"Another month's work will knock Morton into 'pi,'" was a remark that
caught my ear as I fumed from the composing-room back to my private
office. I had just irately blamed a printer for a blunder of my own,
and the words I overheard reminded me of the unpleasant truth that I
had recently made a great many senseless blunders, over which I chafed
in merciless self-condemnation. For weeks and months my mind had been
tense under the strain of increasing work and responsibility. It was
my nature to become absorbed in my tasks, and, as night editor of a
prominent city journal, I found a limitless field for labor. It was
true I could have jogged along under the heavy burden with
comparatively little wear and loss, but, impelled by both temperament
and ambition, I was trying to maintain a racer's speed. From casual
employment as a reporter I had worked my way up to my present
position, and the tireless activity and alertness required to win and
hold such a place was seemingly degenerating into a nervous
restlessness which permitted no repose of mind or rest of body. I
worked when other men slept, but, instead of availing myself of the
right to sleep when the world was awake, I yielded to an increasing
tendency to wakefulness, and read that I might be informed on the
endless variety of subjects occupying public attention. The globe was
becoming a vast hunting-ground, around which my thoughts ranged almost
unceasingly that I might capture something new, striking, or original
for the benefit of our paper. Each day the quest had grown more eager,
and as the hour for going to press approached I would even become
feverish in my intense desire to send the paper out with a breezy,
newsy aspect, and would be elated if, at the last moment, material was
flashed in that would warrant startling head-lines, and
correspondingly depressed if the weary old world had a few hours of
quiet and peace. To make the paper "go," every faculty I possessed was
in the harness.