alleys, the waterless foothills and the high
peaks, inspired me, filled me with desire to embody them in some form of
prose, of verse.

Laden with a myriad impressions of Indians, mountaineers and miners, I
returned to my home as a bee to its hive, and there, during October, in
my quiet chamber worked fast and fervently to transform my rough notes
into fiction. Making no attempt to depict the West as some one else had
seen it, or might thereafter see it, I wrote of it precisely as it
appeared to me, verifying every experience, for, although I had not
lingered long in any one place--a few weeks at most--I had observed
closely and my impressions were clearly and deeply graved.

In fear of losing that freshness of delight, that emotion which gave me
inspiration, I had made copious notes while in the field and although I
seldom referred to them after I reached my desk, the very act of putting
them down had helped to organize and fix them in my mind.

All of September and October was spent at the Homestead. Each morning I
worked at my writing, and in the afternoon I drove my mother about the
country or wrought some improvement to the place.

* * * * *

In the midst of these new literary enthusiasms I received a message
which had a most disturbing effect on my plans. It was a letter from Sam
McClure whose new little magazine was beginning to show astonishing
vitality. "I want you to write for me a life of Ulysses Grant. I want it
to follow Ida Tarbell's _Lincoln_ which is now nearing an end. Come to
New York and talk it over."

This request arrested me in my fictional progress. I was tempted to
accept this commission, not merely because of the editor's generous
terms of payment but for the deeper reason that _Grant_ was a word of
epic significance in my mind. From the time when I was three years of
age, this great name had rung in my ears like the sound of a mellow
bell. I knew I could write Grant's story--but--I hesitated.

"It is a mighty theme," I replied, "and yet I am not sure that I ought
to give so much of my time at this, the most creative period of my life.
It may change the whole current of my imagination."

My father, whose attitude toward the great Commander held much of
hero-worship and who had influenced my childish thinking, influenced me
now, but aside from his instruction I had come to consider Grant's
career more marvelous than that of any other American both by reason