This story is of more interest to its author than it can possibly be now to any reader, because it distinctly marked for me the first recognition which I received from literary people.
Whittier, the poet, wrote me his first letter, after having read this story. It was soon followed by a kind note from Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Both these distinguished men said the pleasant thing which goes so far towards keeping the courage of young writers above sinking point, and which, to a self-distrustful nature, may be little less than a life-preserver. Both have done similar kindness to many other beginners in our calling; but none of these can have been more grateful for it, or more glad to say so, across this long width of time, than the writer of "The Tenth of January."
It was a defective enough little story, crude and young; I never glance at it without longing to write it over; but I cannot read it, to this day, without that tingling and numbness down one's spine and through the top of one's head, which exceptional tragedy must produce in any sensitive organization; nor can I ever trust myself to hear it read by professional elocutionists. I attribute the success of the story entirely to the historic and unusual character of the catastrophe on whose movement it was built.
Of journalism, strictly speaking, I did nothing. But I often wrote for weekly denominational papers, to which I contributed those strictly secular articles so popular with the religious public. My main impression of them now, is a pleasant sense of sitting out in the apple-trees in the wonderful Andover Junes, and "noticing" new books-with which Boston publishers kept me supplied. For whatever reason, the weeklies gave me all I could do at this sort of thing. In its course I formed some pleasant acquaintances; among others that of Jean Ingelow. I have never seen this poet, whom I honor now as much as I admired then; but charming little notes, and books of her own, with her autograph, reached me from time to time for years. I remember when "The Gates Ajar" appeared, that she frankly called it "Your most strange book."
This brings me to say: I have been so often and so urgently asked to publish some account of the history of this book, that perhaps I need crave no pardon of whatever readers these papers may command, for giving more of our space to the subject than it would otherwise occur to one to do to a book so long behind the day.
Of what we know as literary ambition, I believe myself to have been as destitute at that time as any girl who ever put pen to paper. I was absorbed in thought and feeling as far removed from the usual class of emotions or motives which move men and women to write, as Wachusett was from the June lilies burning beside the moonlit cross in my father's garden. Literary ambition is a good thing to possess; and I do not at all suggest that I was superior to it, but simply apart from it. Of its pangs and ecstasies I knew little, and thought less.
I have been asked, possibly a thousand times, whether I looked upon that little book as in any sense the result of inspiration, whether what is called spiritualistic, or of any other sort. I have always promptly said "No," to this question. Yet sometimes I wonder if that convenient monosyllable in deed and truth covers the whole case.
When I remember just how the book came to be, perceive the consequences of its being, and recall the complete unconsciousness of the young author as to their probable nature, there are moments when I am fain to answer the question by asking another: "What do we mean by inspiration?"
That book grew so naturally, it was so inevitable, it was so unpremeditated, it came so plainly from that something not one's self which makes for uses in which one's self is extinguished, that there are times when it seems to me as if I had no more to do with the writing of it than the bough through which the wind cries, or the wave by means of which the tide rises.
The angel said unto me "Write!" and I wrote.