Chapter IV: Letter III

OUR CORRESPONDENT BECOMES LITERARY, AND FATHOMS CERTAIN MYSTERIES OF JOURNALISM. HE PRODUCES A DISTINCTIVE AMERICAN POEM, AND GAINS THE USUAL REWARD OF YOUTHFUL GENIUS.

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 31st, 1861.

As far I can trace back, my boy, we never had a literary character in our family, save a venerable aunt of mine, on my mother's side, who commenced her writing career by refusing to contribute to the Sunday papers, and subsequently won much fame as the authoress of a set of copy-books. When this gifted relative found herself acquiring a reputation, she came in state to visit us, and so disgusted my very practical father by wearing slip-shod gaiters, inking her right hand thumb nail every morning, calling all things by European names, and insisting upon giving our oldest plough horse the romantic and literary title of "Lord Byron," that my exasperated parent incurred a most tremendous prejudice against authorship, my boy, and vowed, when she went away, that he never would invite her presence again.

I was only twenty years old at that time, and the novelty of my aunt's conduct had rather an infatuating effect upon me. With that perversity often observable in youngsters before they have seen much of the world, I became deeply interested in my literary relative as soon as my father commenced to speak contemptuously of her pursuits, and it took very little time to invest me with a longing and determination to be a writer.

Thenceforth I wore negligent linen; frequently rested my head upon the forefinger of my right hand, with a lofty and abstracted air; assumed an expression of settled and mysterious gloom when at church, and suffered my hair to grow long and uncombed.

Speaking of the masculine literary habit of wearing the hair in this way, my boy, I find myself impressed with a profound metaphysical idea. You have probably noticed that writers following this fashion will frequently scratch their heads when inspiration plays the laggard. It is also true that wearers of long and uncombed hair who are _not_ writers, will scratch their heads in the same way, occasionally. The action being the same in both cases, can it be that physiological inspection would develope an affinity between the natural causes thereof?

I have often thought of this, my boy,--I've often thought of this.

My bearing during this period of infatuation could hardly fail to attract considerable attention in our village, and there were two opinions about me. One was that I had been jilted; the other, that I was about to become a vagabond and an actor. My father inclined to the former, and left me, as he thought, to get over my disappointment in the natural way.

My peripatetic spell had lasted about six weeks, my boy, when I formed the acquaintance of the editor of the _Lily of the Valley_, who permitted me to mope in his office now and then, and soothed my literary inflammation by permitting me to write "puffs" for the village milliner.

Oh! the fierce and tremendous ecstasy of that moment when I first saw my own words in print, with not more than six typographical errors in each line:--"QUEBN VICTORIA, it is said, is comind to this coontry for the xpress purpose of obtoining one of these beautiful spring bunnets at Madame Smith's."

I noticed as I went home on the day of publication, that all whom I passed paused to look after me. I was already famous. The discovery, on reaching our house, that one of my temples was somewhat fingered with printers' ink, did not shake me in this belief, my boy; I was too far gone for that.

The editor of the _Lily_ treated me considerately, and even asked me at times to accompany him to the place where he daily sipped inspiration, gaining thereby a fresh flow of ideas and the qualified immortality of certain additional chalk-marks on the back of a door. I refer to a spirituous establishment.

Finding that the editorial treasury did not redeem its verbal promissory notes, my boy, the proprietor of this establishment suddenly put forth a new sign, conspicuously reading:--

TIMOTHY TROT,

LICENSED LIQUOR DEALER,
AND
ASSOCIATE EDITOR OF THE "LILY OF THE VALLEY."

The editor went to him, and says he:

"What do you mean by this impertinence, Timothy?"

The liquor chap stuck his hands into his pockets, my boy, and says he:

"If I furnish inspiration for nothing, I may as well have some literary credit. The village swallows what you furnish," says the chap, reasoningly, "and you swallow what I furnish, and so I'm the head editor after all."

But he took down the sign, my boy, when the editor dissolved the partnership by paying his score.

What are called Spirited Editorials in the New York papers, my boy, very often involve two swallows as well as a spread-eagle.

While looking over some old magazines in the _Lily_ office one day, I found in an ancient British periodical a raking article upon American literature, wherein the critic affirmed that all our writers were but weak imitators of English authors, and that such a thing even as a Distinctively American Poem _sui generis_, had not yet been produced.

This radical sneer at the United States of America fired my Yankee blood, my boy, and I vowed within myself to write a poem, not only distinctively American, but of such a character that only America could have produced it. In the solitude of my room, that night, I wooed the aboriginal muse, and two days thereafter the _Lily of the Valley_ contained my distinctive American poem of

THE AMERICAN TRAVELER.

To Lake Aghmoogenegamook,
All in the State of Maine,
A man from Wittequergaugaum came
One evening in the rain.

"I am a traveler," said he,
"Just started on a tour,
And go to Nomjamskillicook
To-morrow morn at four."

He took a tavern bed that night,
And with the morrow's sun,
By way of Sekledobskus went,
With carpet-bag and gun.

A week passed on; and next we find
Our native tourist come
To that sequestered village called
Genasagarnagum.

From thence he went to Absequoit,
And there--quite tired of Maine--
He sought the mountains of Vermont,
Upon a railroad train.

Dog Hollow, in the Green Mount State,
Was his first stopping-place,
And then Skunk's Misery displayed
Its sweetness and its grace.

By easy stages then he went
To visit Devil's Den;
And Scrabble Hollow, by the way,
Did come within his ken.

Then, _via_ Nine Holes and Goose Green,
He traveled through the State,
And to Virginia, finally,
Was guided by his fate.

Within the Old Dominion's bounds,
He wandered up and down,
To-day, at Buzzard Roost ensconced,
To-morrow, at Hell Town.

At Pole Cat, too, he spent a week,
Till friends from Bull Ring came,
And made him spend a day with them
In hunting forest game.

Then, with his carpet-bag in hand,
To Dog Town next he went;
Though stopping at Free Negro Town,
Where half a day he spent.

From thence, into Negationburg
His route of travel lay,
Which having gained, he left the State
And took a southward way.

North Carolina's friendly soil
He trod at fall of night,
And, on a bed of softest down,
He slept at Hell's Delight.

Morn found him on the road again,
To Lousy Level bound;
At Bull's Tail, and Lick Lizzard, too,
Good provender he found.

The country all about Pinch Gut
So beautiful did seem,
That the beholder thought it like
A picture in a dream.

But the plantations near Burnt Coat
Were even finer still,
And made the wond'ring tourist feel
A soft, delicious thrill.

At Tear Shirt too, the scenery
Most charming did appear,
With Snatch It in the distance far,
And Purgatory near.

But spite of all these pleasant scenes,
The tourist stoutly swore,
That home is brightest, after all,
And travel is a bore.

So back he went to Maine, straightway,
A little wife he took;
And now is making nutmegs at
Moosehicmagunticook.

In his note, introductory of this poem, my boy, the editor of the _Lily_ affirmed (which is strictly true) that I had named none but veritable localities; and ventured the belief that the composition would remind his readers of Goldsmith. Upon which his scorpion contemporary in the next village observed, that there was rather more smith than gold about the poem. Genius, my boy, is never appreciated until its possessor is dead; and even the useless praise it then obtains is chiefly due to the pleasure that is experienced in burying the poor wretch.

Up to the time when this poem appeared in print, I had succeeded in concealing from my father the nature of my incidental occupation; but now he must know all.

He did know all, my boy; and the result was, that he gave me ten dollars, and sent me to New York to look out for myself.

"It's the only thing that will save him," says he to my mother, "and I must either send him off, or expect to see him sink by degrees to editorship, and commence to wear disgraceful clothes."

I went to New York; I became private secretary and speech-scribe to an unscrupulous and, therefore, rising politician; and now--I am in Washington.

Thus, my boy, have I answered your desire for an outline of my personal history; and henceforth let me devote my attention to other and more important inhabitants of our distracted country. I had a certain postmastership in my eye when I first came hither; but war's alarms indicate that I may do better as an amateur hero.

Yours inconoclastically,

ORPHEUS C. KERR.