But it was owing to this very careful interpretation of what was and what was not news that I experienced some of the most delightful newspaper hours of my life. Large features being scarce, I was assigned to do “city hall and police, Allegheny,” as the assignment book used to read, and with this mild task ahead of me I was in the habit of crossing the Allegheny River into the city of Allegheny, where, ensconced in a chair in the reporters’ room of the combined city hall and central police station or in the Carnegie Public Library over the way, or in the cool, central, shaded court of the Allegheny General Hospital, with the head interne of which I soon made friends, I waited for something to turn up. As is usual with all city and police and hospital officials everywhere, the hope of favorable and often manufactured publicity animating them, I was received most cordially. All I had to do was to announce that I was from the Dispatch and assigned to this bailiwick, and I was informed as to anything of importance that had come to the surface during the last ten or twelve hours. If there was nothing—and usually there was not—I sat about with several other reporters or with the head interne of the hospital, or, having no especial inquiry to make, I crossed the street to Squire Daniels, whose office was in the tree-shaded square facing this civic center, and here (a squire being the equivalent of a petty police magistrate), inquired if anything had come to his notice.
Squire Daniels, a large, bald, pink-faced individual of three hundredweight, used of a sunny afternoon these warm Spring days to sit out in front of his office, his chair tilted against his office wall or a tree, and, with three or four cronies, retail the most delicious stories of old-time political characters and incidents. He was a mine of this sort of thing and an immense favorite in consequence with all the newspaper men and politicians. I was introduced to him on my third or fourth day in Allegheny as he was sitting out on his tilted chair, and he surveyed me with a smile.
“From the Dispatch, eh? Well, take a chair if you can find one; if you can’t, sit on the curb or in the doorway. Many’s the man I seen from the Dispatch in my time. Your boss, Harry Gaither, used to come around here before he got to be city editor. So did your Sunday man, Funger. There ain’t much news I can give you, but whatever there is you’re welcome to it. I always treat all the boys alike,” and he smiled. Then he proceeded with his tale, something about an old alderman or politician who had painted a pig once in order to bring it up to certain prize specifications and so won the prize, only to be found out later because the “specifications” wore off. He had such a zestful way of telling his stories as to compel laughter.
And then directly across the street to the east from the city hall was the Allegheny Carnegie library, a very handsome building which contained, in addition to the library, an auditorium in which had been placed the usual “one of the largest” if not “the largest” pipe organ in the world. This organ had one advantage: it was supplied with a paid city organist, who on Sundays, Wednesdays and Saturdays entertained the public with free recitals, and so capable was he that seats were at a premium and standing-room only the rule unless one arrived far ahead of time. This manifestation of interest on the part of the public pleased me greatly and somehow qualified, if it did not atone for, Mr. Carnegie’s indifference to the welfare of his employees.
But I was most impressed with the forty or fifty thousand volumes so conveniently arranged that one could walk from stack to stack, looking at the labels and satisfying one’s interest by browsing in the books. The place had most comfortable window-nooks and chairs between stacks and in alcoves. One afternoon, having nothing else to do, I came here and by the merest chance picked up a volume entitled The Wild Ass’s Skin by the writer who so fascinated Wandell—Honoré de Balzac. I examined it curiously, reading a preface which shimmered with his praise. He was the great master of France. His Comédie Humaine covered every aspect of the human welter. His interpretations of character were exhaustive and exact. His backgrounds were abundant, picturesque, gorgeous. In Paris his home had been turned into a museum, and contained his effects as they were at the time of his death.
I turned to the first page and began reading, and from then on until dusk I sat in this charming alcove reading. A new and inviting door to life had been suddenly thrown open to me. Here was one who saw, thought, felt. Through him I saw a prospect so wide that it left me breathless—all Paris, all France, all life through French eyes. Here was one who had a tremendous and sensitive grasp of life, philosophic, tolerant, patient, amused. At once I was personally identified with his Raphael, his Rastignac, his Bixiou, his Bianchon. With Raphael I entered the gaming-house in the Palais Royal, looked despairingly down into the waters of the Seine from the Pont Royal, turned from it to the shop of the dealer in antiques, was ignored by the perfect young lady before the shop of the print-seller, attended the Taillefer banquet, suffered horrors over the shrinking skin. The lady without a heart was all too real. It was for me a literary revolution. Not only for the brilliant and incisive manner with which Balzac grasped life and invented themes whereby to present it, but for the fact that the types he handled with most enthusiasm and skill—the brooding, seeking, ambitious beginner in life’s social, political, artistic and commercial affairs (Rastignac, Raphael, de Rubempre, Bianchon)—were, I thought, so much like myself. Indeed, later taking up and consuming almost at a sitting The Great Man from the Provinces, Père Goriot, Cousin Pons, Cousin Bette, it was so easy to identify myself with the young and seeking aspirants. The brilliant and intimate pictures of Parisian life, the exact flavor of its politics, arts, sciences, religions, social goings to and fro impressed me so as to accomplish for me what his imaginary magic skin had done for his Raphael: transfer me bodily and without defect or lack to the center as well as the circumference of the world which he was describing. I knew his characters as well as he did, so magical was his skill. His grand and somewhat pompous philosophical deductions, his easy and offhand disposition of all manner of critical, social, political, historical, religious problems, the manner in which he assumed as by right of genius intimate and irrefutable knowledge of all subjects, fascinated and captured me as the true method of the seer and the genius. Oh, to possess an insight such as this! To know and be a part of such a cosmos as Paris, to be able to go there, to work, to study, suffer, rise, and even end in defeat if need be, so fascinatingly alive were all the journeys of his puppets! What was Pittsburgh, what St. Louis, what Chicago?—and yet, in spite of myself, while I adored his Paris, still I was obtaining a new and more dramatic light on the world in which I found myself. Pittsburgh was not Paris, America was not France, but in truth they were something, and Pittsburgh at least had aspects which somehow suggested Paris. These charming rivers, these many little bridges, the sharp contrasts presented by the east end and the mill regions, the huge industries here and their importance to the world at large, impressed me more vividly than before. I was in a workaday, begrimed, and yet vivid Paris. Taillefer, Nucingen, Valentin were no different from some of the immense money magnets here, in their case, luxury, power, at least the possibilities which they possessed.
Coming out of the library this day, and day after day thereafter, the while I rendered as little reportorial service as was consistent with even a show of effort, I marveled at the physical similarity of the two cities as I conceived it, at the chance for pictures here as well as there. American pictures here, as opposed to French pictures there. And all the while I was riding with Lucien to Paris, with his mistress, courting Madame Nucingen with Rastignac, brooding over the horror of the automatically contracting skin with Raphael, poring over his miseries with Goriot, practicing the horrible art of prostitution with Madame Marneffe. For a period of four or five months I ate, slept, dreamed, lived him and his characters and his views and his city. I cannot imagine a greater joy and inspiration than I had in Balzac these Spring and Summer days in Pittsburgh. Idyllic days, dreamy days, poetic days, wonderful days, the while I ostensibly did “police and city hall” in Allegheny.
CHAPTER LXIII
It would be unfair to myself not to indicate that I rendered an adequate return for the stipend paid me. As a matter of fact, owing to the peculiar character of the local news conditions, as well as my own creative if poorly equipped literary instincts at the time, I was able to render just such service as my employers craved, and that with scarcely a wrench to my mental ease. For what they craved, more than news of a dramatic or disturbing character, was some sort of idle feature stuff which they could use in place of news and still interest their readers. The Spring time, Balzac, the very picturesque city itself, my own idling and yet reflective disposition, caused me finally to attempt a series of mood or word-pictures about the most trivial matters—a summer storm, a spring day, a visit to a hospital, the death of an old switchman’s dog, the arrival of the first mosquito—which gave me my first taste of what it means to be a creative writer.
The city editor asked me one day if I could not invent some kind of feature, and I sat down and thought of one theme and another. Finally I thought of the fly as a possible subject for an idle skit. Being young and ambitious, and having just crawled out of a breeding-pit somewhere, he alighted on the nearest fence or windowsill, brushed his head and wings reflectively and meditated on the chances of a livelihood or a career. What would be open to a young and ambitious fly in a world all too crowded with flies? There were barns, of course, and kitchens and horses and cows and pigs, but these fields were overrun, and this was a sensitive and cleanly and meditative fly. Flying about here and there to inspect the world, he encountered within a modest and respectable home a shiny pate which seemed to offer a rather polished field of effort and so on.
This idle thing which took me not more than three-quarters of an hour to write and which I was almost afraid to submit, produced a remarkable change in the attitude of the office, as well as in my life and career. We had at this time as assistant city editor a small, retiring, sentimental soul, Jim Israels, who was one of the most gracious and approachable and lovable men I have ever known. He it was to whom I turned over my skit. He took it with an air of kindly consideration and helpfulness.
“Trying to help us out, are you?” he said with a smile, and then added when I predicated its worthlessness: “Well, it’s not such an easy thing to turn out that stuff. I hope it’s something the chief will like.”
He took it and, as I noticed, for I hung about to see, read it at once, and I saw him begin to smile and finally chuckle.
“This thing’s all right,” he called. “You needn’t worry. Gaither’ll be pleased with this, I know,” and he began to edit it.
I went out to walk and think, for I had nothing to do except wander over to Allegheny to find out if anything had turned up.
When I returned at six I was greeted by my city editor with a smile and told that if I would I could do that sort of thing as much as I liked. “Try and get up something for tomorrow, will you?” I said I would try. The next day, a Spring rain descending with wonderful clouds and a magnificent electrical display, I described how the city, dry and smoky and dirty, lay panting in the deadening heat and how out of the west came, like an answer to a prayer, this sudden and soothing storm, battalion upon battalion of huge clouds riven with great silvery flashes of light, darkening the sun as they came; and how suddenly, while shutters clapped and papers flew and office windows and doors had to be closed and signs squeaked and swung and people everywhere ran to cover, the thousands upon thousands who had been enduring the heat heaved a sigh of gratitude. I described how the steel tenements, the homes of the rich, the office buildings, the factories, the hospitals and jails changed under these conditions. and then ventured to give specific incidents and pictures of animals and men.
This was received with congratulations, especially from the assistant editor, who was more partial to anything sentimental than his chief. But I, feeling that I had hit upon a vein of my own, was not inclined to favor the moods of either but to write such things as appealed to me most. This I did from day to day, wandering out into the country or into strange neighborhoods for ideas and so varying my studies as my mood dictated. I noticed, however, that my more serious attempts were not so popular as the lighter and sillier things. This might have been a guide to me, had I been so inclined, leading to an easy and popular success; but by instinct and observation I was inclined to be interested in the larger and more tragic phases of life. Mere humor, such as I could achieve when I chose, seemed always to require for its foundation the most trivial of incidents, whereas huge and massive conditions underlay tragedy and all the more forceful aspects of life.
But what pleased and surprised me was the manner in which these lighter as well as the more serious things were received and the change they made in my standing. Hitherto I was merely a newcomer being tested and by no means secure in my hold on this position. Now, of a sudden, my status was entirely changed. I was a feature man, one who had succeeded where others apparently had failed, and so I was made more than welcome. To my surprise, my city editor one day asked me whether I had had my lunch. I gladly availed myself of a chance to talk to him, and he told me a little something of local journalistic life, who the publisher of this paper was, his politics and views. The assistant editor asked me to dinner. The Sunday editor, the chief political reporter, the chief city hall and police man grew friendly; I went to lunch or dinner with one or the other, was taken to the Press Club after midnight, and occasionally to a theater by the dramatic man. Finally I was asked to contribute something to the Sunday papers, and later still asked to help the dramatic man with criticisms.
I was a little puzzled and made quite nervous though not vain by this sudden change. The managing editor came to talk familiarly with me, and after him the son of the publisher, fresh from a European trip. But when he told me how interested he was in the kind of thing I was doing and that he wished he “could write like that,” I remember feeling a little envious of him, with his fine clothes and easy manner. An invitation to dine at his home soothed me in no way. I never went. There was some talk of sending me to report a proposed commercial conference (at Buffalo, I believe), looking to the construction of a ship canal from Erie or Buffalo to Pittsburgh, but it interested me not at all. I had no interest in those things, really not in newspaper work, and yet I scarcely knew what I wanted to do if not that. One thing is sure: I had no commercial sense whereby I might have profited by all this. After the second or third sketch had been published there was a decided list in my direction, and I might have utilized my success. Instead, I merely mooned and dreamed as before, reading at the Carnegie Library, going out on assignments or writing one of these sketches and then going home again or to the Press Club. I gathered all sorts of data as to the steel magnates—Carnegie, Phipps and Frick especially—their homes, their clubs, their local condescensions and superiorities. The people of Pittsburgh were looked upon as vassals by some of these, and their interviews on returning from the seashore or the mountains partook of the nature of a royal return.
