ow, but I fear he reported me as
living in unimaginable luxury and consorting on terms of equality with
the great ones of New York.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

New Life in the Old House

Meanwhile, Chicago rushing toward its two million mark, had not, alas!
lived up to its literary promise of '94. In music, in painting, in
sculpture and architecture it was no longer negligible, but each year
its authors appeared more and more like a group of esthetic pioneers
heroically maintaining themselves in the midst of an increasing tumult
of material upbuilding.

One by one its hopeful young publishing houses had failed, and one by
one its aspiring periodicals had withered in the keen wind of Eastern
competition. _The Dial_ alone held on, pathetically solitary, one might
almost say alien and solitary.

Against all this misfortune even my besotted optimism could not prevail.
My pioneering spirit, subdued by years of penury and rough usage,
yielded more and more to the honor and the intellectual companionship
which the East offered. To Fuller I privately remarked: "As soon as I
can afford it I intend to establish a home in New York."

"I'd go further," he replied. "I would live in Italy if I could."

It was a very significant fact that Chicago contained in 1903 but a
handful of writers, while St. Louis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit and
Kansas City had fewer yet. "What is the reason for this literary
sterility?" I asked of my companions. "Why should not these powerful
cities produce authors? Boston, when she had less than three hundred
thousands citizens had Lowell, Longfellow, Emerson and Holmes."

The answer was (and still is), "Because there are few supporters of
workers in the fine arts. Western men do not think in terms of art.
There are no literary periodicals in these cities to invite (and pay
for) the work of the author and the illustrator, and there is moreover a
tendency on the part of our builders to give the eastern sculptor,
painter or architect the jobs which might be done by local men. Until
Chicago has at least one magazine founded like a university, and
publishing houses like Scribners and Macmillans our authors and artists
must go to New York." Of course none of these answers succeeded in
clearing up the mystery, but they were helpful.

Some of the writers in the Little Room were outspokenly envious of my
ability to spend half my winters in the East, but Lorado Taft stoutly
declared that the West inspir