For a kindred reason I quite as altogether refused, and more explicitly, the theory of my old friend, Moncure D. Conway, as to the true function of the West in literature. He was then a young Unitarian minister, preaching at Cincinnati an ever-widening liberalism in religion, and publishing a slight monthly magazine named after _The Dial_ of Emerson at Concord, and too carefully studied from it. For this paler avatar of that transcendental messenger he had asked me for contributions, and so a friendship, which lasted throughout our lives, sprang up between us. When he once came to Columbus he came to lunch with me, and quite took my appetite away by propounding his theory that the West was to live its literature, especially its poetry, rather than write it, the East being still in that darkling period when it could not live its literature. I do not remember the arguments by which he supported his thesis; but proofs as of holy writ could not have persuaded me of it as far as I myself was concerned. My affair was to make poetry, let who would live it, and to make myself known by both the quality and quantity of my poetry. It is not clear to me now how I declared my position without immodesty, but somehow I declared it, and so finally that Conway was very willing to carry away with him for his magazine a piece of rhyme which I had last made. He could the more willingly do this because _The Dial_ was one of those periodicals, commoner then than now, that paid rather in glory than in money; in fact it was not expected to pay anything in money, so that I doubly defeated him: I was not only not living my poetry, I was not even living by it. IV The days of the years when youth is finding its way into manhood are not those which have the most flattering memories. It is better with the autobiographer both before and after that time, though both the earlier and later times have much to offer that should keep him modest. But that interval is a space of blind struggle, relieved by moments of rest and shot with gleams of light, when the youth, if he is fortunate, gathers some inspiration for a worthier future. His experiences are vivid and so burnt into him that if he comes to speak of them it will require all his art to hide from himself that he has little to remember which he would not much rather forget. In his own behalf, or to his honor and glory, he cannot recall the whole of his past, but if he is honest enough to intimate some of its facts he may be able to serve a later generation. His reminiscences even in that case must be a tissue of egotism, and he will merit nothing from their altruistic effect. I