There an inspiration did, indeed, strike me;
for I remembered an old fur cape, or _pelisse_, of my mother's, out
of fashion, but the warmer for that; and straightway I got me into it,
and curled up, with my papers, on the chilly bed in the cold room, and
went to work.
It seems to me that a good part of "The Gates Ajar" was written in
that old fur cape. Often I stole up into the attic, or into some
unfrequented closet, to escape the noise of the house, while at work.
I remember, too, writing sometimes in the barn, on the haymow. The
book extended over a wide domestic topography.
I hasten to say that no person was to blame for inconveniences of
whose existence I had never complained. Doubtless something would have
been done to relieve them had I asked for it; or if the idea that my
work could ever be of any consequence had occurred to any of us. Why
should it? The girl who is never "domestic" is trial enough at her
best. She cannot cook; she will not sew. She washes dishes Mondays and
Tuesdays under protest, while the nurse and parlor maid are called
off from their natural avocations, and dusts the drawing-room with
obedient resentment. She sits cutting out underclothes in the March
vacations, when all the schools are closed, and when the heavy wagons
from the distant farming region stick in the bottomless Andover mud in
front of the professor's house.
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