his name, we never hear of him again; he
was very casual; he acts like an accident; but he was no accident, he
was there by compulsion of HIS life-chain, to blow the electrifying
blast that was to make up Caesar's mind for him, and thence go piping
down the aisles of history forever.

If the stranger hadn't been there! But he WAS. And Caesar crossed.
With such results! Such vast events--each a link in the HUMAN RACE'S
life-chain; each event producing the next one, and that one the next
one, and so on: the destruction of the republic; the founding of the
empire; the breaking up of the empire; the rise of Christianity upon
its ruins; the spread of the religion to other lands--and so on; link
by link took its appointed place at its appointed time, the discovery of
America being one of them; our Revolution another; the inflow of English
and other immigrants another; their drift westward (my ancestors among
them) another; the settlement of certain of them in Missouri, which
resulted in ME. For I was one of the unavoidable results of the crossing
of the Rubicon. If the stranger, with his trumpet blast, had stayed away
(which he COULDN'T, for he was the appointed link) Caesar would not have
crossed. What would have happened, in that case, we can never guess. We
only know that the things that did happen would not have happened. They
might have been replaced by equally prodigious things, of course, but
their nature and results are beyond our guessing. But the matter that
interests me personally is that I would not be HERE now, but somewhere
else; and probably black--there is no telling. Very well, I am glad he
crossed. And very really and thankfully glad, too, though I never cared
anything about it before.

II

To me, the most important feature of my life is its literary feature. I
have been professionally literary something more than forty years. There
have been many turning-points in my life, but the one that was the link
in the chain appointed to conduct me to the literary guild is the most
CONSPICUOUS link in that chain. BECAUSE it was the last one. It was not
any more important than its predecessors. All the other links have an
inconspicuous look, except the crossing of the Rubicon; but as factors
in making me literary they are all of the one size, the crossing of the
Rubicon included.

I know how I came to be literary, and I will tell the steps that lead up
to it and brought it about.

The crossing of the Rubico