have carried me forward, and that I would have found ample return
for all the labor in the free play of my fancy, even though editors
and publishers scoffed at the result.

On a subsequent winter afternoon the incipient story passed through
another peril. In the office of "The New York Evangelist" I read
the first eight chapters of my blotted manuscript to Dr. Field
and his associate editor, Mr. J. H. Dey. This fragment was all that
then existed, and as I stumbled through my rather blind chirography
I often looked askance at the glowing grate, fearing lest my friends
in kindness would suggest that I should drop the crude production
on the coals, where it could do neither me nor any one else further
harm, and then go out into the world once more clothed in my right
mind. A heavy responsibility rests on the gentlemen named, for they
asked me to leave the manuscript for serial issue. From that hour
I suppose I should date the beginning of my life of authorship.
The story grew from eight into fifty-two chapters, and ran just
one year in the paper, my manuscript often being ready but a few
pages in advance of publication. I wrote no outline for my guidance;
I merely let the characters do as they pleased, and work out their
own destiny. I had no preparation for my work beyond a careful
study of the topography of Chicago and the incidents of the fire.
For nearly a year my chief recreation was to dwell apart among the
shadows created by my fancy, and I wrote when and where I could--on
steamboats and railroad cars, as well as in my study. In spite of
my fears the serial found readers, and at last I obtained a publisher.
When the book appeared I suppose I looked upon it much as a young
father looks upon his first child. His interest in it is intense,
but he knows well that its future is very doubtful.