Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-12-03

"NN yNu 9OC III uOJ Working dJ pres
ent for a place in which to lay my
bones. But on to the field of glory and
another publisher!,
We tried seven, and all those mis-
guided men refused my verse. The
seventh had the goodness to tell me
why.
"Bless you, get acres of such man
uscript every year. l dare say there
may have been demand for it once,
but you might as well present Choctaw
or Mother Goose to the popular mind
now. Pope overdid all these gilded
metaphors and sounding phrases, and
people want no more of them.
carried the book home in bitterness
OF heart, but not humility of soul, and
threw it in Avice's lap.
Take ittor curl papers, hyou want"
| cried it will never be used for any
thing better"
81 shall keep it," said the small wom-
an, loyal to her faith in her lord, land
some day when you're famous they'll be
glad to print it."
But | may as well confess the time
has never come.
What was to be done? Our money
ratified as we went lower in the Golfer.
and success was as far away as in the
beginning.
Avice exercised her brain diligently
on the problem and came to me with
the result.
"Pve been thinking" she said, con-
fidentially, "what people are most in
terested in, and 1 believe they want
scientific things"
(Did you ever think how promis-
cuously a woman applies the term
thingsP)
There is a column in every paper
about telephones and all sorts Of inven-
tions, and should think you could saw
something remarkable
/ snatched at the idea, and believe l
did say something remarkable indeed.
What the subject of the essay was l
cannot remember, but it was as practi-
cal as utilizing whale oil in greasing the
North Pole, or making jelly from gum
powder.
1t started on its travels from one
to another, and after invaria-
bly, returning like very faithful dove,
was consigned to oblivion and the top
shelf of the closet.
About that time 1 met Uncle Phil,
who viewed my worn suit and gener-
ally discouraged appearance with a
air, and showing more in
terest than usual in my fortunes, said,
"Well, what success? Got as far as
: Y in the encyclopaedia yet?" l am
sure my answer had in it much offended
dignity, but the remark was sufficient
70 gpnH hpY,,a Nth , g 4
die in literary line.
1 wrote steadily for weeks stories,
moral essays and, 1 am ashamed to con-
fess it, rhymes; but glory did not await
me, or if it did it was at such distance
that l never succeeded in grasping it.
And meanwhile my Avice was work
ing her faith in me up to q glorious
point of enthusiasm, in the unreason-
able way of women. Her latest idea
should hesitate to confess myself in
debted to my wife for ideas were it not
that they usually proved impracticable
was that should write a novel. She
pinned me to the subject when 1 had
begun to distrust my own powers and
would fain have escaped.
"Now, Harry, let's plan the next
scene," she would rouse me from my
sleep to say.
"Rudolph is on his way to the cave,
where the wages are every minute COM
ing nearer Evelyn's feet, and she will !
surely be drowned unless he hastens.
Now do you think we'd better let him
propose to her there, or wait till they've |
had more adventuresP"
Our ideas conflicted q little, because
her novel-writing propensities were in
.he Mrs Radcliffe line, while liked to |
sandwich my conversations with long |
philosophical dissertations, and hair |
breadth scapes could not abide.
But the novel slowly wrote itself out |
n our minds.
We agreed that Rudolph's eyes should |
pc as black as night, and Evelyn's a
leep gray; and that the villain should |
De the stepfather of the former, inter-
sstingly lame and deformed, somewhat
after the manner of Richard III.
But as we consulted, and borrowed |
money to live on, an old anecdote, in
which my father, who was a story-teller,
lsed to delight, kept itself prominently
n the foreground of my consciousness.
An illiterate man, having been under
'OhflCIlOh VI SIN anu 6Ap6IlbuCbu re-
igion in the most approved way, felt
himself called to preach, whereupon
he clergy of the same denomination,
Ishamed to number him among them,
with him.
Brethren, "isaid he sit is written,
Go forth and preach the gospel to
very critter." )"
Eyes" returned a brother, "but it
loes not say that every critter shall
preach the gospel"
1 felt doubtful as to whetherit would
lot be better to be a cOal-heaver who
new his business than literary pre-
ender.
"Avice," said /, al can't write the
iovel. 1t will be nonsense, and such
!onsense as the publishers see every
lay of their lives"
Tho ouno1l ,uifa ygas NOT 20 ba de