the things which most contributed to my want of newspaper success in new york and eventually drove me, though much against my will and understanding, into an easier and more agreeable phase of life were, first, that awe of the grinding and almost disgusting forces of life itself which i found in spencer and huxley and balzac and which now persistently haunted me and, due possibly to a depressed physical condition at this time, made it impossible for me to work with any of the zest that had characterized my work in the west. next, there was that astounding contrast between wealth and poverty, here more sharply emphasized than anywhere else in america, which gave the great city a gross and cruel and mechanical look, and this was emphasized not only by the papers themselves, with their various summaries of investigations and exposures, but also by my own hourly contact with it—a look so harsh and indifferent at times as to leave me a little numb. again, there was something disillusioning in the sharp contrast between the professed ideals and preachments of such a constantly moralizing journal as the world and the heartless and savage aspect of its internal economy. men such as myself were mere machines or privates in an ill-paid army to be thrown into any breach. there was no time off for the space-men, unless it was for all time. one was expected to achieve the results desired or get out; and if one did achieve them the reward was nothing.
one day i met an acquaintance and asked about an ex-city editor from st. louis who had come to new york, and his answer staggered me.
“oh, cliff? didn’t you hear? why, he committed suicide down here in a west street hotel.”
“what was the trouble?” i asked.
“tired of the game, i guess,” he replied. “he didn’t get along down here as well as he had out there. i guess he felt that he was going downhill.”
i walked away, meditating. he had been an excellent newspaper man, as brisk and self-centered as one need be to prosper. the last time i had seen him he was in good physical condition, and yet, after something like a year in new york, he had killed himself.
however, my mood was not that of one who runs away from a grueling contest. i had no notion of leaving new york, whatever happened, although i constantly speculated as to what i should do when all my money was gone. i had no trade or profession beyond this reporting, and yet i was convinced that there must be something else that i could do. come what might, i was determined that i would ask no favor of my brother, and as for my sister, who was now a burden on my hands, i was determined that as soon as this burden became too great i would take up her case with my brother paul, outline all that had been done and ask him to shoulder the difference until such time as i could find myself in whatever work i was destined to do.
but what was it?
one of the things which oppressed me was the fact that on the world, as well as on the other papers, were men as young as myself who were apparently of a very different texture, mentally if not physically. life and this fierce contest which i was taking so much to heart seemed in no wise to disturb them. by reason of temperament and insight perhaps, possibly the lack of it, or, what was more likely, certain fortunate circumstances attending their youth and upbringing, they were part of that oncoming host of professional optimists and yea-sayers, chorus-like in character, which for thirty years or more thereafter in american life was constantly engaged in the pleasing task of emphasizing the possibilities of success, progress, strength and what not for all, in america and elsewhere, while at the same time they were humbly and sycophantically genuflecting before the strong, the lucky, the prosperous. on the world alone at this time, to say nothing of the other papers, were at least a dozen, swaggering about in the best of clothes, their manners those of a graduate of yale or harvard or princeton, their minds stuffed with all the noble maxims of the uplifters. there was nothing wrong with the world that could not be easily and quickly righted, once the honest, just, true, kind, industrious turned their giant and selected brains to the task. this newest type of young newspaper man was to have no traffic with evil in any form; he was to concern himself with the good, the true, the beautiful. many of these young men pretended to an intimate working knowledge of many things: society, politics, finance and what not else. several had evidently made themselves indispensable as ship reporters, interviewers of arriving and departing celebrities, and these were now pointed out to me as men worthy of envy and emulation. one of them had, at the behest of the world, crossed the ocean more than once seeking to expose the principals in a growing ship-gambling and bunco scandal. there were those who were in the confidence of the mayor, the governor, and some of the lights in wall street. one, a scion of one of the best families, was the paper’s best adviser as to social events and scandals. the grand air with which they swung in and out of the office set me beside myself with envy.
and all the time the condition of my personal affairs tended to make me anything but optimistic. i was in very serious financial straits. i sometimes think that i was too new to the city, too green to its psychology and subtlety, to be of any use to a great metropolitan daily; and yet, seeing all i had seen, i should have been worth something. i was only five years distant from the composition of sister carrie, to say nothing of many short stories and magazine articles. yet i was haunted by the thought that i was a misfit, that i might really have to give up and return to the west, where in some pathetic humdrum task i should live out a barren and pointless life.
with this probable end staring me in the face, i began to think that i must not give up but must instead turn to letters, the art of short-story writing; only just how to do this i could not see. one of the things that prompted me to try this was the fact that on the world at this time were several who had succeeded—david graham phillips, james creelman, then a correspondent for the paper in the war which had broken out between china and japan, to say nothing of george cary eggleston and reginald de koven, the latter on the staff as chief musical critic. there was another young man, whose name i have forgotten, who was pointed out to me as a rapidly growing favorite in the office of the century. then there were those new arrivals in the world of letters: kipling, richard harding davis, stephen crane and some others, whose success fascinated me.
all this was but an irritant to a bubbling chemistry which as yet had found no solution, and was not likely to find one for some time to come. my reading of spencer and huxley in no wise tended to clarify and impel my mind in the direction of fiction, or even philosophy. but now, in a kind of ferment or fever due to my necessities and desperation, i set to examining the current magazines and the fiction and articles to be found therein: century, scribner’s, harper’s. i was never more confounded than by the discrepancy existing between my own observations and those displayed here, the beauty and peace and charm to be found in everything, the almost complete absence of any reference to the coarse and the vulgar and the cruel and the terrible. how did it happen that these remarkable persons—geniuses of course, one and all—saw life in this happy roseate way? was it so, and was i all wrong? love was almost invariably rewarded in these tales. almost invariably one’s dreams came true, in the magazines. most of these bits of fiction, delicately phrased, flowed so easily, with such an air of assurance, omniscience and condescension, that i was quite put out by my own lacks and defects. they seemed to deal with phases of sweetness and beauty and success and goodness such as i rarely encountered. there were so many tales of the old south reeking with a poetry which was poetry and little more (george w. cable; thomas nelson page). in harper’s i found such assured writers as william dean howells, charles dudley warner, frank r. stockton, mrs. humphry ward, and a score of others, all of whom wrote of nobility of character and sacrifice and the greatness of ideals and joy in simple things.
but as i viewed the strenuous world about me, all that i read seemed not to have so very much to do with it. perhaps, as i now thought, life as i saw it, the darker phases, was never to be written about. maybe such things were not the true province of fiction anyhow. i read and read, but all i could gather was that i had no such tales to tell, and, however much i tried, i could not think of any. the kind of thing i was witnessing no one would want as fiction. these writers seemed far above the world of which i was a part. indeed i began to picture them as creatures of the greatest luxury and culture, gentlemen and ladies all, comfortably housed, masters of servants, possessing estates, or at least bachelor quarters, having horses and carriages, and received here, there and everywhere with nods of recognition and smiles of approval.
