it was about this time that i began to establish cordial relations with the short, broad-shouldered, sad-faced labor reporter whom i have previously mentioned. at first he appeared to be a little shy of me, but as time passed and i seemed to have established myself in the favor of the paper, he became more friendly. he was really a radical at heart, but did not dare let it be known here. often of a morning he would spend as much as two hours with me, discussing the nature of coal-mining and steel-making, the difficulty of arranging wage conditions which would satisfy all the men and not cause friction; but in the main he commented on the shrewd and cunning way in which the bosses were more and more overreaching their employees, preying upon their prejudices by religious and political dodges, and at the same time misusing them shamefully through the company store, the short ton, the cost of mining materials, rent. at first, knowing nothing about the situation, i was inclined to doubt whether he was as sound in these matters as he seemed to be. later, as i grew in personal knowledge, i thought he might be too conservative, so painful did many of the things seem which i saw with my own eyes and his aid.
about this time several things conspired to stir up my feelings in regard to new york. the pittsburgh papers gave great space to new york events and affairs, much more than did most of the mid-western papers. there was a millionaire steel colony here which was trying to connect itself with the so-called “four hundred” of new york, as well as the royal social atmosphere of england and france; and the comings and goings and doings of these people at newport, new york, bar harbor, london and paris were fully chronicled. occasionally i was sent to one or another of these great homes to ask about the details of certain marriages or proposed trips, and would find the people in the midst of the most luxurious preparations. one night, for instance, i was sent to ask a certain steel man about the rumored resumption or extension of work in one of the mills. his house was but a dot on a great estate, the reaching of which was very difficult. i found him about ten o’clock at night stepping into a carriage to be driven to the local station, which was at the foot of the grounds. although i was going to the same station in order to catch a local back to the city, he did not ask me to accompany him. instead he paused on the step of his carriage to say that he could not say definitely whether the work would be done or not. he was entirely surrounded by bags, a gun, a fishing basket and other paraphernalia, after which of course a servant was looking. when he was gone i walked along the same road to the same station, and saw him standing there. another man came up and greeted him.
“going down to new york, george?” he inquired.
“no, to the chesapeake. my lodge man tells me ducks are plentiful there now, and i thought i’d run down and get a few.”
the through train, which had been ordered to stop for him, rolled in and he was gone. i waited for my smoky local, marveling at the comfort and ease which had been already attained by a man of not more than forty-five years of age.
but there were other things which seemed always to talk to me of new york, new york. i picked up a new weekly, the standard, one evening, and found a theatrical paper of the most pornographic and alluring character which pretended to report with accuracy all the gayeties of the stage, the clubs, the tenderloins or white-light districts, as well as society of the racier and more spendthrift character. this paper spoke only of pleasure: yacht parties, midnight suppers, dances, scenes behind the stage and of blissful young stars of the theatrical, social and money worlds. here were ease and luxury! in new york, plainly, was all this, and i might go there and by some fluke of chance taste of it. i studied this paper by the hour, dreaming of all it suggested.
and there was munsey’s, the first and most successful of all the ten-cent magazines then coming into existence and being fed to the public by the ton. i saw it first piled in high stacks before a news and book store in pittsburgh. the size of the pile of magazines and the price induced a cursory examination, although i had never even heard of it before. poor as it was intellectually—and it was poor—it contained an entire section of highly-coated paper devoted to actresses, the stage and scenes from plays, and still another carrying pictures of beauties in society in different cities, and still another devoted to successful men in wall street. it breathed mostly of new york, its social doings, its art and literary colonies. it fired me with an ambition to see new york.
a third paper, town topics, was the best of all, a paper most brilliantly edited by a man of exceptional literary skill (c. m. s. mclellan). it related to exclusive society in new york, london and paris, the houses, palaces, yachts, restaurants and hotels, the goings and comings of the owners; and although it really poked fun at all this and other forms of existence elsewhere, still there was an element of envy and delight in it also which fitted my mood. it gave one the impression that there existed in new york, newport and elsewhere (london principally) a kind of elysian realm in which forever basked the elect of fortune. here was neither want nor care.
how i brooded over all this, the marriages and rumors of marriages, the travels, engagements, feasts such as a score of facile novelists subsequently succeeded in picturizing to the entertainment and disturbance of rural america. for me this realm was all flowers, sunshine, smart restaurants, glistering ballrooms, ease, comfort, beauty arrayed as only enchantment or a modern newspaper sunday supplement can array it. and while i knew that back of it must be the hard contentions and realities such as everywhere hold and characterize life, still i didn’t know. in reading these papers i refused to allow myself to cut through to the reality. life must hold some such realm as this, and spiritually i belonged to it. but i was already twenty-three, and what had i accomplished? i wished most of all now to go to new york and enter the realm pictured by these papers. why not? i might bag an heiress or capture fortune in some other way. i must save some money, i told myself. then, financially fortified, against starvation at least, i might reconnoiter the great city and—who knows?—perhaps conquer. balzac’s heroes had seemed to do so, why not i? it is written of the dragon god of china that in the beginning it swallowed the world.
and to cap it all about this time i had a letter from my good brother, in which he asked me how long i would be “piking” about the west when i ought to be in new york. i should come this summer, when new york was at its best. he would show me broadway, manhattan beach, a dozen worlds. he would introduce me to some new york newspaper men who would introduce me to the managers of the world and the sun. (the mere mention of these papers, so overawed was i by the fames of dana and pulitzer, frightened me.) i ought to be on a paper like the sun, he said, since to him dana was the greatest editor in new york. i meditated over this, deciding that i would go when i had more money. i then and there started a bank account, putting in as much as ten or twelve dollars each week, and in a month or two began to feel that sense of security which a little money gives one.
another thing which had a strange psychologic effect on me at the time, as indeed it appeared to have on most of the intelligentsia of america, was the publication in harper’s this spring and summer of george du maurier’s trilby. i have often doubted the import of novel-writing in general, but viewing the effect of that particular work on me as well as on others one might as well doubt the import of power or fame or emotion of any kind. the effect of this book was not so much one of great reality and insight such as balzac at times managed to convey, but rather of an exotic mood or perfume of memory and romance conveyed by some one who is in love with that memory and improvising upon it as musicians do upon a theme. instanter i saw paris and trilby and the jew with his marvelous eyes. trilby being hypnotized and carried away from little billee seemed to me then of the essence of great tragedy. i myself fairly suffered, walking about and dreaming, the while i awaited the one or two final portions. i was lost in the beauty of paris, the delight of studio life, and resented more than ever, as one might a great deprivation, the need of living in a land where there was nothing but work.
and yet america and this city were fascinating enough to me. but because of the preponderant influence of foreign letters on american life it seemed that paris and london must be so much better since every one wrote about them. like balzac’s great man from the provinces, this book seemed to connect itself with my own life and the tragedy of not having the means to marry at this time, and of being compelled to wander about in this way unable to support a wife. at last i became so wrought up that i was quite beside myself. i pictured myself as a little billee who would eventually lose by poverty, as he by trickery, the thing i most craved: my western sweetheart. meditating on this i vented some of my misery in the form of sentimental vaporizings in my feature articles, which were all liked well enough but which seemed merely to heighten my misery. finally, some sentimental letters being exchanged between myself and my love, i felt an uncontrollable impulse to return and see her and st. louis before i went farther away perhaps never to return. the sense of an irrecoverable past which had pervaded trilby had, i think, something to do with this, so interfused and interfusing are all thoughts and moods. at any rate, having by now considerable influence with this paper, i proposed a short vacation, and the city editor, wishing no doubt to propitiate me, suggested that the paper would be glad to provide me with transportation both ways. so i made haste to announce a grand return, not only to my intended but to mccord, wood and several others who were still in st. louis.
