The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-06-29
Young Mi. Howells is Paid For Poem.


All my literary affiliations were with
Ticknor & Fields, and it was the Old
Corner Book store on Washington street
that drew my heart as soon as / had
replenished my pocket.in Cornhill. AT
ter verifying the editor of the Atlantic
Monthly, wished to verify it's publish
ers, and it very fifty happened that when
i was shown into Mr.. Fields little room
at the back of the store, with it's win
dow looking upon School street and it's
scholarly keeping in books and prints,
he had just got the magazine sheets Of
poem of mine from the Cambridge print
ers. He was then lately from abroad,
and he had the zest for American things
which foreign sojourn is apt to renew
in us, though did not know this then,
and could not account for it in the kind
ness he expressed for my poem. He in
troduced me to Mr.. Ticknor, who / fan
cied had not read my poem; but he
seemed to know what it was from the
junior partner, and he asked me whether
! had been paid for it. I confessed that
| had not, and then he got out channels
leather bag, and took from it five half
eagles in gold and laid them on the
green cloth top of the desk, in much the
shape and.of much the size of the Great
Bear. I have never since felt myself
paid SO lavlshly for any literary work,
though have had more for a single
piece than the twenty-five dollars that
dazzled me in this constellation. The
publisher seemed aware of the poetic
quality of the transaction, he let the
pieces lie moment, before he gathered
them up and put them into my hand,
aud said, II always think it is pleasant
to have it in gold"
But asterrible experience with the poem
awaited me, and quenched for the
moment all my pleasure and pride. It
was" The Pilots Story, which I suppose
has had as much acceptance as anything
of mine in verse) l do not boast of a
vast acceptance for it, and had at
tempted TO treat in it phase of the
national tragedy of slavery, as / had
imagined it on Mississippi steam boat.
A young planter has gambIed away the
slave girl.who is the mother of his child.
and when he tells her, she breaks out
upon him with the demands
What will you say to our boy when
he cries for me there in ST. Louis?D
I had Thought this very we'll, and
natural and simple, but fatal proof
reader had not thought it we'll enough
or simple and natural enough, and he
had made the line read
IaWhat will you say to our boy when he
cries. for Ma, there in Saint Louis?n
He had even had the inspiration to
quote the word he preferred to the one
/ had written, SO that there was no
merciful possibility of mistaking it for
a misprint, and my blood froze in my
viens at sight OF it. Mr.. Fields had
given me the sheets to read while he
looked over some letters, and he either
felt the chill of my horror. OF / made
some sign or sound of dismay that
caught his notice, for he looked around
at me. ! could only show him the pass
age with gasp. dare say he might
have liked to laugh, for it was cruelty
funny, but he did not; he was concerned
for the magazine as well as for me- He
declared that when he first read the line
he had thought I could not have writ
ten it SO, and he agreed with Inc that it
would kill the poem if it came out in
that shape He instantly set about re-
pairing the mischief so far as could be.
He found THAT the whole edition of that
sheet had been printed, and the air
blackened around me again, lighted up
here and there with baleful flashes Of
the newspaper wit at my cost, which l
previsioned in my misery; | knew what
should have said of such thing myself,
if it had been another's. But the pub
Usher at once decided that the sheet
must be reprinted, and | went away
weak as if in the escape from some
deadly peril. Afterwards it appeared
that thesliae had passed the first proof
reader as l wrote it, but that the final
reader had entered SO sympathetieally
into the realistic intention of my poem
as to contribute the modification which
had nearly been my end.-From my
First Visit to New England" by william
Dean Howells in Harper's Magazine for
July.