He was an Englishman, had probably been
upon the stage, and lived from hand to mouth, nobody knew how, until we
took him _up_, and he took us _in_ most pitiably.
After a brief struggle, and the establishment of another retail store in
Calvert Street, which I took charge of, with what there was left of the
Charleston adventure, we failed outright, and all this within six or
eight months after we had called our creditors together and obtained an
extension of twelve months and testimonials in our favor of the most
gratifying character, and within little more than a year after leaving
Boston.
And then, for want of anything better to do, I began writing for the
papers, for the "Portico," and at last for the public, as an editor and
as an author, mainly at the instigation of Mr. Pierpont, for whom I
wrote both "Niagara"[1] and "Guldau," and a part of "Allen's" American
Revolution, studying law, and languages by the half-dozen at the same
time, and laboring upon the average about sixteen hours a day, while Mr.
Pierpont struck out boldly for a far-off perilous and rocky shore, with
a lighthouse, in the shape of a pulpit, before him, and achieved the
"Airs of Palestine" while undergoing the process of regeneration, and
starving by inches upon what there were left of his wife's teaspoons,
which were sold one by one to pay the rent of a cheap room in Howard
Street.
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