The strain, however, was heart-breaking, and presently my health gave way under it. A leisurely wandering all over this continent restored it somewhat, but upon my return the burden seemed heavier than ever--especially the burden of responsibility that made sleep difficult and rest impossible to me.
In the meanwhile, of course, my literary work had been sacrificed to the Moloch of journalism. I had canceled all my engagements of that sort and severed connections which I had intended to be lifelong. In a word, I had been drawn again into the vortex of that daily journalism, from which I had twice escaped. I was worn, weary, and inexpressibly oppressed by the duties of responsible editorship--a responsibility I had never sought, but one which circumstances had twice thrust upon me.
I wonder if the reader can understand or even faintly imagine what all this means. I wonder if I can suggest some shadow of it to his mind. Think of what it means to toil all day in the making of a newspaper, and to feel, when all is done that the result is utterly inadequate. Think of what it means to the weary one to go home with the next day's task upon his mind as a new burden, and with the discouraging consciousness that all he has done on one day's issue is dead so far as the next day is concerned. Think what it means to a sensitive man to feel that upon his discretion, his alertness, his sagacity, depends not only the daily result of a newspaper's publication, but the prosperity or failure of other men's investments of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
For the value of a newspaper depends from day to day upon its conduct. It is a matter of good will. If the editor pleases his constituency, the investment of the owners remains a profitable property. If he displeases that constituency the newspaper has nothing left to sell but its presses and machinery, representing a small fraction of the sum invested in it.
That responsibility rested upon me as an incubus. All my life until then I had been able to sleep. Then came sleeplessness of a sort I could not shake off. At my usual hour for going to bed, I was overcome by sleep, but after five minutes on the pillows there came wakefulness. I learned how to fight it, by going to my library and resolutely sitting in the dark until sleep came, but the process was a painful one and it left me next morning crippled for my day's work.