s. I longed for literary comradeship. Theoretically my native
village was an ideal place in which to write, actually it sapped me and
after a few weeks depressed me. With no literary "atmosphere," damnable
word, I looked away to New York for stimulus. I did not go so far as one
of my friends who declined to have anything to do with his relatives
simply because he did not like them, but I clearly recognized that my
friends in the city meant more to me than any of my Wisconsin neighbors
and it became more and more evident that to make and keep an arbitrary
residence in a region which did not in itself stimulate or satisfy me,
was a mistake. There was nothing to do in West Salem but write.

Above all other considerations, however, I had a feeling, perhaps it was
a mistaken one,--that my powers grew in proportion as I went Eastward.
In West Salem I was merely an amateur gardener, living a life which
approached the vegetable,--so far as external action went. In Chicago I
was a perversity, a man of mis-directed energy. In New York I was, at
least respected as a writer.

In short New York allured me as London allures the writers of England,
and as Paris attracts the artists of Europe. It was my literary capital.
Theoretically I belonged to Wisconsin, as Hardy belonged to Wessex or
Barrie to Scotland, actually my happiest home was adjacent to Madison
Square. Only as I neared the publishing centers did I feel the slightest
confidence in the future. This increased sense of importance may have
been based upon an illusion but it was a very real emotion nevertheless.

Why should I not feel this? From my village home, from digging potatoes
and doing carpenter work, I went (almost directly) to a luncheon at the
White House, and the following night I attended a dinner given to Mark
Twain on his sixty-seventh birthday with William Dean Howells, Thomas B.
Reed, Wayne McVeagh, Brander Matthews, H. H. Rogers, George Harvey,
Pierpont Morgan, Hamilton Wright Mabie and a dozen others who were
leaders in their chosen work, as my table mates. Perhaps I was not
deserving of these honors--I'm not urging that point--I am merely
stating the facts which made my home in West Salem seem remote and
lonely to me. Acknowledging myself a weak mortal I could not entirely
forego the honors which the East seemed willing to bestow, and as father
was in good health with a household of his own, I felt free to spend the
entire winter in New York. For the first