an denial, they were absent from my convenience.

It needed no instruction in the canons of art, however, to teach me
that to do a good thing, one must work hard for it. So I gave the best
part of a month to the study of the Pemberton Mill tragedy, driving to
Lawrence, and investigating every possible avenue of information left
at that too long remove of time which might give the data. I visited
the rebuilt mills, and studied the machinery. I consulted engineers
and officials and physicians, newspaper men, and persons who had been
in the mill at the time of its fall. I scoured the files of old local
papers, and from these I took certain portions of names, actually
involved in the catastrophe; though, of course, fictitiously used.
When there was nothing left for me to learn upon the subject, I came
home and wrote a little story called "The Tenth of January," and sent
it to the "Atlantic Monthly," where it appeared in due time.

This story is of more interest to its author than it can possibly
be now to any reader, because it distinctly marked for me the first
recognition which I received from literary people.

Whittier, the poet, wrote me his first letter, after having read
this story. It was soon followed by a kind note from Colonel Thomas
Wentworth Higginson. Both these distinguished men said the pleasant
thing which goes so far towards keeping the courage of young writers
above sinking point, and which, to a self-distrustful nature, may be
little less than a life-preserver. Both have done similar kindness to
many other beginners in our calling; but none of these can have been
more grateful for it, or more glad to say so, across this long width
of time, than the writer of "The Tenth of January."

It was a defective enough little story, crude and young; I never
glance at it without longing to write it over; but I cannot read it,
to this day, without that tingling and numbness down one's spine and
through the top of one's head, which exceptional tragedy must produce
in any sensitive organization; nor can I ever trust myself to hear
it read by professional elocutionists. I attribute the success of
the story entirely to the historic and unusual character of the
catastrophe on whose movement it was built.

Of journalism, strictly speaking, I did nothing. But I often wrote for
weekly denominational papers, to which I contributed those strictly
secular articles so popular with the religious public. My main
impression of