A Day of Fate | Page 2

harness.
The aside I had just overheard suggested, at least, one very probable
result. In printer's jargon, I would soon be in "pi."

The remark, combined with my stupid blunder, for which I had blamed
an innocent man, caused me to pull up and ask myself whither I was
hurrying so breathlessly. Saying to my assistant that I did not wish to
be disturbed for a half hour, unless it was essential, I went to my little
inner room. I wished to take a mental inventory of myself, and see how
much was left. Hitherto I had been on the keen run--a condition not
favorable to introspection.
Neither my temperament nor the school in which I had been trained
inclined me to slow, deliberate processes of reasoning. I looked my
own case over as I might that of some brother-editors whose journals
were draining them of life, and whose obituaries I shall probably write
if I survive them. Reason and Conscience, now that I gave them a
chance, began to take me to task severely.
"You are a blundering fool," said Reason, "and the man in the
composing-room is right. You are chafing over petty blunders while
ignoring the fact that your whole present life is a blunder, and the
adequate reason why your faculties are becoming untrustworthy. Each
day you grow more nervously anxious to have everything correct,
giving your mind to endless details, and your powers are beginning to
snap like the overstrained strings of a violin. At this rate you will soon
spend yourself and all there is of you."
Then Conscience, like an irate judge on the bench, arraigned me. "You
are a heathen, and your paper is your car of Juggernaut. You are
ceasing to be a man and becoming merely an editor--no, not even an
editor--a newsmonger, one of the world's gossips. You are an Athenian
only as you wish to hear and tell some new thing. Long ears are
becoming the appropriate symbols of your being. You are too hurried,
too eager for temporary success, too taken up with details, to form calm,
philosophical opinions of the great events of your time, and thus be
able to shape men's opinions. You commenced as a reporter, and are a
reporter still. You pride yourself that you are not narrow, unconscious
of the truth that you are spreading yourself thinly over the mere surface
of affairs. You have little comprehension of the deeper forces and
motives of humanity."

It is true that I might have pleaded in extenuation of these rather severe
judgments that I was somewhat alone in the world, living in bachelor
apartments, without the redeeming influences of home and family life.
There were none whose love gave them the right or the motive to lay a
restraining hand upon me, and my associates in labor were more
inclined to applaud my zeal than to curb it. Thus it had been left to the
casual remark of a nameless printer and an instance of my own failing
powers to break the spell that ambition and habit were weaving.
Before the half hour elapsed I felt weak and ill. The moment I relaxed
the tension and will-power which I had maintained so long, strong
reaction set in. Apparently I had about reached the limits of endurance.
I felt as if I were growing old and feeble by minutes as one might by
years. Taking my hat and coat I passed out, remarking to my assistant
that he must do the best he could--that I was ill and would not return. If
the Journal had never appeared again I could not then have written a
line to save it, or read another proof.
Saturday morning found me feverish, unrefreshed, and more painfully
conscious than ever that I was becoming little better than the presses on
which the paper was printed. Depression inevitably follows weariness
and exhaustion, and one could scarcely take a more gloomy view of
himself than I did.
"I will escape from this city as if it were Sodom," I muttered, "and a
June day in the country will reveal whether I have a soul for anything
beyond the wrangle of politics and the world's gossip."
In my despondency I was inclined to be reckless, and after merely
writing a brief note to my editorial chief, saying that I had broken down
and was going to the country, I started almost at random. After a few
hours' riding I wearied of the cars, and left them at a small village
whose name I did not care to inquire. The mountains and scenery
pleased me, although the day was overcast like my mind and fortunes.
Having found a quiet inn and gone through the form of a dinner, I sat
down on the porch in dreary