How I Came to Do It

It had never been my intention to adopt literature as an exclusive profession. A publisher’s cheque for an occasional book notice, or something equally unimportant, had been a handy means of securing a new hat, a fishing rod, or something else not on the regular programme ; but after all a $1700 salary was not to be thrown overboard for such bits of driftwood as these. So I should doubtless still have been meeting my old engagements with my pupils and cashing my monthly orders for $141.66, if one of the Muses had n’t plucked me by the ear and put me up to writing that little poem. I did not think there was very much in it at first, — just a little conceit that popped into my head and lent itself readily to rhyme and metre, and quit when it was done. After it was down on paper, however, I thought it might as well see the fight if any magazine was willing to print it, and so I started it off to one of the big metropolitan monthlies. It came back in due time — in fact, in most excellent time — and I started it off again, just to see whether the mails and the ready rejecters could make such a record twice in succession. They could and did, but a repeated act soon gets into a habit, and I still had some stamps left. By the time that the rest of the metropolitan monthlies had had their turn at it, I was beginning to get a little nettled. Of course I did not yet believe that the verses had any real literary merit, but I did not exactly see why I should be so unanimously discriminated against on that account. So I turned the index finger of my ambition a few points farther south and mailed a neat and new typewritten copy to a great publication whose name I am precluded by an innate modesty from divulging. A few weeks of waiting convinced me that my production was at least the subject of profound deliberation, — something that the alacrity of previous rejections did not suggest. Then came a formal notice that the poem had been accepted. There was no particular elation in that, as I had had a few things accepted before. It was only when the cheque came, some days later, that I was swept off my feet and found the whole course of life suddenly altered. Perhaps even the cheque itself might not have moved me seriously, but the accompanying document awoke me at once to the serious importance of my position. It read substantially as follows: —

“Received of the — Company, Two .... Dollars, in full compensation for the manuscript entitled (here modesty again enjoins silence) and for all rights of publication thereof whatsoever, and for copyright thereon and for all renewals thereof, which rights are hereby irrevocably assigned to the said — Company and to its successors and assigns forever. And it is further understood that the acceptance of the aforesaid manuscript is upon the good faith of my assertion that it is entirely original and has never before been published in any publication whatsoever. And I hereby further agree that it shall not be published elsewhere with my knowledge and consent except by previous agreement, duly entered into and attested with the aforesaid — Company.

$2.00 (Signature.)........

“Sign and return to the — Company.”

My hat went off and my right hand involuntarily went up as I read, and as the last words passed beneath my eye I solemnly uttered the words, I DO. Pedagogy may have its charms, but it takes literature to raise a man into a creature of solemn importance. For better or for worse, through good report and through ill, the Muse shall be my bride till death do us part. As for the $2.00, my first thought was to get a pin attached to it and wear it; I have since concluded to use it in the purchase of postage stamps.