Life — March 24, 1887 — page 7: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Gentleman Rider: WHEN 1 say ready, TOMMY, YOU LET Go. AUTOBIOGRAPHY A LA LIPPINCOTT. PaRNaSsUS, OHIO, March 22d, 1887. Epitor or LIFE: Sir,—In deference to the prevailing popular interest in the private life of the /#¢erati, I cheerfully contribute a bird's-eye review of my checkered literary career. Being of an intellectual temperament, I was, naturally, put to saw- ing wood, when five years old, to help support the family ; my specialty was fancy seesawing. I learned my letters from circus-posters, and acquired the remainder of my education by intuition, After a hard day’s work I would steal away to my little garret and consume the pine-knots (that had knocked the molars out of my saw) in the perusal of such classics as Mol! Flanders and Memoirs of Vidocg, lent me by a kind journeyman preacher, whose reputation, though local, was as high as that of- Parson Downs. I communed with nature, early and late, and many a long summer night have I spent under the soughing pines—following, line after line, the heaviness of Homer's Eyelid—by the uncertain glimmering of a glow-worm. I was not eccentric, but I did such things in order to provide good material for my biography. I owe much to intercourse with nature. My ideas of rhythm were derived from the songs of the cat-bird, katydid and jar-fly; my Conception of Intense Situations was strengthened, and my Obser- vation sharpened, whenever I sat upon a hornet’s nest, and my Perception of Local Coloring was superinduced by the sumac and the pokeberry. * * * * * * Like Howells, I soon took my place among the /ferati of the country—as printer’s devil for a Cincinnat' paper. I sometimes think that Dante, who, we know, served his term at setting up italics, must have owed his powerful conceptions of Hell to his experience as a medieval printer's devil. The editors rejected all my early poems, but conceded them to be in the blank-blankedest verse. So I brought them out in a volume entitled, ‘‘ Rejected Gems; or, Pearls Cast before Swine.” My first great philosophical essay was published at advertising rates. It was the well-known ‘‘ Dead-Lock on the Human Understanding,” and was said to have produced somnolence in the Duke of Argyll! To pay the expenses of my works, I traveled around lecturing on phrenology, and at the same time renewed my amicable relations with nature. Reposing in her lap with her bosom for a pil- low was fine training for a poet, but was hard on the constitution, when no friendly hay-ricks loomed up on the wintry horizon, I can truthfully say, however, that it will be a cold day when nature makes a poet cynical. * * * * * * I returned to Cincinnati and started the Cincinnati Morning Black- Mail which had a long and remunerative career while the decision of courts was being awaited. Then I went to Chicago as a playwright and wrote my melodrama, ‘' Romance of a Bald-Headed Young Man; or, the Bohemian Ballet-Girl,” which was a great spectacular success, and raised me, as it were, from the poke-bonnet row of the parquet of despair to the peanut gallery of fame. The proceeds of this success I put into a humorous paper, “ Zhe Horse-Laugh: A Try-Weakly,” but the humor was so much broader than the circulation that it died of inanition. When the war broke out I went abroad and remained until the end of internecine strife. The non-pzrtisan position I then occupied has enabled me to write my recent popular war-articles. My most successful attempts at Fiction were juvenile, and were addressed to my parents, * * * * * * When I tell you that my valuable library —collected by years of patient borrowing—is stored away on shelves made of dry-goods boxes, and draped with bands of scolloped newspaper for ornament—you will understand that Iam poor—and married. I advise ycung authors to keep their eyes skinned for a Maecenas, but I feel justified in saying to them that if they cast their bread upon the waters it shall be returned to them after many days ‘Times are hard out here, and I experience difficulty in realizing anything from post-obits anticipating the post- humous fame of my literary remains; but the Administration is pledged to care for indigent men of letters, and as no book has been written on Monte Carlo, I hope to get the consulship at Monaco. Yours expectantly, Eureka Bendalt. AFTER THE SERVICE. RS. HOBSONBY (returning from church): What a very eloquent man the Rev. Dr. Swell is! What did you think of his long prayer ? Mr. Hossonsy: I thought he gave the Lord some very good advice. comicbooks.com