"Write to him; and also, I want you to write out the story of the break-up in Texas. Write it just as you told it to Mr. Fox. Send it to me. I will see that it goes to some one, whose criticism will be severe enough and fair enough, to prove whether you have the ability to write. If you can write, you can live."
"O Mr. Libbey!" I cried gratefully, "you are so kind. I thank you! I thank you! I do believe I can write. I will write the paper you ask me for tonight. You will see."
I did so, and put it into his hand as he was getting into his carriage in the morning. He smiled at my promptness and said, "It will be attended to." And I was perfectly content, for I knew if Mr. Libbey said so, it would be done.
In two weeks Mr. Libbey brought me a check from Daniel Appleton and Company for thirty dollars. I was astonished and delighted, but after a few moments I laughed joyously and cried, "Why I can write three or four of those things every week! O Mr. Libbey, how happy you have made me! Is my work really going to be printed? Can I write? Do you think I can write?"
"It will appear very soon," he answered, "and Mr. Bunce, the editor of the magazine, spoke very highly of your work; further, he said he would like you to write them a story. Will you try one?"
"Indeed, I will! I have lots of stories in my mind. I will put them on paper, at once."
There is a song which says,
"Joy"s the shyest bird, Mortal ever heard; Listen rapt and silent when he sings.
Do not seek to see, Lest the vision be, But a flutter of departing wings."
I had no fear of such a fleeting joy. I _knew_ that my vocation was found. I had received the call, and having done so, I was sure my work would be a.s.signed me. Of some things we feel quite certain. Inside there is a click, a kind of bell that strikes, when the hands of our destiny meet at the meridian hour. I cannot make it plainer, those who have experienced it, will know. I only hope that every new writer may enter the gates of the literary life, as happily and hopefully as I did.
It was near midnight when we went to bed. Our little affairs were so full of interest to us. This thirty dollars would remove us into the city, but though we were both very anxious to go at once, we decided that it would be better to remain in the country until September brought cooler weather. Alice was exceedingly frail, and she was the first consideration. Also, I would have to go to New York to find the proper place to live in and rent unfurnished rooms there; and this looked to me a rather formidable undertaking. I had never heard of real estate offices, and whether they existed at this date, or not, I do not know. But we read the advertis.e.m.e.nts in the _Herald_, and I made a note of several locations. As to the healthiness, or respectability of these locations, the rents and half a dozen other important questions, we knew absolutely nothing. I smile to myself yet, at the childlike confidence, with which I essayed this plunge into the unknown.
And as we talked, full of grat.i.tude and hope, I was able to give up cheerfully my last fort of pride or vanity, and I promised myself to write immediately to Mr. Beecher. It was my proper share of the obligation attending this new move in life. In the midst of conversation on this topic, the clock struck twelve, and Lilly said,
"Mamma, you ate no supper. You are hungry, or you ought to be. I am going to bring something to eat upstairs."
"I will go downstairs with you, Lilly."
"No, no, Mamma! You will get cold, and Alice will wake up. Then Alice will come down, and she will get cold. I will bring up a tray in five minutes."
Until she came back with the tray, I walked up and down the small room. My heart was singing within me. At that hour it had forgotten all its sorrow and its deprivations; it knew that the bare poverty of the last few months was over--the poverty that is without books, without all the comfortable things, that make sufficient food and clothing still poverty. For some long weary months, it had been beating itself against gates for which it could find no keys. Now, they had been set wide open. It would have been an unpardonable waste of G.o.d-given happiness to sleep, as long as the physical woman could keep awake.
We remained six weeks longer in the country, but they were weeks brightened with hope and cheerful expectations. I began at once a story for Appleton"s called "Margaret Sinclair"s Silent Money," and among the simple Norse fishers of the Shetland Islands, forgot for hours together that I was yet in New Jersey. In October I went to the city to look for rooms, and as soon as I spoke to Mr. Sykes, he sent a youth with me to a real estate office. He also advised me as to the proper section of the city, and told me not to go far away from that quarter, because it contained the city"s three finest libraries, and he was sure I would find them indispensable in literary work.
I was as happy as if I was on a holiday, and before noon had settled on some unfurnished rooms in a large brick house on Amity Street. I was told that Poe had once occupied them, but I did not know anything about Poe in those days; and I was not influenced in my choice by this a.s.sociation. What decided me was first, the fact that they were large, lofty, old-fashioned apartments, with open grates, and a pleasant look-out for Alice. Second, that I had the Astor and Mercantile Libraries within five minutes walk, and the Historical Library on Second Avenue, not much further away. Mr. Sykes said I had made an excellent selection of rooms, and I went back to Ridgewood satisfied with the home they promised.
The next day I wrote Mr. Beecher a long letter. I told him all that had happened me, and asked if he could help me to find literary work.
Almost by return mail, I received his answer. In it he told me that he had just become largely interested in the _Christian Union_, and was sure if I could write something for that paper, as vivid or pathetic as my letter to him, my services would be welcome to the _Christian Union_. "Come into the city," he said, "and we shall be able to keep your pen busy."
Three days after the receipt of this encouraging letter, I stood in the rooms on Amity Street, with my daughters and my few household goods. I had five dollars and eighteen cents in my purse. I had no knowledge of the ways of life in a large city, and was quite as ignorant of the business of buying and selling. I had no relatives in America, no one I felt at liberty to ask a.s.sistance from. I stood absolutely alone in the battle of life, but I was confident, that G.o.d and Amelia Barr were a mult.i.tude.
In the old-fashioned grate of the room, I intended for our sitting-and dining-room, there was soon a good fire, and in less than an hour, the kettle was boiling, the lamb chops broiled, and the tea infusing. And never since my dear husband died, had I sat down to a meal I enjoyed so much. We were as happy as three children.
Before the evening of the next day, the rooms had quite a homey look.
I had still some beautiful bed clothing, and table damask, and a few books; and books and an open fire are the best furniture any room can have. They look at every one that enters them with a smile and a welcome. And on that open fire, it was wonderful what excellent meals Lilly cooked us--nice little lamb stews, and broiled meats, and always the good cup of tea or of Java coffee. And we laughed at our small discomforts, and said we were "only tenting, until everything right and proper should arrive."
As soon as the house affairs were arranged, I went down to the _Christian Union_ office. I took with me a paper called "The Epiphany in the West Riding." There was a Mr. Kennedy then in the working editor"s chair, and he read it at once and was delighted with it. He said such generous words of encouragement and praise, that I have yet the kindest memory of him. He was the first editor of the _Christian Union_, I believe, but he left the paper very soon, and I have never heard his name since.
Mr. George Merriam followed him, and he was the kindest and wisest editor I ever wrote for. He kept me rigorously up to my best work, but did so with such consideration and valuable advice, that I always felt it a great pleasure, to see how much better I could make everything I wrote for him. He did me many favors, and among them he gave me my first introduction to the dear old Astor Library. In this library I worked from morning to night. Mr. Saunders the head librarian was an Englishman, a most wonderful general scholar, particularly intimate with English literature. We soon became good friends, and he gave me the use of one of the largest and sunniest alcoves in the Hall I frequented. For fifteen years I used this alcove with its comfortably large table, its silence and sunshine, and delightful atmosphere of books and scholars.
A plan of the Astor alcoves that Mr. Saunders made for me, hangs at my right hand in my study. My alcove was the Fine Arts alcove in the South Hall, and Mr. Saunders--when I went no more to the Astor--feared I might forget it. As if I could! Though it exists no longer, I see it as plainly, _as I saw it before it existed at all_.
For when I was living in Penrith, a child of seven or eight years old, I began to dream of this city of books. I wandered about its pleasant alcoves, and climbed its long spiral stairs of wrought iron, and stood speechless and wondering before the white marble busts of ancient G.o.ds, and G.o.dlike men, in its entrance hall. And the building did not then exist. It is doubtful if it had ever taken form in Mr. Astor"s mind. How then could I see it in my dreams? And why did I see it? I have asked myself these questions for more than forty years, for always I saw the building full of light, though my dream came in the dark midnight, when there was neither sun, nor moon, nor candlelight for physical eyes to use. Where does the light of dreams come from?
And why was it shown to me when as yet it was not?
The only solution I can find is, that my angel not only foresaw the grand old library, but also that she understood the necessity and advantage of my future intimate a.s.sociation with it. Therefore she made me familiar with the place in my dream life, so that when in my physical life, I came to this special hostelry of mind and body, I might know that I was in the path appointed for me, and be satisfied.
For I do not believe in chance. The life G.o.d guides, is not ruled by accidental events; the future is constantly shaped out of the past and all its happenings are but links in a chain.
To me it was a most astonishing experience. I walked up the white marble stairway, and into the sunny South Hall with the strangest most exulting feeling of proprietorship; and for all the purposes of study and use, this splendid library was for fifteen years really my own.
Before presenting Mr. Merriam"s letter to the chief librarian, Mr.
Saunders, I sat down and looked around me. Yes! It was my dream library! There was no doubt of it. I was lost in wonder and joy, and I said to my soul,
"We came not to this place by accident. It is the very place G.o.d meant for us." And this decision was so comforting, that I at once fully accepted it.
The Astor Library was at that date a very heaven on earth to the student. I have never seen in all my life, a student"s library comparable with it. It wanted none of the great treasures of literature, and yet it was not too large to become familiar with. In the halls I frequented, I soon knew where every book dwelt, and if my eyes saw a vacant place on a shelf, I knew instantly what book was from home. Of the great reviews and magazines, I gradually made an index of all their papers, likely to be of use to me; so that if an up-to-date article on any subject, commodity, or event was needed, I had, at my finger ends, a list of all the papers that had been written concerning it.
Nor did I let the evident trade, or literary side of the subject satisfy me. I hunted up in such queer repositories of knowledge as _Southey"s Doctor_, _Hones" Year Book_, _Table Book_, and _Every Day Book_, et cetera, all the bits of folklore, historical, poetical, and social traditions, proverbs and prophecies allied to it; and in such research I found a never-ending delight. Many writers of that day said with a variety of emphasis, "What luck Mrs. Barr has!"
Once a despondent young man sitting in my alcove made this very remark to me, and as it was spoken in no unkind spirit, I answered it by showing him the indexes and notes which I had made for this very work.
I pointed out that the ill.u.s.tration for which I was then preparing the text, had been received an hour ago, and must be turned into the paper for which it was intended early on the following morning; and I asked him--if he could find the material necessary, and have it at the office by nine o"clock? He looked gloomily at the picture. It represented an old farmer examining the almanac for the New Year.
"Now what can a fellow know about almanacs?" he asked. "What is there to know about them anyhow? I suppose I could find something in Poole----"
"Look here!" I answered. "This is my list of informing articles on the subject of almanacs:
_British Quarterly Review_, vol. 28.
_Sat.u.r.day Review_, vol. 14.
"Medieval Almanacs," _Quarterly Review_, vol. 71.
_Southey"s Doctor_, vol. 3.
_Foreign Quarterly_, vol. 32.
_London Magazine_, vol. 2.
_Eclectic Magazine_, vol. 1, 1844.
_Eclectic Magazine_, vol. 9.
_Retrospective Review_, vol. 2.
_Bow Bell"s Magazine_, vol. 1.
_All the Year Round Magazine_, vol. 6."
"Do you mean to go through all those articles?" he asked incredulously.
"It is now ten o"clock," I replied. "Before four, I shall have gleaned all I want from every one of them. I shall perhaps also find time to go through some poetical indexes, and find a few good verses on almanacs, either to finish off--or to begin with. And this," I continued, "this is the kind of luck Mrs. Barr has. You, or any other writer, can have the same."
Any one can understand, how work of this kind pursued with loving and ungrudging industry for over fifteen years, educated the mind and formed the taste. It kept me in touch with the finest European essayists, and I learned something from every book I opened. Perhaps it was not just what I was looking for, but it was worth making a note of--a note that often came into use for song or story years afterwards; and it was all conducive to that preparation I was unconsciously making for the sixty or more books it has been my privilege and pleasure to write.
CHAPTER XIX
THE BEGINNINGS OF A NEW LIFE
"I heard the letters talking, saw thought forming, felt the syllables writing as my hands wandered over the sensitized paper, smelling the perfume of dead men"s thoughts."