one or two conventional business letters, never before had I dictated to a stenographer.  After I had startled him into an attentive mood by briefly outlining my past career and present purpose, I worked without any definite plan or brief, or reference to data.  My narrative was therefore digressive and only roughly chronological.  But it served to get my material in front of me for future shaping.  At this task I hammered away three or four hours a day for a period of five weeks.

It so happened that Mr. Choate arrived at the same hotel on the day I took up my abode there, so that some of the toil he had inspired went on in his proximity, if not in his presence.  I carefully kept out of his sight, however, lest he should think me a “crank” on the subject of reform, bent on persecuting his leisure.

As the work progressed my facility increased.  In fact, I soon called in an additional stenographer to help in the snaring of my thoughts.  This excessive productivity caused me to pause and again diagnose my condition.  I could not fail now to recognize in myself symptoms hardly distinguishable from those which had obtained eight months earlier when it had been deemed expedient temporarily to restrict my freedom.  But I had grown wise in adversity.  Rather than interrupt my manuscript short of completion I decided to avail myself of a vacation that was due, and remain outside my native State—­this, so that well-meaning but perhaps overzealous relatives might be spared unnecessary anxiety, and I myself be spared possible unwarranted restrictions.  I was by no means certain as to the degree of mental excitement that would result from such continuous mental application; nor did I much care, so long as I accomplished my task.  However, as I knew that “possession is nine points of the law,” I decided to maintain my advantage by remaining in my literary fortress.  And my resolve was further strengthened by certain cherished sentiments expressed by John Stuart Mill in his essay “On Liberty,” which I had read and reread with an interest born of experience.

At last the first draft of the greater part of my story was completed.  After a timely remittance (for, in strict accordance with the traditions of the craft, I had exhausted my financial resources) I started for home with a sigh of relief.  For months I had been under the burden of a conscious obligation.  My memory, stored with information which, if rightly used, could, I believed, brighten and even save unhappy lives, was to me as a basket of eggs which it was my duty to balance on a head whose poise was supposed to be none too certain.  One by one, during the preceding five weeks, I had gently lifted my thoughts from their resting-place, until a large part of my burden had been so shifted as to admit of its being imposed upon the public conscience.