have a feeling of
swift change in art and literature here in America. This latest trip to
New York has shocked and saddened me. To watch the struggle, to feel the
bitterness and intolerance of the various groups--to find one clique of
artists set against another, to know that most of those who come here
will fail and die--is appalling. The City is filled with strugglers,
students of art, ambitious poets, journalists, novelists, writers of all
kinds--I meet them at the clubs--some of them will be the large figures
of 1900, most of them will have fallen under the wheel--This bitter war
of Realists and Romanticists will be the jest of those who come after
us, and they in their turn will be full of battle ardor with other cries
and other banners. How is it possible to make much account of the cries
and banners of to-day when I know they will be forgotten of all but the
students of literary history?"

My contract with _McClure's_ called for an advance of fifty dollars a
week (more money than I had ever hoped to earn) and with this in
prospect I purchased a new set of dinner china and a piano, which filled
my mother's heart with delight. As I thought of her living long weeks in
the old homestead with only my invalid aunt for company my conscience
troubled me, and as it was necessary for me to go to Washington to
complete my history, I attempted to mitigate her loneliness by buying a
talking machine, through which I was able send her messages and songs.
She considered these wax cylinders a poor substitute for my actual
voice, but she got some entertainment from them by setting the machine
going for the amazement of her callers.

November saw me settled in Washington, hard at work on my history, but
all the time my mind was working, almost unconsciously, on my new
fictional problems, "After all, I am a novelist," I wrote to Fuller, and
I found time even in the midst of my historical study to compose an
occasional short story of Colorado or Mexico.

Magazine editors were entirely hospitable to me now, for my tales of the
Indian and the miner had created a friendlier spirit among their
readers. My later themes were, happily, quite outside the controversial
belt. Concerned less with the hopeless drudgery, and more with the epic
side of western life, I found myself almost popular. My critics, once
off their guard, were able to praise, cautiously it is true, but to
praise. Some of them assured me with paternal gravity that I migh