I labored daily, when alone, for weeks; how many sheets of foolscap I covered, and dashed to earth, was never told.  Since, by my “infinite pains and groans,” I have been reminded of Barkis, in “David Copperfield,” when he crawled out of his bed to get a guinea from his strong box for David’s dinner.  Naturally, I sent the story to Harper’s Magazine, and it was curtly refused.  My husband, moved by pity by my discouragement, sent it to Mr. Lowell, then editor of the Atlantic Monthly.  In a few days I received a letter from him, which made me very happy.  He accepted the story, and wrote me then, and afterwards, letters of advice and suggestion.  I think he saw through my mind, its struggles, its ignorance, and its ambition.  Also I got my guinea for my pains.  The Atlantic Monthly sent me a hundred dollars.  I doubt but for Mr. Lowell’s interest and kindness I should ever have tried prose again.  I owe a debt of gratitude to him which I shall always give to his noble memory.

My story did not set the river on fire, as stories are apt to do nowadays.  It attracted so little notice from those I knew, and knew of, that naturally my ambition would have been crushed.  Notwithstanding, and saying nothing to anybody, I began “The Morgesons,” and everywhere I went, like Mary’s lamb, my Ms. was sure to go.  Meandering along the path of that family, I took them much to heart, and finished their record within a year.  I may say here, that the clans I marshaled for my pages had vanished from the sphere of reality—­in my early day the village Squire, peerless in blue broadcloth, who scolded, advised, and helped his poorer neighbors; the widows, or maidens, who accepting service “as a favor,” often remained a lifetime as friend as well as “help;” the race of coast-wise captains and traders, from Maine to Florida, as acute as they were ignorant; the rovers of the Atlantic and the Pacific, were gone not to return.  If with these characters I have deserved the name of “realist,” I have also clothed my skeletons with the robe of romance.  “The Morgesons” completed, and no objections made to its publication, it was published.  As an author friend happened to be with us, almost on the day it was out, I gave it to him to read, and he returned it to me with the remark that there were “a good many whiches in it.”  That there were, I must own, and that it was difficult to extirpate them.  I was annoyed at their fertility.  The inhabitants of my ancient dwelling place pounced upon “The Morgesons,” because they were convinced it would prove to be a version of my relations, and my own life.  I think one copy passed from hand to hand, but the interest in it soon blew over, and I have not been noticed there since.