C. I knew her uncle. You are forgetting her
uncle.
H. Oh, what use is he? Did you know him
long? How long was it?
C. Well, I don’t know that I really knew him,
but I must have met him, anyway. I think it
was that way; you can’t tell about these things,
you know, except when they are recent.
H. Recent? When was all this?
C. Sixteen years ago.
H. What a basis to judge a book upon! As first
you said you knew him, and now you don’t know
whether you did or not.
C. Oh yes, I know him; anyway, I think I thought I
did; I’m perfectly certain of it.
H. What makes you think you thought you knew him?
C. Why, she says I did, herself.
H. She says so!
C. Yes, she does, and I did know him, too, though
I don’t remember it now.
H. Come—how can you know it when you don’t
remember it.
C. I don’t know. That is, I don’t
know the process, but I do know lots of things
that I don’t remember, and remember lots of things
that I don’t know. It’s so with every
educated person.
H. (After A pause). Is your time valuable?
C. No—well, not very.
H. Mine is.
So I came away then, because he was looking tired.
Overwork, I reckon; I never do that; I have seen
the evil effects of it. My mother was always
afraid I would overwork myself, but I never did.
Dear madam, you see how it would happen if I went
there. He would ask me those questions, and
I would try to answer them to suit him, and he would
hunt me here and there and yonder and get me embarrassed
more and more all the time, and at last he would look
tired on account of overwork, and there it would end
and nothing done. I wish I could be useful to
you, but, you see, they do not care for uncles or
any of those things; it doesn’t move them, it
doesn’t have the least effect, they don’t
care for anything but the literature itself, and they
as good as despise influence. But they do care
for books, and are eager to get them and examine them,
no matter whence they come, nor from whose pen.
If you will send yours to a publisher—any
publisher—he will certainly examine it,
I can assure you of that.
Consider that a conversation by telephone—when
you are simply siting by and not taking any part in
that conversation—is one of the solemnest
curiosities of modern life. Yesterday I was writing
a deep article on a sublime philosophical subject
while such a conversation was going on in the room.
I notice that one can always write best when somebody
is talking through a telephone close by. Well,
the thing began in this way. A member of our
household came in and asked me to have our house put
into communication with Mr. Bagley’s downtown.
I have observed, in many cities, that the sex always
shrink from calling up the central office themselves.
I don’t know why, but they do. So I touched
the bell, and this talk ensued:
