The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I
by Stillman, William James

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Title: The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I

Author: Stillman, William James

Release Date: March 11, 2004 [EBook #11546]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: W.J. Stillman]

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A JOURNALIST

WILLIAM JAMES STILLMAN

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOLUME I

1901

PREFACE

That a man should assume that his life is worth the venture of
a record in the form of an autobiography suggests a degree of
self-conceit of which I am not guilty. From my own initiative this
would never have been written, and the first suggestion that I should
write it, coming from a man of such experience in books and judgment
of men as the late Mr. Houghton, then head of the firm of Houghton,
Mifflin & Co., was as much a surprise to me as the publication will
be to any one. The impression it made on me was so vivid that I have
never forgotten the details of the occasion which called it out. I had
gone with Mr. Houghton and his daughters to the ruins of the Villa of
Hadrian, at Tivoli, and, wandering idly amongst them on a beautiful
autumn morning, not in the spirit of crude sightseeing, I was led to
talk of my experiences more than is my wont to do. "You should write
your life," he said to me with a manner of authority which at once
convinced me, and I decided that if there should come in my life a
pause in which the past could be considered rather than the needs of
the present and the cares of the future, I would set about it. Had
I at some earlier date entertained such a project, I should have
preserved many documents and data now lost, and have been able to
write more precisely of some things of greater interest than my
personal adventures. But in that part of my life which may be
considered relatively of a public character, or in which events of a
public interest occurred, I have ample record made at the time. In
what is peculiar to myself, and so of relatively trivial mome