I said, "I'll have to get you to excuse me; I think maybe I might write
to suit you after a while; as soon as I had had some practice and learned
the language I am confident I could. But, to speak the plain truth, that
sort of energy of expression has its inconveniences, and a, man is liable
to interruption.
"You see that yourself. Vigorous writing is calculated to elevate the
public, no doubt, but then I do not like to attract so much attention as
it calls forth. I can't write with comfort when I am interrupted so much
as I have been to-day. I like this berth well enough, but I don't like
to be left here to wait on the customers. The experiences are novel,
I grant you, and entertaining, too, after a fashion, but they are not
judiciously distributed. A gentleman shoots at you through the window
and cripples me; a bombshell comes down the stovepipe for your
gratification and sends the stove door down my throat; a friend drops in
to swap compliments with you, and freckles me with bullet-holes till my
skin won't hold my principles; you go to dinner, and Jones comes with his
cowhide, Gillespie throws me out of the window, Thompson tears all my
clothes off, and an entire stranger takes my scalp with the easy freedom
of an old acquaintance; and in less than five minutes all the blackguards
in the country arrive in their war-paint, and proceed to scare the rest
of me to death with their tomahawks. Take it altogether, I never had
such a spirited time in all my life as I have had to-day. No; I like
you, and I like your calm unruffled way of explaining things to the
customers, but you see I am not used to it. The Southern heart is too
impulsive; Southern hospitality is too lavish with the stranger. The
paragraphs which I have written to-day, and into whose cold sentences
your masterly hand has infused the fervent spirit of Tennesseean
journalism, will wake up another nest of hornets. All that mob of
editors will come--and they will come hungry, too, and want somebody for
breakfast. I shall have to bid you adieu. I decline to be present at
these festivities. I came South for my health, I will go back on the
same errand, and suddenly. Tennesseean journalism is too stirring for
me."
After which we parted with mutual regret, and I took apartments at the
hospital.