Howells, William Dean, 1837-1920 -- Childhood and youth
What account I gave of the experience in print I cannot say after the
lapse of fifty-seven years, but no doubt I tried to make merry over it,
with endeavor for the picturesque and dramatic. Through the whole of a
life which I do not complain of for lasting so long, though I do not
like being old, I have found that in my experiences, where everything
was novel, some of the worst things were the things I would not have
missed. It had not been strictly in the line of my duty as news editor
to make that excursion, but I dare say I did it gladly, for the reasons
suggested. There were other reasons which were to make themselves
apparent during the year: on my salary of ten dollars a week I could not
afford to be very punctilious; and if I was suffered to stray into the
leading columns of the editorial page I could not stand upon the dignity
of the news editor if I was now and then invited to do a reporter's
work. Besides, there were tremors of insecurity in my position, such as
came from the bookkeeper's difficulty in sometimes finding the money for
my weekly wage, which might well have alarmed me for the continued
working of the economic machine. Like every man who depends upon the
will or power of another man to give him work, I served a master, and
though I served the kindest master in the world, I could not help
sharing his risks. It appeared that our newspaper had not been
re-established upon a foundation so firm but that it needed new capital
to prop it, after something over a year, and then a business change took
place which left me out. I was not altogether sorry, for about the same
time my senior resigned and went to Cincinnati to cast in his fortunes
as joint owner and editor with another paper. Without him, though I
should have fearlessly undertaken the entire conduct of our journal, I
should not have felt so much at home in it, for I did not know then, as
I have learned and said long since, that a strong writer, when he leaves
a newspaper, leaves a subtle force behind him which keeps him
indefinitely present in it. But there was no question of my staying, and
though my chief's wish to have me stay almost made it seem as if I were
staying, I had to go, and I had to leave him my debtor in two hundred
dollars. I hasten to say that the debt was fully paid in no very long
time, but it seems to me that the world was managed much less on a cash
basis in those days than in these; people did not expect to be paid
their money as soon as they had earned it; the economic machine creaked
and wabbled oftener, and had to be sprinkled with cool patience when the
joints worked dry of oil. This may be my fancy, partly built from the
fact that my father in his life of hard work was nearly lifelong in
debt, while others lived and died as many dollars in debt to him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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