The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1892-12-09

cut in il, with my hair white as milk and
my face freckled like a guinea egg. Any
way, father took me TO court with him ext
day and everybody had good laugh Of ny
expense
"How old am 1? Well, that is quest on
like to avoid, but I'll tell you OH the quiet
that | am 3S. About time man was going
to accomplish something if he expects to,
and / often grow frightened when l think
of the failure / have made of it.
"And do you know / never realized till a
few days ago how far j was getting on in
life, and then / met an old friend of mine
who is about the same age, and who has
daughter nearly grown. He was inclined to
congratulate me. aud II just then occurred
to me what a price | had been paying for
my freedom. l might have had a beautiful
home and lovely children. But that is
neither here nor there.
"Oh, yes; might have got married and
should have done so, but didn't, and the
result is that have missed that much OF
life. To tell you the honest truth, the mat
ter never occurred to me that way till lately,
and now ii is getting pretty late to make
change in my mode of living
81 don't know how drifted into writing
poetry, but it seemed to come natural 10 me.
For about fifteen years now l have written
with an ambition, but before that lime did
Il just for amusement. You see / was a
painter by trade and worked at sign writing
for long time. l served full apprentice
ship as house painter, too, but was never
strong enough to follow it as a steady occu-
patton and gave 1t up.
my greatest drawback In life / have
found as writer is my lack of education.
/ IN nd m
that had good common school training.
/ was not very good student and devoted
most of my time to things that were of 10
use TO me- There is not rule of grammar
that is familiar to me and ! wouldn't know
nominatiye ii ! was to meet it on the
street. To tell the truth / don't know one
part OF speech from another and when l
write | am guided entirely by observation
and by what have read.
ut is not true that l was reporter, for /
had peculiar position on a newspaper.
My editOr-in-chief was one of the most in
dulgent men in the world and be let me do
pretty much as l pleased. / wrote when |
felt like it and when / didn't nothing was
said. Occasionally there would be a big
hole in the paper and they would call on
me for copy. L generally kept stack of it
on hand and could give them all they
wanted. Sometimes it would be book re-
view. again so-called funny editorial. and
oftener some odds and ends that l had
written In spare moments. They very
charitably forgave the quality and looked
only to the quantity.
Zone strange thing Is that never could
write to order. II they called on me for
certain thing by a certain time immed-
ately grew apprehensiye and nervous. and
that settled 1t.
(which of my poems DO l regard as my
best? Well. for some unaccountable rea-
son / always like the serious ones, and the
one entitled 'BeTeaved' l have always
looked upon as my most satisfactory work.
IL may not suit the general public so well,
but IL pleases me. AS q rule, in fact, ind
that my dialect poems seem to strike
more popular chord, but do not like them
nearly SO we'll.
81 am really serious In one thing, and
that is desire to get near the people. You
take towheaded, dirty-faced boy, and he
Is nearer TO Goa than any millionaire that
ever lived. notice that when Christ was
on earth he didn't run after the million
aires, but went out among the common
people.
"The ord nary things of life are the ones
they are beautiful
'The trouble of it all is that we are in
sincere, and pay too little attention to the
things we meet every day.
"Commonplaces are the most beautiful
things In the world alter all. and that is
where l have attained most of my success"
Riley grew enthusiastic as he talked. aud
as he strobe up and down the room he
seemed wrapped up 10 his work.
Picking up one Of his volumes, he said:
''You will observe that have all my books
printed in Indianapolis. The Eastern
publishers don't like it, because they know
the men who issue my books are willing to
let the author have a small share of the
proceeds. But my best profits are from the
English edition.
Quite q time ago a London firm asked
permission to bring out volume OF my
poems as an experiment and it has proved
8 great success.
'The book is in its eighth edition, and the
royalty which the publishers pay me. merely
by courtesy, is larger than that allowed me
here, where am protected by a copyright.
1t looks strange, but it is fact"
This is Mr.. Riley's first visit to the coast,
but in his Characteristic way he said yester-
day that he had started five times and had
been kissed OFF, ON every occasion.
He will remain here for about ten DAYS,
and will then 60 north to Portland and the
sound.