YOU CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN. Thomas Wolfe
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Did you hear what he said?” he demanded hoarsely. “You heard him, didn’t you? . . . Best damned judge of real estate that ever lived . . . Never known to make a mistake! . . . ‘Buy! Buy! Will double in value in six months!’ . . . You were standing right here”— he said hoarsely and accusingly, glaring at George —“you heard what he said, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I heard him.”
Sam glanced wildly about him, passed his hand nervously through his hair several times, and then said, sighing heavily and shaking his head in wonder:
“Seventy-five thousand dollars’ profit in one deal! . . . Never heard anything like it in my . . . life! Lord, Lord!” he cried. “What are we coming to?”
Somehow the news had got round that George had written a book and that it would soon be published. The editor of the local paper heard of it and sent a reporter to interview him, and printed a story about it.
“So you’ve written a book?” said the reporter. “What kind of a book is it? What’s it about?”
“Why — I— I hardly know how to tell you,” George stammered. “It — it’s a novel ——”
“A Southern novel? Anything to do with this part of the country?”
“Well — yes — that is — it’s about the South, all right — about an Old Catawba family — but ——”
LOCAL BOY WRITES ROMANCE OF THE OLD SOUTH
George Webber, son of the late John Webber and nephew of Mark Joyner, local hardware merchant, has written a novel with a Libya Hill background which the New York house of James Rodney & Co. will publish this autumn.
When interviewed last night, the young author stated that his book was a romance of the Old South, centring about the history of a distinguished antebellum family of this region. The people of Libya Hill and environs will await the publication of the book with special interest, not only because many of them will remember the author, who was born and brought up here, but also because that stirring period of Old Catawba’s past has never before been accorded its rightful place of honour in the annals of Southern literature.
“We understand you have travelled a great deal since you left home. Been to Europe several times?”
“Yes, I have.”
“In your opinion, how does this section of the country compare with other places you have seen?”
“Why — why — er — why good! . . . I mean, fine! That is ——”
LOCAL PARADISE COMPARES FAVOURABLY
In answer to the reporter’s question as to how this part of the country compared to other places he had seen, the former Libya man declared:
“There is no place I have ever visited — and my travels have taken me to England, Germany, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, to say nothing of the south of France, the Italian Riviera, and the Swiss Alps — which can compare in beauty with the setting of my native town.
“We have here,” he said enthusiastically, “a veritable Paradise of Nature. Air, climate, scenery, water, natural beauty, all conspire to make this section the most ideal place in the whole world to live.”
“Did you ever think of coming back here to live?”
“Well — yes — I have thought of it — but — you see ——”
WILL SETTLE AND BUILD HERE
When questioned as to his future plans, the author said:
“For years, my dearest hope and chief ambition has been that one day I should be able to come back here to live. One who has ever known the magic of these hills cannot forget them. I hope, therefore, that the time is not far distant when I may return for good.
“Here, I feel, as nowhere else,” the author continued wistfully, “that I will be able to and the inspiration that I must have to do my work. Scenically, climatically, geographically, and in every other way, the logical spot for a modern renaissance is right here among these hills. There is no reason why, in ten years’ time, this community should not be a great artistic colony, drawing to it the great artists, the music and the beauty lovers, of the whole world, as Salzburg does now. The Rhododendron Festival is already a step in the right direction.
“It shall be a part of my purpose from now on,” the earnest young author added, “to do everything in my power to further this great cause, and to urge all my writing and artistic friends to settle hereto make Libya Hill the place it ought to be-The Athens of America.”
“Do you intend to write another book?”
“Yes — that is — I hope so. In fact —”
“Would you care to say anything about it?”
“Well — I don’t know — it’s pretty hard to say ——”
“Come on, son, don’t be bashful. We’re all your home folks here . . . Now, take Longfellow. There was a great writer! You know what a young fellow with your ability ought to do? He ought to come back here and do for this section what Longfellow did for New England . . . ”
PLANS NATIVE SAGA
When pressed for details about the literary work he hopes to do hereafter, the author became quite explicit:
“I want to return here,” he said, “and commemorate the life, history, and development of Western Catawba in a series of poetic legends comparable to those with which the poet Longfellow commemorated the life of the Acadians and the folklore of the New England countryside. What I have in mind is a trilogy that will begin with the early settlement of the region by the first pioneers, among them my own forebears, and will trace the steady progress of Libya Hill from its founding and the coming of the railroad right down to its present international prominence and the proud place it occupies today as ‘The Gem City of the Hills’.”
George writhed and swore when he read the article. There was hardly an accurate statement in it. He felt angry and sheepish and guilty all at the same time.
He sat down and wrote a scathing letter to the paper, but when he had finished he tore it up. After all, what good would it do? The reporter had spun his story out of nothing more substantial than his victim’s friendly tones and gestures, a few words and phrases which he had blurted out in his confusion, and, above all, his reticence to talk about his work; yet the fellow had obviously been so steeped in the booster spirit that he had been able to concoct this elaborate fantasy — probably without quite knowing that it was a fantasy.
Then, too, he reflected, people would take an emphatic denial of the statements that had been attributed to him as evidence that he was a sorehead, full of conceit about his book. You couldn’t undo the effect of a thing like this with a simple negative. If he gave the lie to all that gush, everybody would say he was attacking the town and turning against those who had nurtured him. Better let bad enough alone.
So he did nothing about it. And after that, strangely enough, it seemed to George that the attitude of people changed towards him. Not that they had been unfriendly before. It was only that he now felt they approved of him. This in itself gave him a quiet sense of accomplishment, as if the stamp of business confirmation had been put upon him.
Like all Americans, George had been amorous of material success, so it made him happy now to know that the people of his home town believed he had got it, or at any rate was at last on the highroad to it. One thing about the whole affair was most fortunate. The publisher who had accepted his book had an old and much respected name; people knew the name, and would meet him on the street and wring his hand and say:
“So your book is going to be published by James Rodney & Co.?”
That simple question, asked with advance knowledge of the fact, had a wonderful sound. It had a ring, not only of congratulation that his book was being published, but also of implication that