f
their happy light. "When will you come again?" she asked after a pause.

"Almost any minute," I replied assuringly. "You must remember that I'm
only a few hours away now. I can visit you often. I shall certainly come
up for Christmas. If you need me at any time send me word in the
afternoon and I'll be with you at breakfast."

That night at six o'clock I was in my city home, a lodging quite as
humble in character as my fortunes.

In a large chamber on the north side of a house on Elm Street and only
three doors from Lake Michigan, I had assembled my meager library and a
few pitiful mementoes of my life in Boston. My desk stood near a narrow
side window and as I mused I could look out upon the shoreless expanse
of blue-green water fading mistily into the north-east sky, and, at
night, when the wind was in the East the crushing thunder of the
breakers along the concrete wall formed a noble accompaniment to my
writing, filling me with vaguely ambitious literary plans. Exalted by
the sound of this mighty orchestra I felt entirely content with the
present and serenely confident of the future.

"This is where I belong," I said. "Here in the great Midland metropolis
with this room for my pivot, I shall continue my study of the plains and
the mountains."

I had burned no bridges between me and the Island of Manhattan, however!
Realizing all too well that I must still look to the East for most of my
income, I carefully retained my connections with _Harper's_, the
_Century_ and other periodicals. Chicago, rich and powerful as it had
become, could not establish--or had not established--a paying magazine,
and its publishing firms were mostly experimental and not very
successful; although the Columbian Exposition which was just closing,
had left upon the city's clubs and societies (and especially on its
young men) an esthetic stimulation which bade fair to carry on to other
and more enduring enterprises.

Nevertheless in the belief that it was to become the second great
literary center of America I was resolved to throw myself into the task
of hurrying it forward on the road to new and more resplendent
achievement.

My first formal introduction to the literary and artistic circle in
which I was destined to work and war for many years, took place through
the medium of an address on _Impressionism in Art_ which I delivered in
the library of Franklin Head, a banker whose home had become one of the
best-known intellectual mee