the trials and the tortures of my
unhappiest years--which was of course necessary in ploughing and
harrowing a memory happily retentive--the completion of this first
draft left me exhausted. But after a trip to New York, whither I went
to convince my employers that I should be granted a further
leave-of-absence, I resumed work. The ground for this added favor was
that my manuscript was too crude to submit to any but intimate
acquaintances. Knowing, perhaps, that a business man with a literary
bee buzzing in his ear is, for the time, no business man at all, my
employers readily agreed that I should do as I pleased during the month
of October. They also believed me entitled to the favor, recognizing
the force of my belief that I had a high obligation to discharge.
It was under the family rooftree that I now set up my literary shop.
Nine months earlier an unwonted interest in literature and reform had
sent me to an institution. That I should now in my own home be able to
work out my destiny without unduly disturbing the peace of mind of
relatives was a considerable satisfaction. In the very room where,
during June, 1900, my reason had set out for an unknown goal, I
redictated my account of that reason's experiences.
My leave-of-absence ended, I resumed my travels eagerly; for I wished
to cool my brain by daily contact with the more prosaic minds of men of
business. I went South. For a time I banished all thoughts of my book
and project. But after some months of this change of occupation, which
I thoroughly enjoyed, I found leisure in the course of wide travels to
take up the work of elaboration and revision. A presentable draft of my
story being finally prepared, I began to submit it to all sorts and
conditions of minds (in accordance with Mill's dictum that only in that
way can the truth be obtained). In my quest for criticism and advice, I
fortunately decided to submit my manuscript to Professor William James
of Harvard University, the most eminent of American psychologists and a
masterful writer, who was then living. He expressed interest in my
project; put my manuscript with others on his desk--but was somewhat
reserved when it came to promising to read my story. He said it might
be months before he could find time to do so. Within a fortnight,
however, I received from him a characteristic letter. To me it came as
a rescuing sun, after a period of groping about for an authoritative
opinion that should put scoffers to flight. The letter read as follows:
95 IRVING ST., CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
July 1, 1906.