The results of this
reading, of course, went into the book, and seemed to me, at the time,
by far the most useful part of it.
How the book grew, who can say? More of nature than of purpose,
surely. It moved like a tear or a sigh or a prayer. In a sense I
scarcely knew that I wrote it. Yet it signified labor and time, crude
and young as it looks to me now; and often as I have wondered, from
my soul, why it has known the history that it has, I have at least
a certain respect for it, myself, in that it did not represent
shiftlessness or sloth, but steady and conscientious toil. There was
not a page in it which had not been subjected to such study as the
writer then knew how to offer to her manuscripts.
Every sentence had received the best attention which it was in the
power of my inexperience and youth to give. I wrote and rewrote. The
book was revised so many times that I could have said it by heart.
The process of forming and writing "The Gates Ajar" lasted, I think,
nearly two years.
I had no study or place to myself in those days; only the little room
whose one window looked upon the garden cross, and which it was not
expected would be warmed in winter.
The room contained no chimney, and, until I was sixteen, no fire for
any purpose. At that time, it being supposed that some delicacy of the
lungs had threatened serious results, my father, who always moved the
sods beneath him and the skies above him to care for a sick child, had
managed to insert a little stove into the room, to soften its chill
when needed.
Pages:
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237