CHAPTER LIV

My thoughts being now turned, if vaguely, to the idea of rural life and editing a country newspaper, although I really did not believe that I could succeed at that, I talked and talked, to Michaelson, to my future wife, to Dick and Peter, in a roundabout, hinting way, developing all sorts of theories as to the possible future that awaited me. To buoy up my faith in myself, I tried to make Miss W—— feel that I was a personage and would do great things.... How nature would ever get on without total blindness, or at least immense credulity on the part of its creatures, I cannot guess. Certainly if women in their love period had any more sense than the men they would not be impressed with the boshy dreams of such swains as myself. Either they cannot help themselves or they must want to believe. Nature must want them to believe. How the woman who married me could have been impressed by my faith in myself at this period is beyond my reasoning, and yet she was impressed, or saw nothing better in store for her than myself.

That she was so impressed, and that I, moved by her affection for me or my own desire to possess her, was impelled to do something to better my condition, was obvious. Hints thrown out at the Republic office, to my sponsor Wandell in particular, that I might leave producing nothing, I decided sometime during January and February, 1893, to take up Michaelson’s proposition, although I did not see how, other than by gross luck, it could come to anything. Neither of us had any money to speak of, and yet we were planning to buy a country newspaper. For a few days before starting we debated this foolish matter and then I sent him to his home town to look over the field there and report, which he immediately did, writing most glowing accounts of an absolutely worthless country paper there, which he was positive we could secure for a song and turn into a paying proposition at once. I cannot say that I believed this, and yet I went because I felt the need of something different. And all the time the tug of that immense physical desire toward my beloved which, were there any such thing as sanity in life, might have been satisfied without any great blow to society, was holding me as by hooks of steel. It was this conflict between the need to go and the wish to stay that tortured me. Yet I went. I had the pain of separating from her in this mood, realizing that youth was slipping away, that in the uncertainty of all things there might never be a happy fruition to our love (and there was not). And yet I went.

I bade her a final farewell the Sunday night before my departure. I hinted at all sorts of glorious achievements as well as all possible forms of failure. Lover-wise, I was tremendously impressed with the sterling worth and connections of this girl, the homely, conventional and prosaic surroundings. My unfitness for fulfilling her dreams tortured me. As I could plainly see, she was for life as it had been lived by billions, by those who interpret it as a matter of duty, simplicity, care and thrift. I think she saw before her a modest home in which would be children, enough money to clothe them decently, enough money to entertain a few friends, and eventually to die and be buried respectably. On the other hand, I was little more than a pulsing force, with no convictions, no definite theories or plans. In my sky the latest cloud of thought or plan was the great thing. Not I but destiny, over which I had no control, had me in hand. I felt, or thought I felt, the greatest love ... while within me was a voice which said: “What a liar! What a pretender! You will satisfy yourself, make your own way as best you can. Each new day will be a clean slate for you, no least picture of the past thereon—none, at least, which might not be quickly wiped away. Any beautiful woman would satisfy you.” Still I suffered torture for her and myself, and left the next day, lacerated by the postponement, the defeated desire for happiness in love.

My attitude on leaving the Republic was one of complete indifference, coupled with a kind of satisfaction at the last moment that, after having seemed previously totally indifferent to my worth, the city editor, the managing editor, and even the publisher, seemed suddenly to feel that if I could be induced to stay I might prove of greater value to them than thus far I had—from a cash point of view. And so they made a hearty if belated effort to detain me. Indeed on my very sudden announcement only a few days before my departure that I was going, my city editor expressed great regret, asked me not to act hastily, told me he proposed to speak to the editor-in-chief. But this did not interest me any more. I was down on the Republic for the way it had treated me. Why hadn’t they done something for me months ago? That afternoon as I was leaving the building on an assignment, the managing editor caught me and wanted to know of my plans, said if I would stay he believed that soon a better place in the editorial department could be made for me. Having already written Michaelson that I would soon join him, however, I now felt it impossible not to leave. The truth is I really wanted to go and now that I had brought myself to this point, I did not want to retreat. Besides, there was a satisfaction in refusing these belated courtesies. The editor said that if I were really going the publisher would be glad to give me a general letter of introduction which might stand me in good stead in other cities. True enough, on the Monday on which I left, having gone to the office to say farewell, I was met by the publisher, who handed me a letter of introduction. It was of the “To whom it might concern” variety and related my labors and capacities in no vague words. I might have used this letter to advantage in many a strait, but never did. Rather, by some queer inversion of thought, I concluded that it was somewhat above my capacity, said more for me than I deserved, and might secure for me some place which I could not fill. For over a year I carried it about in my pocket, often when I was without a job and with only a few dollars in my pockets, and still I did not use it. Why, I have often wondered since. Little as I should understand such a thing in another, so little do I now understand this in myself.