He encouraged me to help him in the work, and in my training probably lay his chief inducement, for he was paid at starvation rates in that land of hungry authors. The labor quickly taught me the technical part of authorship, the rock which has wrecked so many hopes. Our work brought us, too, the acquaintance of many literary men, and thus gave us our pleasantest society, and one peculiarly fitted to develop me. Furthermore, we secured command of the unlimited books stored on the publishers' shelves, which we used as freely as if they were our own private library.

Very quickly I began to do more than help my father in his work; I myself tried to write. He put many a manuscript in the fire, after going over the faults with me, but finally I wrote something that he let me send to an editor. His admirable judgment must have been warped by his fatherly love, for the article was rejected. A like fate befell many others, but at last one was accepted, and I do not know which of us was the more delighted when it was published in the "Zeitschrift für Deutsche Philologie." By my father's advice it was signed with a pseudonym; for he pointed out that I was still too young for editors who knew me to give my manuscript a reading, and that a German name would command greater respect from them than an English one.

I received twenty marks for that first article, and spent it in secret the next[Pg 43.png---Kuninga] day. Had you known of my pleasure in the gift, and the hopes that went with it, I think you would have sent a line of acknowledgment to the hungry-hearted fellow who, after four years of separation, still longed for a token from you. Three times had I written, without response, but I thought the beauty of the photograph would so appeal to you that it must bring me back a word from you, and lived in the hope for six months. My father joked me genially about what I had done with that vast wealth, pretending at moments that he believed it had been avariciously hoarded, and at other times that it had been squandered in riotous living, till one day, when all hope of acknowledgment had died, his chaff wrung from me an exclamation of pain, suppressed too late to be concealed from him. So closely attuned had we become that he understood in an instant what it meant, and, laying his hand on my shoulder, he appealed, "Forgive me, my boy! I have been very cruel in my thoughtlessness!"

Nothing more was said then, but later that evening, when we rose from our work, he asked, "She never replied?" and when I shook my head, the saddest look I ever saw in him came upon his face. He seemed about to speak impulsively, faltered, checked himself, and finally entreated, "Bear up, Donald, and try to forget her." I could only shake my head again, but he understood. "She's feminine quicksilver," he groaned, "and I can't get the dear girl out of my blood, either." We gripped each other's hands for a moment, and I said, "Good-night, father," and he replied, "God help you, my boy." How happy we should have been could we have bidden you, "Good-night, Maizie!"[Pg 45.png---Kuninga]

V

February 24. I cannot clearly fix the time when first I decided upon a life of letters, and presume it was my father's influence which determined me. After the publication of my first article, all the time I could spare from my studies was devoted to writing. Most of it was magazine work, but two text-books were more ambitious flights. Undertaken at my father's suggestion, the books were revised by him, till they should have been published with his name, and not my pseudonym, on the title-page. This I urged, but he would not hear of it, insisting that his work was trivial compared with mine. I understand his motive now, and see how wise and loving he was in all his plans. Thanks to his skill in clarifying knowledge and fitting it to the immature mind, both books attained a large sale almost immediately on their publication.

My father's abnegation went further, and occasioned the only quarrel we ever had. After the publication of several of my articles, in reading the Deutsche Rundschau I found an interesting critique signed with the name I had adopted as a pseudonym. I laughingly called my father's attention to it, yet really feeling a little sore that the credit of my work should go to another, for the first literary offspring are very dear to an author's heart. From that time I was constantly meeting with the name, but stupidly failed to recognize my father's brilliant, luminous touch till the publication of another article of my writing revealed the truth to me; for at the end of this I found again my pseudonym, though I had signed my own name. On my sending an indignant letter to the editor, he returned me the revised proof of my article, at the bottom of which "Donald Maitland" was struck out, and "Rudolph Hartzmann" substituted. My father had made the change in the last revision, and had returned the sheets without letting me see them.

In a moment the veil was gone from my eyes, and, grieved and angry, I charged him with the deception. I do not like to think of what I said or of the gentleness with which he took it. The next day, when I was cooler, he pleaded with me to let him continue signing the name to his articles; but I insisted that I would not permit the double use, and the only concession he could win from me was that I would still keep the name provided he refrained from using it again. How could I resist his "Don, I never asked anything but this of you. I am an old man with no possibility of a career. You are all I have to love or work for in this world. Let me try to help you gain a name." Oh, father, if I had only understood, I would not have been so cruel as to deny your request, but would have sacrificed my own honesty and allowed the lie rather than have refused what now I know to have been so dear a wish. I even resented what I thought a foolish joke of his, when he registered us constantly at hotels as "Rudolph Hartzmann and father." It is poetic justice that in time I should stoop to so much greater dishonesty than that which I was intolerant of in him.

Owing as much to his articles as to those I subsequently wrote, my pseudonym became a recognized one in the world of letters, and my work soon commanded a good price. Furthermore, considerable interest was excited as to the author. There is a keen delight in anonymous publication, for one does not get the one-sided chatter that acknowledged authors receive, and often I have sat in the midst of a group of littérateurs and scholars and heard my articles talked over. I was tempted even to discuss one,—disparaging it, of course,—and can remember the way my father hid his laughter when a member of the party said, "Maitland, you ought to write an article refuting Hartzmann, for you've got the knowledge to do it." It amuses me to think how vain and elated I became over what now I see was only 'prentice work. I am glad you did not know me in those years of petty victory, and that before we met I had been saddened and humbled.

Some one at Mr. Whitely's dinner, this winter, asked what was a sufficient income, and you, Maizie, gravely answered, "A little more than one has," which made us all laugh. If you had not been the quicker and the wittier, and thus forestalled me, I should have said, "Enough to satisfy the few or many wishes each person creates within himself which money can satisfy." Thanks to my