He counselled me not to waste those years. “What an opportunity!” he said. So for twenty months I devoured books from the prison library. No telephones, or duns, or bores could interrupt me; there were no social duties, no business to interfere. I read, I dreamed, I improvised. Then it was but a step to writing, and I must say Imagination was very nasty about that. He made me review my grammar with diligence. To satisfy him, I had to study rhetoric anew.
He opened my eyes. The Death-Chamber was full of—_life_. There was Romance, Tragedy, of course; and even Comedy looked in through the skylight and set me laughing now and then. Material was all around me; stories about the Death-Chamber came into my mind so quickly that I could not write half of them down; they sprang up and choked me, where before had been only barren land. I set down the least horrible, for some—yes, many—could not be printed; and if you have found these grim or out of line, it is because of environment and of their truth.
Then Imagination and I went away to England. We wrote a novel. In it are no prisoners and no crime, but it is full of the sea, brave men, a cruel woman. It is a tale of love.
Imagination is a humorous fellow—he must have his joke. He made me interested in things dramatic; he advised the purchase of everything I could hear of on the subject—text-books, essays. I bought two hundred plays, and he and I went to the theatre every evening at eight, and attended matinées on Saturday at two. Just one play each evening, and after the curtain fell we talked it over and criticised—we analyzed those two hundred plays—Imagination and I. We laughed at costume comedies, studied the plays of social life—from Sheridan to Fitch—and delved for motives in the modern problem plays; watched Mansfield, Drew, and Sothern in all their rôles. Over Cyrano de Bergerac and L’Aiglon we poured the tribute of a tear to Rostand’s genius.
And then (how did he keep from laughing in my face?) Imagination egged me on into writing plays—many of them. If he made me think the “actable,” he well deserved the name.
It was all my own fault: the smoke from my older friend often got up into my eyes and warned me. This old pipe of mine played the cynic and was perfectly frank about my dramas. But I wouldn’t listen. I blundered on until I found a “_fidus Achates_” to help and guide me. Together we hope to restrain this strenuous fellow a little.